Re:Is America Inc getting less dynamic, less global and more...
by TeMPOraL on Thursday September 16, 2021 @06:39AM
(#28550045)
> I don’t think the solution is to try and artificially shore up domestic manufacturing capacity to the extent that it was before.
I agree that fully internalizing this kind of manufacturing is counterproductive. I feel that the optimum level is a limited capacity that could be scaled up quickly in an emergency. It's less efficient short-term, but resiliency always has some costs.
> Instead all the rewards disproportionately went to a small minority of the owner/shareholder class.
I feel there's some confusion in the way offshoring savings were, and are, being talked about. Possibly a purposeful confusion. The way I see it, one can't say "we're saving money by offshoring", where "we" means "our country/our economy". It's the private owners/shareholders that are saving money. The country only saves if they get to appropriate those savings, e.g. through a tax. If companies start to offshore and the government doesn't adapt taxation, then the country is actually losing on this.
I agree that fully internalizing this kind of manufacturing is counterproductive. I feel that the optimum level is a limited capacity that could be scaled up quickly in an emergency. It's less efficient short-term, but resiliency always has some costs.
> Instead all the rewards disproportionately went to a small minority of the owner/shareholder class.
I feel there's some confusion in the way offshoring savings were, and are, being talked about. Possibly a purposeful confusion. The way I see it, one can't say "we're saving money by offshoring", where "we" means "our country/our economy". It's the private owners/shareholders that are saving money. The country only saves if they get to appropriate those savings, e.g. through a tax. If companies start to offshore and the government doesn't adapt taxation, then the country is actually losing on this.