Poll of the Day > USA to possibly cut off relationship with China, seek financial compensation

(+) Yeah! (+)

VeeVees posted...

Of course not, just most of it. Whatever is left can't even produce enough for taiwan, much less america.

Good thing it can make hats for the US AND not burn down its factories.
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It would never happen, there's literally no world where this would happen, and Trump is talking out of his ass, as per usual.

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Cut it off. Everyone on the world should cut it off. These commie-nazis don't deserve any money, specially after they unleashed this plague on us and their puppets pretend it's Italy's fault.

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Unlikely to happen, as Trump's trademarked clothing line is manufactured in China and other Far East countries, and Ivanka recently made trademark deals with China over some of her own clothing and shoe lines.

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Reminds of when George Costanza demanded a prenup, but he's the one with no money

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Wasn't Trump trying to open a hotel or something in China?

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captpackrat posted...

Wasn't Trump trying to open a hotel or something in China?

Yup

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Irregardless of how difficult it is or who is at fault, this pandemic has showed us the dangers of relying on outside manufacturing and the need to have domestic production capable of responding to an emergency. The only real way of getting that is incentivizing bringing back production capabilities from abroad.

Why the fuck is irregardless even a word? It just means regardless.

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Hospy posted...

Irregardless of how difficult it is or who is at fault, this pandemic has showed us the dangers of relying on outside manufacturing and the need to have domestic production capable of responding to an emergency. The only real way of getting that is incentivizing bringing back production capabilities from abroad.

Particularly if said production is automated and can continue to operate even while the few employees that are there maintain social distancing, cutting down on the number of people that are put at risk by being deemed essential. Realistically, that will be the natural long-term consequence of reducing outsourcing, since corporations aren't going to simply accept making less money due to higher domestic wages and will immediately invest in avoiding that problem.

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VeeVees posted...

Why the fuck is irregardless even a word? It just means regardless.

Why is "damp" even a word? It just means "moist."

English is a thoroughly redundant language. "Irregardless" is a particularly egregious example of that, particularly where, morphologically speaking, it looks like it should mean the opposite of "regardless," but it's nonetheless par for the course.

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VeeVees posted...

Why the fuck is irregardless even a word? It just means regardless.

Technically, it means with regard to, since it's form indicates it's without the lack of regard, a double negative. 'Words' like that exist to make it easy to identify morons. I'm almost shocked that it's actually clearing spell check. Remember Dragon Quest 8? Dopey morons like Yangus have a tendency to add or remove syllables to words they don't know or understand in an attempt to sound like sophistimocated intectuals.

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VeeVees posted...

Why the fuck is irregardless even a word? It just means regardless.

Why does inflammable mean flammable?

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adjl posted...

Particularly if said production is automated and can continue to operate even while the few employees that are there maintain social distancing, cutting down on the number of people that are put at risk by being deemed essential. Realistically, that will be the natural long-term consequence of reducing outsourcing, since corporations aren't going to simply accept making less money due to higher domestic wages and will immediately invest in avoiding that problem.

We could tax them much more for manufacturing over seas so that it would be cheaper to manufacture here despite a minimum wage

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captpackrat posted...

Why does inflammable mean flammable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8mD2hsxrhQ
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Muscles posted...

We could tax them much more for manufacturing over seas so that it would be cheaper to manufacture here despite a minimum wage

That still incentivizes automation and other workforce reduction strategies. As it stands now, overseas labour is cheap enough that the R&D required to automate everything isn't worthwhile, but if labour's more expensive, sensible business strategy dictates cutting down on the amount of labour needed to maintain the same margins.

That will take time, of course, so we'd see an increase in domestic manufacturing jobs for a little while after introducing such taxes (and, in turn, product prices), but as soon as replacing workers with robots becomes economically viable, it's going to happen, and layoffs will start (probably without a commensurate reduction in product prices because corporations like more money).

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Hospy posted...

The only real way of getting that is incentivizing bringing back production capabilities from abroad.

In the end I feel it really depends on the consumers. Unless they can be convinced to buy domestic products, I do not think these companies will get that far regardless of what they can do on their end to reduce cost of production.

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adjl posted...

That still incentivizes automation and other workforce reduction strategies. As it stands now, overseas labour is cheap enough that the R&D required to automate everything isn't worthwhile, but if labour's more expensive, sensible business strategy dictates cutting down on the amount of labour needed to maintain the same margins.

That will take time, of course, so we'd see an increase in domestic manufacturing jobs for a little while after introducing such taxes (and, in turn, product prices), but as soon as replacing workers with robots becomes economically viable, it's going to happen, and layoffs will start (probably without a commensurate reduction in product prices because corporations like more money).

The real answer is to get rid of all the existing business tax breaks and replace them w/ breaks for hiring lots of legal U.S. residents relative to the company's annual revenue.
Then it doesn't matter if they're outsourcing, using illegal immigrant labor, or automating. They get hit w/ a huge tax bill.
It's impossible to tax the shit out of companies enough to stave off automation forever, but we can at least slow the descent and build up a nice pool of tax money to phase in UBI with.

The future will be much fewer jobs while corporate profits continue to soar from automation, and the taxes on their earnings being used to provide a basic income to everyone so they can like...survive and stuff.

InfestedAdam posted...

In the end I feel it really depends on the consumers. Unless they can be convinced to buy domestic products, I do not think these companies will get that far regardless of what they can do on their end to reduce cost of production.

It's not even just convincing people. What the fuck does "Made in the USA" on the label even mean? Lots of stuff is 90% overseas labor and materials and then the final assembly is done here and they slap the stupid label on.

It's just like organic food. I'd love to eat stuff that hasn't been sprayed in harmful chemicals. But the name has no fucking real meaning currently, and pretty much zero oversight and enforcement. So it's just a waste of money for suckers.

streamofthesky posted...

What the f*** does "Made in the USA" on the label even mean? Lots of stuff is 90% overseas labor and materials and then the final assembly is done here and they slap the stupid label on.

Funny you mention that. I saw a few products on Amazon listed as "HQ in USA". I think my Subaru Outback has a sticker somewhere that states "Assembled in Indiana"

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streamofthesky posted...

The real answer is to get rid of all the existing business tax breaks and replace them w/ breaks for hiring lots of legal U.S. residents relative to the company's annual revenue.
Then it doesn't matter if they're outsourcing, using illegal immigrant labor, or automating. They get hit w/ a huge tax bill.
It's impossible to tax the shit out of companies enough to stave off automation forever, but we can at least slow the descent and build up a nice pool of tax money to phase in UBI with.

The future will be much fewer jobs while corporate profits continue to soar from automation, and the taxes on their earnings being used to provide a basic income to everyone so they can like...survive and stuff.

This is probably the best approach, though at some level I do consider promoting automation to be a good thing because of the innovation that will bring about. An automated future is inevitable, though, and until we reach 100% automation and money ceases to mean anything, there's going to need to be something to bridge the gap.

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