What the Founders Can Teach Us About Supply Chains and Dependency

[TheTexan]

Without governments intervention it wouldn't be profitable to buy widgets from the other side of the planet, ship them here and permit the entire supply chain to profit and then sell a product for similar money as the locally made variety.

I don't know if that's necessarily true. There are indeed quite a lot of regulations/taxes in place that make it less than friendly to manufacture domestically.

But I think the main driving force that is causing things to be manufactured in China is the cheap labor.

As we buy things from China, America gets poorer and China gets richer, and at some point their "cheap labor" won't be cheap anymore. But they will still have the manufacturing facilities/infastructure that we will not have. And for that reason alone we will likely keep buying from China for a very, very long time.

 

[TheTexan]

Fair enough. We're 99% of the way there together. Just don't raise the price of my Scotch because their government is doing something the corporations in my government don't like.

99% may be an overestimate.

I personally would be overjoyed if every country in the world enacted 1000% tariffs* across the board on everything, severely restricted immigration, and in general - just kept to their own god-damn selves.

This world is becoming too integrated with each other. Too fucking homogenous.

A little "isolationism" would do this world some fucking good.

(*Scotch would be exempt.)

 

[tod evans]

I don't know if that's necessarily true. There are indeed quite a lot of regulations/taxes in place that make it less than friendly to manufacture domestically.

But I think the main driving force that is causing things to be manufactured in China is the cheap labor.

As we buy things from China, America gets poorer and China gets richer, and at some point their "cheap labor" won't be cheap anymore. But they will still have the manufacturing facilities/infastructure that we will not have. And for that reason alone we will likely keep buying from China for a very, very long time.

Widgets made in China must be shipped around the globe, then unionized dock workers and inspectors must sort and handle them before they can begin their journey to an American wholesaler. The cost of just those workers must offset those working for fish heads, and we haven't begun talking about the bureaucracy involved with importation whose costs must be supported by the consumer.

I think the giving China money position is valid but I don't believe it's relevant to US manufacturers being competitive.

The proposed FY 2022 budget for the EPA provides $11.233 billion and 15,324 FTE to support the Agency's mission of protecting human health and the environment.

How many widgets/fish head eaters would these dollars account for?

And that's just ONE government agency standing in the way of localized production.

40+ years of government intrusion isn't going to be easy to overcome.

 

[DamianTV]

Slave Owners need their Slaves to produce for them! But to achieve this goal, Slaves MUST NOT be permitted to produce for themselves, so that is something that Slave Owners must IMMEDIATELY prevent slaves from doing! After all, if they can produce for themselves, then they no longer need the Slave Owners, who, themselves, PRODUCE NOTHING!

The effect of prohibiting Slaves from producing for themselves is that they become DEPENDENT, THUS CONTROLLABLE on the SLAVE OWNER to give the Slaves very things the Slaves themselves produced.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Once there was a rich man who decided to let his servants do all of the work and all of the weapons training because it cost him less effort and he got all of the benefit.
One day the servants started telling him what to do or they would cut off his food and there was nothing he could do about it.

Tariffs should not be about micromanaging various industries, they should general across all industries but those resources not available in the country.
Without them you end up a slave, just like the rich man.