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0 pointsspaceman_202011mo ago0 comments

This has been the most annoyingly infuriating part of the manufacturing conversation.

People simply don't understand the scale and complexity of modern supply chains. By one estimate, it will take $40T to move all of China's existing manufacturing capacity and supply chains to the US, and it will take 20+ years if you're really motivated.

People still think that order goes in and a factory makes the finished goods. In reality, individual parts can move across borders dozens of times before they're ready to be placed into a bigger product.

Heck, I remember reading that Ford cars built in Canada cross the Canada-US border 11 times before they're finished

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creer10mo ago

> By one estimate, it will take $40T to move all of China's existing manufacturing capacity and supply chains to the US, and it will take 20+ years if you're really motivated.

Which also simply cannot happen because even if the US don't want stuff manufactured in "China", the rest of the world does. So the US, with higher local costs, cannot reclaim the economy of scale that went into the current chinese supply chain. Seems to me, at best the US can split it: a high cost chain in the US, a low cost chain in the rest of the world. What the US MIGHT achieve (on a long time frame) is move most of the chinese part to other low cost countries. That was already well under way.

The US also don't have the available population to run these factories.

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