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Comment by _nedR | Hacker News Reader

Of course, manufacturing capability is important for a nation from a strategic viewpoint. But even if the manufacturing returns to the country - the fact of the matter, is that those manufacturing jobs are never coming back. It will all be done by robots. This process is already well underway(https://www.ft.com/content/7eaffc5a-289c-11e6-8b18-91555f2f4...)

So those politicians speaking to old people in steel towns are misleading them and giving them false hope. Bringing manufacturing back isn't going to do much to reduce unemployment . That seems to be the point of the article.

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I’m finding this robots argument a bit tiresome. Seems more of an excuse to justify outsourcing than the inevitable end state. If for every 10 workers, instead of 9 losing their jobs and 1 managing the robots, couldn’t we have 10 managing the robots and 10 times more stuff. The latter seems the more likely outcome to me of free markets, but instead we seem to have pivoted into a micro-managed (FED, ZIRP) government supported vulture market focused on profit extraction (outsourcing, stock buybacks, tax avoidance, etc.).

There is no distinction between "free market" and "profit extraction". There's no easy way to "10 times more stuff" either: not just natural resource limits but demand limits. People aren't going to buy 10 times more stuff without 10 times as much credit. Or vastly increased wages / basic income.

(There's an aside in Huxley's 'Brave new world' about new sports being invented with elaborate equipment requirements simply to soak up surplus manufacturing capacity)

I could have worded it better: short term profit extraction at the expense of long term capital expenditures and growth through mechanisms such as stock buybacks and outsourcing. [1] Agree there is no easy way to 10 times more stuff but neither is everybody instantly replaced by robots and if everything is 10 times cheaper due to increases in productivity (robots) then more credit / increased wages isn’t required. I do believe the robots arguments is used in a fait accompli way that isn’t necessarily true. [2]

1. http://www.marketfolly.com/2016/05/stan-druckenmillers-sohn-... 2. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2015/04/29/dont-bl...

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