Media is full swing butchering him for interviewing Petraeus

I'm going to be curious to see if companies eventually start to get subsidies for maintaining human workers over machines

a new form of welfare emerging. either that or a universal income. I was re-reading about the rise of automation - apparently scientists over the last 2 years have come into agreement that we are going to start losing jobs due to new technology as opposed to what technology did say in the late 1800s...create a deluge of jobs with not enough bodies.

amram:

in my eyes: he like petraeus but isn't very seriously considering him for a major post, but is angling to put the leaking of national secrets back into the press given he was crucified over it while clinton wasn't.

The same could be said of low wage jobs in cities too. Self-ordering is already taking over fast food, automated kitchens, etc. That doesn't mean that he can't find ways to bring jobs to areas that are affected, they just might not be manufacturing jobs. The real point though was that he at least vocalized his intention to try, whereas Hillary did not. Saying "Those jobs aren't coming back, get used to being poor!" doesn't really solve anything, it just comes across as elitist.

WAHHHH TRUMP ISN'T DRAINING THE SWAMP!!!!
WAAHHHHH TRUMP ISNT APPOINTING ENOUGH EXPERIENCED BUREAUCRATS!

Make up your ****ing mind!

I'm pretty sure he used the words I promise, not I'll try. I think that's why these next years will be so interesting - it's really difficult to deliver on that.

How will the rustbelt react if they don't think their lot in life has improved under this administration? Perhaps 4 years from now we'll see another bernie sanders type grab up their votes.

There are no manufacturing jobs to bring back. It will be, by far, Trump's emptiest promise.

US manufacturing is up 150% since 1980 all while employing 40% fewer humans. You can't slow down or stop automation.

By The Numbers: The U.S. Has 12 Million Manufacturing Workers; China Has Ten Times That Number -- 114 Million


That's a lot of people who have not yet been replaced by robots. I think there is still plenty of potential to employ many Americans by making products in the U.S.

There's going to be a lot of jobs for people wanting to build the wall.

****ing racist bigot

BUT WHAT IF UR TOOTHBRUSH COST 2X AS MUCH WHAT THEN HUH

Maybe..or he doesn't give a ****.

By most accounts, Petraeus is a ****ing boss.. he'd probably be awesome for the position.

It sounds awesome on paper or in a campaign speech, until the price of that reality sets in.

How much would an all-American iPhone cost?

Americans will not start paying 3x - 4x for products just because they were sourced and assembled in the US, and neither will the rest of the world.

Perhaps - but who would buy these products? If you could choose between two prices for the same product it's in your best interest to choose the cheapest product.

Manufacturing jobs moved away because they can be done elsewhere for cheaper.

I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where we are somehow able to bring those jobs back while at the same time compensating the workers with a livable wage. Our labor costs would push up the price of our goods and no one would want to buy them because they could get the same thing for much cheaper from a place like China.

If more people had higher paying jobs making products instead of burgers, there would be a greater ability to pay for the higher cost products. A lot of decrease in business regulations but in accounting and auditing and the OSHA type stuff (push liability off the business onto...?) for the figured to line up.

People don't always buy cheaper versions. If they did, we wouldn't have expensive name brands. Apple would be out of business.

Dude... The US makes up 4% of the global population. Is your US manufactured product, which costs 3x more than an identical Chinese product, going to sell anywhere else in the world simply because it was made in the good ol' US of A?

Come down to Earth, friend.

And that same Apple iPhone would cost over $2,000 if sourced and assembled in the US.

:lolwut:

Hope Petraeus gets Sec State so Trump can troll Romney some more.

"Oh.. you were so close again, but you're still a loser in 2nd place"

Yes I'm aware. Americans are fine with the use of veritable slave labor so long as they don't have to see it happening. The point still stands, however. Americans are willing to pay more for a product that they perceive as superior, even if it's not. The question becomes, how much more are they willing to pay in order to get more Americans back to work, or if we need to come up with new means of employing the large swaths of America that are currently out of work?

Saying "The jobs aren't coming back" is not a solution, it's a defeatist mentality. Today it's manufacturing, but tomorrow service jobs will be automated too.

OK, middle class, listen up. I'm going to subsidize these manufacturing jobs so that we can put some of these unskilled people back to work manufacturing bull**** that has been perfected overseas for years. But it's up to you, middle class, to pay 3x more for these goods and services or your fellow Americans won't have jobs!

:rofl:

I just don't see how we can compete with Chinese labor that will work for pennies on the dollar. They can make $1-2/hour while a US worker would need $10-20+.

Even if the US worker is 3 times as effective, they still aren't cost effective to overcome the 10x difference in wage.

I just don't see how you fix that without massively increasing the costs of goods here.

Honestly Fool, I doubt you will find an answer using the same tools we've used before. Bringing work back home is important, but I don't see how we can do it. The problem lies in wealth disparity. It'd be nice if some of that wealth could be given to small business owners, but I don't think we can exactly force people sitting on vast sums of cash to just give out their wealth.

I'd argue things like designer brands- and objects of "status symbol value" actually hurt our economy quite a bit. Making something expensive without offering a likewise increase in value (as others have said, sometimes an item appearing superior in quality actually isn't) is essentially leeching millions of dollars of value. And all that wealth ends up in the pockets of makers of said "luxury item" - not the typical hard working joe at a small business.

IDK though... I could be wrong. IDK if that's actually a big player in this arena, but to me it appears that way. Rich people using money for dumb ****.

DeWalt has tools now with 'assembled in USA' stickers on em.. they're priced in line with all the other ****. Not sure how much of the assembly is taking place stateside, but whatever. I wonder if the distribution/shipping costs are offset enough to get the pricing down.

Assembled is the key word. What does it take to put a Dewalt drill together once you know what you're doing? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? That isn't adding much overhead to your bottom line, because it's the smallest part of the manufacturing process.

Now what if the battery were made in the US? The brushless motor? The circuit boards? The steel and plastic housings? Now you've got a $500 drill.

trump logic

yes **** the global economy so i can put hotels in china

TOTALLY THE BEST STRATEGY

https://i.sli.mg/AK2czM.jpg

Send more money guys.

That big infrastructure bill he wants has a nice cushy guaranteed 10% pretax profit for contractors. Lets get that gravy train rolling!

Damn if you guys were this critical about all the stupid **** Obama did, there might not even be a president Trump.

Right. It is probably cheaper to ship the parts separately anyway and mass produce them. You've got to do quality control with more skilled people anyway so why not just put them together here.

Assembly isn't exactly turning the rust belt into boomtown.

Perfected? You mean throwing a cheap labor force at it? People have been doing that for centuries.

A 10% pre-tax profit is cushy?

typical profit margin on a larger construction job is 2-3%, but I don't know anything about what madhatsam is talking about

You're the king and sidestepping actual points and nitpicking about bull****.

Congrats?

The guaranteed part, can't lose money on that contract.

I agree with you honestly, I was just pointing out the absurdity of one of your claims. Unless Americans are willing to pay more, those specific manufacturing jobs aren't the answer. I'm simply saying we need to find a solution, because manufacturing is only the beginning of the end of the American workforce.

i say **** em

they voted 4 trump anyway so we don't have to care

It is from Trump's infrastructure plan, which is mostly a giant tax credit for private equity to fund these projects. One of the components of the plan is that contractors would receive 10% profits pretax, the income taxes on these profits are one of the main government revenue streams required to make the plan revenue neutral.

on this page: Liberals struggle with basic economic concepts.

That's why I said other costs need to be made to push it back towards 50. The numbers I used are rough estimates and easy to mental math versions of the Apple FYI

Products like the iPhone (consumer retail good) wouldn't have much of value added because Westerners like to talk about child labor laws, but not care about where their coffee actually comes from. However, the decreasing of Corporate Tax rate will also serve to maintain the profit margin, as that is primary thing that needs to stay the same. IDK if you're American or not but it's like getting a new car, the only thing that matters is the MSRP and negotiating that lower. All the bells and whistles otherwise are there are a shell game. If a product costs 3x as much to make but laws are put into placed mandated the making of it in the USA and the profit margin stays the same, businesses will give 0 ****s. In the end, Trump doesn't give a **** about other countries and if you don't get an iPhone but he creates more actual American jobs that are middle class and Apple losses some market cap, who the **** cares? He's not here to serve the global people - he's here to serve the AMERICAN people. period.

I understand how the potential transitioning away from a free trade economy has people up in a tizzy as systems are in place to encourage it. With automation however, we are shifting back towards a protectionist one and the key thing in business is to be the first at it. Apple got it's start as being among the first of consumer retail operating systems, they understand. Free trade has started to become to crab bucket mentality and I don't fault the other crabs err countries for trying to cry and pull us back in. As the #1 economy in the world, we have the leverage to do that. Even the EU/China/Russia/UK/Japan do too, it's just the belief is there that you can not, you just have to have something unique that others will want to buy, that's how Russia stays very relevant given it's mineral extraction enterprises. German and Luxembourg stays relevant in steal manufacturing by making ultra precise and unique pieces, even though the Ruhr valley is a shell of it's former self for resource extraction. Find a niche, and exploit it. Or, have the system in place for that opportunity to grow.

There are other factors in play too like the cost of building the new factory, threat of China shutting down Foxconn early, etc.

Anyone who says moving production to the USA without other regulations/laws being put into place is wrong. Anyone who says it's impossible even with those laws/regulations is also wrong. Serious excise taxes designed to mold the economy used to be a primary income generator for all Western countries, and the fact it's back on the table has people in a huff as we've gone a century where it's only trended away. Shake ups always worry people, just like Obamacare. When something is ****ed, a situation needs to be shaken up or you will slowly be strangled to death. Not all shake ups are good, but there are merits here you are missing.