The idea that the US could even hope to “resolve key challenges” here is laughable. China is too far ahead in manufacturing and companies aren’t willing to spend the massive amounts of money required to expand manufacturing in the US.
Not when you account for intermediate inputs. While end products might be made in Mexico or Japan, those will almost certainly rely in intermediate components manufactured in China:
You’d need to build new facilities and train people up to run lathes and whatnot. On top of that weapons aren’t made with steel and wood anymore so you’ll need to teach them some light programming too in order to mill your M4 receivers. In short America is fucked because free training in a high skill job is sacrilege here.
I mean depending on how badly america wants to arm a million conscripts they might bring back open bolt stamped sheet metal rifles again. This is the land of idiot elites after all.
The idea that the US could even hope to “resolve key challenges” here is laughable. China is too far ahead in manufacturing and companies aren’t willing to spend the massive amounts of money required to expand manufacturing in the US.
they might have to hire people, and then train them
gross
Or even spend money on factories instead of stock buybacks.
Yeah, this is delusional beyond belief. Most people don't realize just how dependent on China US is today. For example:
https://edconway.substack.com/p/globalisation-is-a-far-far-bigger
Love when my grand interconnected system is really a single point of failure
Posting numbers from 2018 is an insufficient insight into the situation though as there has been reported increased decoupling following covid.
US industrial output is currently shrinking, the decoupling is just talk with no substance to it
Right because (as I understand it) the decoupling is shifting to nearshore/friendshore operations like Mexico and Japan.
Not when you account for intermediate inputs. While end products might be made in Mexico or Japan, those will almost certainly rely in intermediate components manufactured in China:
https://edconway.substack.com/p/globalisation-is-a-far-far-bigger
Right and that chart only goes up to 2018 so I'd like to see a similar chart updated for post covid. Do you happen to know of one?
I don't have a more up to date one, but I would bet money that nothing fundamentally changed in the past 5 years.
I mean a lot has fundamentally changed in the last 5 years... 🤷
holy shit
You’d need to build new facilities and train people up to run lathes and whatnot. On top of that weapons aren’t made with steel and wood anymore so you’ll need to teach them some light programming too in order to mill your M4 receivers. In short America is fucked because free training in a high skill job is sacrilege here.
I mean depending on how badly america wants to arm a million conscripts they might bring back open bolt stamped sheet metal rifles again. This is the land of idiot elites after all.
I miss the grease gun. One of the greatest of all time.