Accepting responsibility for Clinton's loss

[Palantir]

The other problem with bringing manufacturing jobs back is that every other country is also trying to do the same…

[bchad]

@Black_Swan

@bchad

@Black_Swan

@ohai

People don’t need to “take back manufacturing”. They already have other jobs. The unemployment rate is below 5%. What they really want is just for wages to increase, and the way to get this is to create more economic activity. If Amazon creates a bunch of distribution centers in Utah, labor demand will increase and so will wages. Do enough of this, and the upward wage pressure will help overcome the job losses from globalization or other effects.

Unemployment is below 5%, but on a record low participation rate. Also, manufacturing jobs are important because they can provide skilled and stable jobs to people without a degree, particularly a four year one.

Agree, although things are tough even for people with a degree. We laugh at English majors, but even Engineering people have a hard time when lots of engineering tasks can be offshored.

Indeed, if lots of the manufacturing is happening abroad, the main argument for having engineers at home are to protect intellectual property components. Otherwise, bring the engineers to the manufacturing site. So it’s not just a problem with liberal arts degrees.

I would imagine reshoring manufacturing jobs would bring a number of engineering jobs back with it.

Yes, but I don’t really see how reshoring is going to work in practice. Ok, maybe he throws up (with Congress’ approval, if he can get it) a whole bunch of tariff barriers to protect US industries. Now, suddenly everything costs more, consumption in terms of number of products goes down, and we enter stagflation.

The best I can imagine in this scenario is that some jobs come back, prices rise, and we slowly learn to get used to them. Misery might get redistributed, but I don’t see the aggregate changing much.

[Black_Swan]

@bchad

@Black_Swan

@bchad

@Black_Swan

@ohai

People don’t need to “take back manufacturing”. They already have other jobs. The unemployment rate is below 5%. What they really want is just for wages to increase, and the way to get this is to create more economic activity. If Amazon creates a bunch of distribution centers in Utah, labor demand will increase and so will wages. Do enough of this, and the upward wage pressure will help overcome the job losses from globalization or other effects.

Unemployment is below 5%, but on a record low participation rate. Also, manufacturing jobs are important because they can provide skilled and stable jobs to people without a degree, particularly a four year one.

Agree, although things are tough even for people with a degree. We laugh at English majors, but even Engineering people have a hard time when lots of engineering tasks can be offshored.

Indeed, if lots of the manufacturing is happening abroad, the main argument for having engineers at home are to protect intellectual property components. Otherwise, bring the engineers to the manufacturing site. So it’s not just a problem with liberal arts degrees.

I would imagine reshoring manufacturing jobs would bring a number of engineering jobs back with it.

Yes, but I don’t really see how reshoring is going to work in practice. Ok, maybe he throws up (with Congress’ approval, if he can get it) a whole bunch of tariff barriers to protect US industries. Now, suddenly everything costs more, consumption in terms of number of products goes down, and we enter stagflation.

The best I can imagine in this scenario is that some jobs come back, prices rise, and we slowly learn to get used to them. Misery might get redistributed, but I don’t see the aggregate changing much.

It would depend on implementation. But you could also argue that in a top heavy wealth distribution a little redistribution isn’t the worst (realizing that that’s not what he’s pushing).

[bchad]

I’m not convinced there will be much misery redistribution upwards. Perhaps the top will be upset that they used to be making money hand-over-fist, and now they are merely making “boatloads”, but I suspect that what will happen is that some jobs will come back under the tarrif structure, but it won’t be enough to make up for the drop in labor participation rates. And then the inflation of prices due to tarriffs and increased domestic labor costs will make the pinch feel even worse for those who can’t get one of the reshored positions.

Anyway. One of the things I liked about Trump was that he spoke as if he saw these as relevant issues (I liked this about Bernie, too), but I don’t actually see what he can do to bring the jobs back.

[Ghibli]

Bring back the stay-at-home parent. Strong job market overnight.