Freepers discuss economic transitions

This is a bit of a frustrating era for the Freeper Madness. There are all these interesting stories - Cruz picking Fiorina, Trump calling for Sanders to run third party, the ongoing purge drama. But the Trump cheerleading blows it all out into the same old crap. Now, I couldn't do this blog if I didn't have a pretty high tolerance for repetition. But I draw the line at 200 posts saying "Trump good, others bad!"

Luckily, Freep is a many splendored thing, so there is always some new crazy around the corner, even if current events are getting samey.

Thus we have a New York Times article about how manufacturing isn't going to return to America. To most, this is the commonest of sense. But Freepers, with their yearning for the past, have more trouble. Most of the big protectionists were off on some Trump thread, so we are left with some of the more wacky delusions, and of course those who take a spoonful of spite to let the medicine go down.

Snowybear explains that China has priced itself out of manufacuturing, so now it's time for the US to shine, or something...

Well, yes. It’s beside the point however. It’s now very expensive to make things in China, which is why manufacturing is starting to come back to the U.S., for example our good old Lincoln logs are now made here again. Yes, some will go to places like Vietnam, etc, and good luck with that.

Yes, manufacturing has become more mechanized but they make it sound like there’s going to be a small army of programmers in every factory. It just isn’t true. There won’t even be one.

IronJack thinks the key to manufacturing success is bravery and heart:

The fatalists at the New York Times with their weary resignation to America's declining empire. Not worth fighting for, resisting the inevitable, have to change with the times you know ...

Soulless cowards who don't deserve to be called American. If they had been in charge, we'd still be huddled in isolated enclaves on the eastern seaboard shipping all our wealth to England.

We don't ship much to England these days. But these losers are still huddled in their enclaves, crying in their chablis.

Texas Fossil has nothing to say about manufacturing or economics; he just wants us to know that liberals are pure dag nasty evil:

The Left is not insane, they want to Destroy the West.

They intend to break the system that has brought the brightest future. They are merchants of Lies, Deception, Misery, Slavery (to the State), Subjection, Poverty, DEATH of people who oppose and hence the nation.

They say they don't believe in nations. Imagine, no place of refuge from this evil.

These are the Devils Disciples.

Mechanicos thinks there's a macro trend where rural manufacturing is gonna free market us to awesome!

These experts (sic) miss the macro trend tho. Manufacturing paradigm will change from large central urban based to smaller rural and dispersed base.

Robotics, automation driver-less trucks, local renewable power etc tend to point to smaller manufacturing/farming ops away from the increasingly dangerous and costly cities. Of course this would also involve elimination of much of the ruling class’s self-protecting regulatory systems creating free-market-killing barriers to entry.

When the prices drop to price of a luxury car to make a small manufacturing operation for widgets in your own neighborhood with little or no staff and deliveries by robotic means the base factors the article relies on go out the window.

Think a thousand widget makers all over the country competing on quality and price with relatively low start up and distribution costs.

It's 1967 again for buffaloguy has one word: plastics.

A boss of mine bought a plastic extrusion machine for his basement and ended up with 5 factories. It was an ad in the back of Popular Mechanics.

This the wave that is coming. It has been here for many decades.

yefragetuwrabrumuy is one big [citation needed], but I'll admit his buildup is strong:

Years ago, a rare individual, an “economics historian”, made an astounding discovery unlike any other known principle in economics. He refused to believe it, and spent the next 20 years trying to prove it wrong, but he was unable to.

The discovery was of a 100% correlation in economics, that applied throughout human history, location indifferent.

When he finally published his findings, his book was mostly references and footnotes, and so arcane in character that only serious economists could wade through it. Worth the effort, because he figured it would upend both economics and history.

Simply put, he had discovered a 100% correlation between mining and economic prosperity in a nation, kingdom, empire, any other form of government, or economic block.

That is, as a nation (etc.) mines, it prospers. The more it mines, the more it prospers. If it mines less, its economy is in decline, and when it discontinues mining *for any reason*, the nation nears collapse or collapses.

Chgogal doesn't know much, but Obama's racist, go Trump!

for Trump's trade deals, I have no clue what would happen. For me personally, I do not trust the Yahoos in DC to negotiate a deal that would be “fair” not to mention “free” (humor) to the people of the US? Why, because Obama is a rabid radical ideologue and he has placed many rabid left wingers in the government.