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Comment by bobsmooth | Hacker News Reader

Because the other half are being undercut by china.

So am I going crazy or... Are tarrifs the answer here? It sure sounds like something needs to happen, are there better alternatives?

Tariffs could help if they were strategically applied, but that's not happening.

Subsidies, lot of subsidies. And probably a lot of monitoring and adjusting by lawmakers to ensure that industries continues to improve their capabilities.

There's more to that but rebuilding our industrial capacity is a work of a generation.

I think the problem with subsidies just as the problem with tarrifs is that they need to be given in a selective process which can benefit them truly.

Like maybe this industry is already very concentrated and those subsidies benefit more to the concentrated rather than general public just as the farmer bailout of sorts...

Its a tough line and bottom line, you expect some true competency in the govt. to achieve it and be knowledgable about it but I guess in the meanwhile people might discuss such stuff.

Tariffs 30 years ago possibly could have stopped the manufacturing base from being destroyed, but they're not sufficient to rebuild it. Taxing imports sufficiently that building locally is cheaper will keep your local companies in business, but it's still a very unappealing investment. There's no guarantee that the tariffs will stay in place long enough for you to make money, and even without foreign competition your prices are still limited by demand elasticity. Outright subsidies can work better as they effectively let you raise your price above what people are willing to pay, but there's still plenty of long-term problems.

> Tariffs 30 years ago possibly could have stopped the manufacturing base from being destroyed, but they're not sufficient to rebuild it. Taxing imports sufficiently that building locally is cheaper will keep your local companies in business

Tariffs are like sandbags. If you expect flood surges from an upcoming storm, or even an ongoing storm, sandbags and many hands might well keep your stuff dry for a day or two or even three.

If your shoreline property is going to be under-sealevel due to climate change, sandbags are a ridiculous "solution".

By example, the US car industry famously got fat, dumb, and lazy on a captive market... until the consumers did something unthinkable and bought something that was both cheaper and better made from abroad.

Not every change to US production can legitimately be blamed on politics.

Very specific, strategically applies tariffs. Not blanket tariffs on whole countries.

Here's one: different (lower) tax rates for different industries and different careers.

If you want smart people to enter and stay in manufacturing you have to make them * as attractive as bankers and west coast software engineers.

* careers or individuals - deliberately ambiguous :)

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