6 ms·

One of the goals of the Heritage Foundation is a weak dollar. They believe they can bring manufacturing back to the US this way. I don't think they're right. I

• skywhopper 6mo ago
  The bigger question is, why is that even the primary goal?
  • leche 6mo ago
    Because Conservative politics is about returning to a past that often can no longer exist.
    • sheikhnbake 6mo ago
      Or didn't exist to begin with. All too often mythologized into an absurd caricature of the past.
    • tmountain 6mo ago
      Actually, a past that never existed. It's pretty typically for authoritarian regimes to create idealized versions of the past as they attempt to rewrite history to better fit with their talking points and agendas.
    • gruez 6mo ago
      I didn't realize that such causes like 90+% income taxes, lower income inequality, single earner households, and high unionization rates are "conservative" too.
      • CamperBob2 6mo ago
        No one actually paid 90% income taxes. I wish that myth would go away.
        • conception 6mo ago
          Of course because that’s how marginal tax rates work. As to how much actual money was taxed at 91%, we don’t really have records for that but certainly the top 0.01% paid significantly more in taxes as a rate than they do today.
          • SoftTalker 6mo ago
            There were a lot more tax shelters at that time. You only paid those top rates if you had poor or no financial advice.
        • mrguyorama 6mo ago
          So nobody would mind going back to that reality right? Companies would totally pay less in taxes than they do now, right? Oh, they fight that actually.
          • CamperBob2 6mo ago
            "That reality" was one in which the wealthy had countless deductions, loopholes, and shelters that were unavailable or inapplicable to everyone else, which (almost) everybody agreed was an undesirable state of affairs.
  • bumby 6mo ago
    I believe the idea is to support the “real” economy vs a “paper” economy. The “real” economy manufactures stuff in meat space instead of making value through abstractions like financial derivatives. The real economies are tied to a stronger middle class and national security. That’s the thesis as I understand it.
    • culi 6mo ago
      A service-based economy is also a "real" economy and not a "paper" economy
      • bumby 6mo ago
        I agree, depending on what services you’re speaking of. Although I don’t know that it meets the explicit aims of the heritage foundation (which was the OPs question).
      • WarmWash 6mo ago
        The fundamental problem is the asymmetry of value creation. Software is perhaps the pinnacle of this, and why tech companies are so unfathomably wealthy. A team of 10 SWEs can create a product worth $1B with the cost of 10 laptops. You get ten people worth $100M each. To create $1B in value with any kind of manufacturing business, is going to take hundreds of people utilizing millions in various costs. You end up with something like 10,000 people worth $100k each once you wind your way through all those supply lines.
        • bumby 6mo ago
          You said it better. I think the idea is that certain "paper" economies are disproportionately valued in the economy when the dollar is strong. A strong dollar leads to offshoring manufacturing, which leads to an over weighted "paper" economy, which leads to an eroding middle class.
  • roncesvalles 6mo ago
    I'll dig down 3 levels of "why". The endemic anti-intellectualism among white communities (especially rural and southern) has resulted in a steady decline of white people in well-paying professions in America. If you count the Jewish as a separate group, white people are likely a minority in corporate America. Combined with social upliftment of other groups ("wokism") and the opioid crisis (that has disproportionately affected hinterland communities but immigrant groups seem immune to), white people are sliding down the American totem pole. Trumpism, alt-right, anti-woke, and the general resurgence of racist rhetoric are basically just reactions to all this. These people want manufacturing because manufacturing is largely considered a "white people sport". If America becomes a manufacturing-first society, the hope is that it puts white people at the front and center of American society again. JD Vance wrote a book about this.
    • HoldOnAMinute 6mo ago
      At my FAANG in Sunnyvale, I often feel like the last white guy on earth. But I don't resent the people who stepped up to fill the jobs. Rather, I am disappointed that these amazing jobs were basically gifted to US residents, but my fellow white people "Opted Out" of these high paying jobs.
    • ishouldstayaway 6mo ago
      > white people are likely a minority in corporate America. Oh boy am I gonna need some actual data for this claim.
      • roncesvalles 6mo ago
        Even if not quite true, it doesn't change my argument since it was more about the rate of change. You can construct the definition of white collar in a way that makes it seem like it's mostly white people, but among high paying job titles within a company, absolutely I would say there are fewer than 50% non-Jewish whites.
        • wat10000 6mo ago
          Why “non-Jewish”?
  • vkou 6mo ago
    It's not, they don't give two shits about workers, and their masters don't care how they make their money, just that they make it. Manufacturing is just their preferred lie to get otherwise intelligent people to support their insanity.
  • gadflyinyoureye 6mo ago
    The United States is current getting the base material for its entire economy from a country that is openly at war with it: China. If the US attacked East Tiawan because East Tiawan attacked Taiwan, East Tiawan would simply stop exporting rare earths, silver, steel, and electronics to the US. As a result the US needs to manufacture at home. So too does the EU.
• marcosdumay 6mo ago
  They are right on that. What they are wrong is when they decided that is a good thing. Not every kind of "bringing manufacturing back" brings the same kind of wealth and quality of life.
  • fmbb 6mo ago
    Wealth is relative. And the Heritage Foundation is not in the business of improving quality of life for everyone, or even the average American.
    • marcosdumay 6mo ago
      It's not the optimal course for most billionaires either. Maybe it is for a few of them.
      • fmbb 6mo ago
        I mean ”optimal” is not well defined. It is not great for the economy or societal stability and if wealth is more and more unevenly distributed. But the wealthy benefit in the short term by gaining power in society.
        • marcosdumay 6mo ago
          Ok, "optimal" may be the wrong word. Most billionaires will lose both money and power on the timeframe of a couple of years due to the destruction of the value of the dollar. Even internally to the US. Some may gain both. Someone will probably gain both, and the odds are good some billionaires are included.
• cheema33 6mo ago
  > One of the goals of the Heritage Foundation is a weak dollar. They believe they can bring manufacturing back to the US this way. Only cheap labor can bring manufacturing back to the US. Are Americans willing to work in factories for the same wages as the Chinese and Indians? I don't see it happening.
  • amelius 6mo ago
    With a weak dollar, those wages will be more equal.
  • margalabargala 6mo ago
    > Are Americans willing to work in factories for the same wages as the Chinese and Indians? I don't see it happening. Create enough poverty and soon people will be willing to do an awful lot of things.
  • delusional 6mo ago
    I don't think they are going to ask.
  • nradov 6mo ago
    Cheap labor wouldn't necessarily bring manufacturing back to the USA. Over time much of the labor can potentially be automated. But environmental and zoning rules effectively ban entire industries such as metal casting. If we want those industries back then we'll need a major realignment of public policy that goes beyond just labor.
  • devsda 6mo ago
    What if the "same wage" as Chinese/Indians nets you close to the same basic necessities and purchasing power as those countries.
    • guzfip 6mo ago
      You won’t get it unless you also work the 996 slave shift. At which point who gives a fuck about my purchasing power if there’s no time to enjoy it.
• dathinab 6mo ago
  > I don't think they're right. it's worse then them not being right the only way a weak dollar would majorly matter for bringing back production is iff production is cheap so a 20% weaker dollar must not come with 20% higher "dollar" prices (living cost, salary). You need to decrees living cost and dollar value in lock step (i.e. weaker dollar without inflation!). But this seem impossible IMHO. And if we look at what happened, if anything, it went the other way. And if you try to force it anyway you are basically saying "we effectively disown most money of most US citizens" and use that to try to attack manufacturing, while likely not relevantly affecting the wealthiest. That is just plain evil. And not very surprising if you consider that many "manufacturing countries" have pretty horrifying working conditions often not "that" far apart from slavery. Worse this likely wouldn't work either, because iff your countries population doesn't have the money to buy stuff anymore, and investments are risky, why would you even bother to produce there? To then export to countries where investments into production lines are more reliable? Like how is that supposed to work? Naturally things can be different if we only speak about high-tech / high-end manufacturing. But the current steps do not seem promising to archive that either: 1) this kind of manufacturing lines need even higher investments, i.e. act even more allergic wrt. trade instability and uncertainty 2) Trump has brought some high tech manufacturing into the US with a mixture of force and bribes/subsidization. But honestly it looks a lot of it is mostly hollow promises, not making a relevant difference long term. 3) More then one case where companies did agree had a lot of big problems. One of the biggest issue being, that missing in depth know-how requires temp. importing people which can make sure things work while teaching that know how (if you want things to get going fast. If you go slow you can send your people to other countries to learn.). But a destroyed visa system makes this a high risk for anyone coming to the US and did lead to more then one person like that being detained and deported by ICE. The other risk is if this people don't teach enough you become dependent on foreign workers in a strange way for a while. Either way nothing in the current politics seems to be actually well thought through ways to archive (relevantly) more manufacturing in the US long term. But everything seems to be designed to destroy the wealth of the majority of US citizens.