Re: Guardian Almost Makes Sense

On 5/4/2025 3:29 PM, john larkin wrote:

On Sun, 4 May 2025 20:41:39 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
 

On 5/4/25 19:18, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Sun, 04 May 2025 09:01:56 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
wrote:
>

>
which is shocking.
>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/02/american-reindustrialization-manufacturing

>
I would normally hit the 'next' button when someone links to a
Guardian article, but as you say, they're right for once with this
one. Lots of countries in the West were sold the same lie about
swapping manufacturing for services. Mrs Thatcher told the British
that the old 'smoke stack' industries would have to go abroad and be
replaced by smart services. Those peasants in the Far East, they were
told, would take over all the shitty, manual jobs whilst the British
would get cracking with the clever stuff like manufacturing silicon
chips. Problem was, the peasants in China and Taiwan didn't get the
memo. The British lost a huge amount of manufacturing alright, but the
service economy which replaced it was - for the most part - low paid
and low skill. Some economists who could see the issues with this said
at the time: "we can't as a country make a living from shining each
other's shoes" - and that's the prediction which *should* have been
listened to.

>
I was still in high school in the early 70's when my economy teacher
tried to sell us the merits of a service economy. I was puzzled: How
can an economy that doen't *produce* anything material survive in the
long run? A little over half a century later, here we are: It can't.
>
It's surprising it took that long, is true.
>
Jeroen Belleman

 With cheap PCs and terabit fiber links, we can export our services to
India and China too.

The US still produces a lot of stuff, we're e.g. 4th in the world in steel production.
It doesn't require a lot of workers to be 4th in the world in steel production these days.

About the only US "service" that the world wants to buy is superhero
movies, and they aren't so good lately either.
 We are designing, but not fabbing, ICs, but other people can design
ICs now.
 

A modern multi-billion dollar fab in e.g. Taiwan probably operates with fewer full-time employees on the payroll than your local Macy's. Not much more than 50 people on site per shift.