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  • It's a well-written article about why tariffs won't work. I think everyone on Lemmy probably knows that already though. What I found interesting is that every developed country seems to follow the same trend. Pushing for going back to manufacturing might be the national equivalent of "I don't want to grow up!".

    This seems like a way better approach:

    A recent report from Tim Bartik at the Upjohn Institute suggests that the most impactful policies for struggling manufacturing-heavy communities include:

    • Customized services for small and medium businesses, including manufacturing extension services and job training services
    • Public spending on education, from preschool and K-12 to colleges and universities, as well as vocational education and job training programs for workers
    • Public investment in infrastructure and increasing land supply for business and housing development

    Less effective policies include broad tax cuts for business, targeted business attraction incentives and attempts to reduce workers’ wages. One of the best ways to fund investment in distressed communities is with broad-based tax increases, while one of the worst ways is to cut K-12 education spending.

    • its really not. 'its happens to every developed country!' is an intellectual cop out. first off: if it was inevitable that any developed country will stop manufacturing, then by definition eventually no country will have manufacturing or some countries are prevented from developing in order to maintain a manufacturing base. The former is impossible and the latter is a morally bankrupt position.

      the reason manufacturing has declined is because western societies have over fitted for cheap goods and a decaying economic base. there are other ways than tarriffs to resolve the problem but they all end up as a tax that needs to be paid.

      There are broader impacts than just middle class issues; there is a lack of local resources and familiarity that prevent confluences of ideas/know how across domains.

      the cold hard truth is western societies need to bring a much larger and broader fraction of their consumption in house in order to maintain a reliable and robust economy.

      • From what I understand, manufacturing hasn't stopped, or even declined. It's still going strong, it's just a much smaller percentage of the GDP now. Here's a chart that shows that trend (the source of the chart itself looks like some business-y site, but they say the data is drawn from the UN):

        Here's a scary chart showing the decline of manufacturing:

        But notice that it's as a percentage of GDP

        So I don't think anybody's saying that we need to stop countries from developing, just that once a country develops a strong manufacturing base, they don't have to limit their economy to only or mostly manufacturing.

  • Is the prediction that services employment share will remain around 80% as production per worker continues to increase? A historical correlation is not always the best at predicting the future, especially if the underlying factors responsible for the correlation are not thoroughly understood.

    • I'm not sure they're predicting beyond where the US has already gone, just that other countries seem to be following the same trend. The trend shown can't continue in a linear fashion forever, and I don't think they'd argue that it's going down, so best guess at what they'd predict is that it will level off soon.

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