The share of manufacturing employment keeps declining. What role did NAFTA play? 
Contrary to popular myth, neither NAFTA nor China entering the WTO impacted long-term trends in manufacturing employment in place since 1953.
Services vs Manufacturing
Automation Irony
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on CBS News that an “army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America.”
If that kind of automation came to the US, then it would be without the “army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws.”
In reality, “millions and millions [thousands] of human beings screwing in little, little screws” is a requirement because no one has figured out how to automate this. Otherwise, this would be automated already.
Services at Risk
The US trade gap, caused by American consumers and businesses importing more goods than they’re exporting, has gotten all the attention in the debate over tariffs
But we sell far more services than we purchase from other countries. This means the US service sector enjoys a trade surplus with almost every trading partner around the globe, including those at the center of the trade battle: China, the European Union member states, Canada and Mexico.
America’s trade surplus in services rose to $293 billion in 2024, up 5% from 2023 and up 25% from 2022, according to Commerce Department data.
Service sector businesses “are all industries that power American economic growth. They’re the US economy’s secret sauce,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “We sell a lot of services into the rest of the world and these countries know that and they’ll use it against us that if push comes to shove. They can put up trade barriers and enforce new standards before you come into the country.”
The service sector includes just about anything that doesn’t come out of a factory, farm, mine, or oil well.
It’s normal for manufacturing jobs to shrink as a percentage of employment as a country gets wealthier and more technologically advanced, according to Cardiff Garcia, editorial director of the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization.
“If you want to employ a big share American workers in manufacturing, you almost have to drag the economy back into the past.”
Even within the auto industry, the center of much of the tariff dispute, service sector jobs outpace manufacturing jobs. About 1.3 million workers are employed at America’s car dealers, and only 1 million work at US auto plants and parts makers. And number of dealer jobs may fall if tariffs reduce the supply of cars and the price of cars increase, as is expected to happen.
If other countries retaliate in response to the US tariffs, that could also take aim at Americans services abroad.
There are about 1.1 million international students, making up about 7% of students on all campuses, according to Institute of International Education. The tuition, room and board that they pay is not only crucial to many schools, it also reduces the nation’s trade deficit. But the Trump administration has been revoking hundreds of student visas, and even some students who are not at risk of losing their visas are becoming reluctant to attend American schools in the current environment.
International tourist visits are also expected to drop, potentially costing billions for hotels, restaurants and attractions such as theme parks.
Tourism Economics, a firm that tracks the hospitality industry, forecasts a 9.4% decline in international visitor in the US for 2025, led by a 20.2% decline in visitation from Canada. The firm also estimates that international visitor spending in the US is expected to decline 5%, which would mean a loss of $9 billion this year alone.
This is a stark contrast from the end of last year, when Tourism Economics estimated a nearly 9% increase in international visitors, with a 16% increase in spending by foreign travelers.
“Trump’s policies and pronouncements have produced a negative sentiment shift toward the US among international travelers,” said a statement from Tourism Economics.
Trump’s Trade Math Ignores Services
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump’s Trade Math Ignores a Major Export: American Services
President Trump is wielding tariffs to try to close the massive U.S. trade deficit in goods, which he sees as a sign of economic weakness.
It is only part of the trade story.
While the U.S. buys more goods from abroad than it sells, the opposite is true for services, which include everything from streaming subscriptions to financial advice. Trump left these service exports out of his tariff math, but they are being pulled into his trade wars.
Countries can’t easily impose tariffs on services, but they can tax, fine or even ban U.S. companies. The European Union has floated going after big U.S. tech companies in response to Trump’s sweeping tariff threats. Trump also put U.S. service exports at risk by irking foreign consumers, many of whom might choose to avoid U.S. banks, asset managers and other firms. An economic slowdown that curbs demand as markets grapple with the president’s extreme trade makeover won’t help either.
As the U.S. imported more goods from abroad and domestic factories closed, its goods trade deficit swelled to a record $1.21 trillion by 2024. At the same time, the U.S. services trade surplus grew to $295 billion last year, up from $77 billion in 2000. This is a stark reversal from the mid-20th century, when the U.S. was a manufacturing giant and had a goods export surplus, but had a services trade deficit.
Services gradually came to dominate the U.S. economy as the country grew wealthier. It was no longer Ford Motor and General Motors that mattered most, but companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet and JPMorgan Chase. Software and financial products became major U.S. exports. For some of the biggest services firms, foreign markets now matter more than the U.S.
Countries and their consumers can lash out against U.S. services in a variety of ways. Foreign tourists booking American hotel rooms and airline tickets count as U.S. exports, but Trump’s actions have stoked rising anti-American sentiment that is turning off would-be travelers. In another blow, China on Wednesday issued a travel warning for the U.S.
There is also the risk of foreign customers’ turning against U.S. brands. Trade tensions with China during the first Trump administration ended up hurting U.S. services firms that do business in the country, said David Weinstein, a professor of economics at Columbia University.
“When you generate bad will, it’s harder to sell stuff,” he said.
Think about that last statement, then think of Tesla Car Sales. Tesla sales were down 76% in Germany, 45% in France, and 55% in Italy.
How Much Would a Made in the US iPhone Cost?
I discussed automation on April 7, 2025 in Sticker Shock: How Much Will an iPhone Cost with Trump’s Tariffs?
To avoid China tariffs, Apple Plans to Source More iPhones From India
“If consumers want a $3,500 iPhone we should make them in New Jersey or Texas or another state,” research firm Wedbush said in a recent note.
Clothes Silliness
Manufacturing Greatness in Pictures
In addition to tiny screws requiring an army of millions, it has also proven difficult to automate some clothing goods.
Tom Peng
The above image is from the following You-Tube video.
I encourage you to watch that.
More importantly, I encourage you to think. How much would clothes cost if we had an army of millions making clothes?
After thinking about the answer to the above question, please ponder this image.
Whose Dream Is This?
Globalization National Survey
Please consider the CATO 2024 Globalization National Survey
When you ask people if we should bring manufacturing back to the US, without asking about costs, you get one set of answers.
When you bring costs into the picture you get different answers.
CATO Summary Table 13
The average person knows more about trade than top-level Trump trade administrators.
Purposely Rigged Formula
Noticed the crossed out variables in the denominator, image from Axios.
As applied by the Trump administration, the variables cancel out.
The AEI reports President Trump’s Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It’s Also Based on an Error.
Correcting the Trump Administration’s error would reduce the tariffs assumed to be applied by each country to the United States to about a fourth of their stated level, and as a result, cut the tariffs announced by President Trump on Wednesday by the same fraction, subject to the 10 percent tariff floor.
For discussion, please see Tariff Clown Show Continues, Tech Tariffs Back On, Separately
What a revolving door circus Trump’s tariff policy has become.
Applied mathematically correctly, the Reciprocal tariff on Vietnam should be 12.2 percent not 46 percent.
See the above link for details.
Great Video on Good Manufacturing Jobs
Here’s another great video on “Good Manufacturing Jobs” are coming back from Vietnam.
It’s only 32 seconds long.
Solar Companies Behind Tariff Increases are Foreign-Owned
Here’s a January 23, 2018 hoot: Solar Companies Behind Tariff Increases are Foreign-Owned
Yesterday, Trump announced tariffs on solar panels and washing machines as part of his “America First” program.
The solar industry itself says the tariffs will cost about 23,000 jobs.
Here’s the ultimate irony: The bankrupt companies petitioning for the solar panel tariffs are foreign-owned.
A Lose-Lose Proposition
In response to my November 24, 2024 article Trump’s Proposed Tariffs Are a Tax on Consumers, Primarily the Poor I received sever reader comments that are worth discussing.
One of my readers commented: “So its ok for other countries to put tariffs on us, but not ok for us to put tariffs on them? Got it.”
For starters I never proposed I agreed with tariffs other countries place on the US. So right off the bat it’s a ridiculous straw man comment.
Moreover, the logic translates to “But mom, Susie did it too.”
To which my mom would reply: “If Susie jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?”
The fact is, China’s export subsidies are a direct benefit to US consumers at the expense of Chinese consumers.
Trump and Biden effectively say “I insist we pay more.” It’s like candlemakers trying to tax the sun for the free sunlight it provides.
If China wanted to give us free solar panels, the correct response would be, please send us more. We would create thousands of jobs installing solar panels everywhere.
Instead, Biden hiked tariffs to protect US solar panel production, costs soared, and three US companies went bankrupt. And few want US-made solar panels because they cost too much.
Should Anyone Care Whether Underwear Is Produced in the US or China?
On November 22, 2014 I asked Should Anyone Care Whether Underwear Is Produced in the US or China?
This ridiculous-looking question gets to the heart of tariff discussions.
Revenue vs Made-in-America Jobs
If we raise revenue via tariffs, then we are still buying foreign-made goods. Made-in-America doesn’t happen, nor is there an increase in US jobs.
If we bring the manufacturing home, mostly to robots, then where are the jobs and where is the revenue?
In the case of steel and aluminum, costs soar but hundreds more people are employed, thousands more if it makes you feel better. But the losers are over 100 million people (everyone who uses steel and aluminum).
In the case of clothes and iPhones, we could employ thousands, assuming we paid the workers enough and magically found the workers.
Thousands (thousands and thousands) of people employed would be happy (really?) but everyone paying triple for clothes and iPhones and everyone else will not.
The US (and the world) benefits from cheap clothes.
Creative Destruction
The hollowing out story is a myth.
What’s really happening is a combination of improved productivity and “Creative Destruction” in which new innovations replace and make obsolete older innovations.
In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), Joseph Schumpeter developed the concept out of a careful reading of Marx’s thought. In contrast with Marx – who argued that the creative-destructive forces unleashed by capitalism would eventually lead to its demise as a system – Schumpeter reinforced the evolutionary nature of capitalist economies. In his words, “This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.”
Companies that once revolutionized and dominated new industries – for example, Xerox in copiers or Polaroid in instant photography – have seen their profits fall and their dominance vanish as rivals launched improved designs or cut manufacturing costs. In technology, the cassette tape replaced the 8-track, only to be replaced in turn by the compact disc, which was undercut by downloads to MP3 players, which is now being usurped by web-based streaming services.
We have new products and new methods that have not yet hit iPhone assembly but will.
Trump wants to bring these jobs back to the US while Lutnick mockingly suggests there won’t be many jobs to bring back.
Of course there will be some jobs but also higher costs making exports more difficult and android phones more price-friendly.
What’s the point other than Trump’s nonsensical vision that there is a winner and a loser in every trade deal.
You cannot get trade right if you think trade is bilateral and there are bilateral winners and losers.
Unfortunately, that is what Trump truly believes.
How to Make Manufacturing Great Again
Employment in manufacturing stopped sinking at a dramatic rate in 2009.
To make manufacturing great again, we can eliminate the machines and do more stuff by hand in clothes manufacturing and iPhone assembly.
We can also make manufacturing great again by declaring war on the world. That would dramatically increase the need more weapons and planes as happened in 1943.
Otherwise, manufacturing share of employment will continue to fall.
Meanwhile, Trump is howling at the moon, with millions of Trumpian parrots echoing those howls.
Perhaps we should.discuss economic philosophy.
Communists declare pluralism, but they are anti-White racists.// Capitalists treat people like Machines, and they buy politicians.
Socialism is between. National Socialism. That’s the ticket.
With respect to the “Someone’s American Dream” Chart, the problem is that the younger generations have been sold a bag of air for 60+ years. I am older than you, Mike, but my parents generation, born pre-WWI, impressed on us that there was dignity in all meaningful work. The phrase “Somebody has to sweep the floor” was common. That didn’t mean that you couldn’t or shouldn’t aspire to higher employment, only that you weren’t guaranteed on getting it, or that you may have to work at jobs below your aspirations. My summer jobs in high school and university were in factories or in construction. I drove cabs on weekends during the school year. What I see today is a lot of young people who think that some forms of employment are beneath them, because, not only have their high school teachers told them that working in trades, etc. is for dummies, they have spent a small fortune on getting a worthless degree, from a commodified university system, that will not lead to employment that will pay enough for them to get out of student debt. They think “those jobs” are beneath them. That isn’t only manufacturing, but employment in the industries that supply manufacturing, including mining.
Wow, just 8% manufacturing base. Isn’t that a little alarming. Basically, we produce nothing anymore.
We produced inventions, services, such as consulting and offer food for export.
Manufacturing is so 1800’s!. Factories also cause significant environmental damages.
That’s great and all, except when you have to defend your own country. An 8% manufacturing base isn’t going to cut it.
Plus, COVID has shown how vulnerable supply chains can get when you’re heavily manufacturing goods/parts halfway across the world. And at that, a lot of it’s not even with close allies.
I heard people enjoy working a cushy white collar desk job more than they do breaking their bodies working on factory floors. Pass it on.
For at least half a century the aspiration many locals or migrants in OECD economies is for their children to work in the service economy rather than than the manufacturing/construction economy.
This goal has somewhat been achieved in the USA and other OECD economies. And in the most part it has resulted in better working conditions and pay. Yet Trump looks at the trade figures of manufactured items and sees it as a bad thing. (Despite this is what people wanted)
And now Trump want this reversed. His supporters want it reversed. Except I’m not sure how many of his supporters want to work in a low pay manufacturing job.
Everybody (Trump Voters) seem to want manufacturing back home, but I’m few are actually willing jump into the role of sewing t-shirts and shoes or assembling iphones.
Many Americans will be willing to sew for $10/hr
When the alternative is……hunger.
I’m waiting for Trump to propose full construction employment by having building foundations dug by workers wielding tablespoons, instead of using machines!
Americans don’t work construction.
Mexicans work construction.
$20/hr under.table +++++food stamps
Medicaid, maybe Sec. 8.
Spoon-ready jobs FTW
I remember reading about Star, North Carolina which was the world’s (or at least America’s) source for socks. Then free trade destroyed it. I would not say creative destruction as much as slave labor overseas did in Star, North Carolina.
A Hub Zone through the federal government was set up in Star, North Carolina and they built the Growler vehicle for the Marine Corps.
Trump should promote more of Hub Zone programs.
Also make a list of national security related manufacturing like antibiotics and have the federal government set up manufacturing centers run by universities and non profits to produce the products on that list, no different than the feds owning labs like Los Alamos and Jet Propulsion Lab.
I like that Trump has established a shipbuilding council at the White House.
Bringing seat shops back to America?
Is that great?
No…
Contrary to popular myth, neither NAFTA nor China entering the WTO impacted long-term trends in manufacturing employment in place since 1953…and how do you know that? Maybe the breakpoint at 8.82 wpuld have coincided witth either policy
It would help if you could read a chart.
China joined the WTO in 2001, the steep decline did not stop until the great recession.
Ignoring WWII, the percent of people employed in manufacturing fell from 32% to 8.8%
THEN
Then there was a break.
Something else. I suspect that manufacturing jobs were overcounted in times gone by. Maybe I’m wrong about that, and if I am, I’d happily admit it. Back in, say, 1955, were all of General Motors and U.S. Steel’s employees classified as manufacturing workers? What about the people in the accounting department, and the various materials handlers and schedulers?
In the intervening years, large enterprises underwent disintermediation. Things done in house were spun off and/or contracted out to companies that, today, would be called services. So when we think of the secular decline in manufacturing employment, we would and should cite factory automation, but that’s not the whole story. We’d have to look at structural issues too.
I have seen none of that kind of analysis within the intrepid, lazy, stupid “news” media, nor anywhere else.
Manufacturing is complex, and cannot be lumped together.
For instance, Tesla imports giant mega-presses from Italy. Tesla counts as manufacturing, but there is no US supplier for such mega-presses, or machine tools in general. This should be addressed buy is hugely complicated.
There are gadgets and clothes imported from Asia. This is a no brainer, but is imposable to replicate in price if at all.
A real estate developer, and a money pusher would lump them under one tariff.
Correct
Trump believe trade is bilateral
bilateral is not an acronym for “equal” or “the same”..
It would behoove you to understand a couple of things.
1) Trump’s asinine definition of reciprocal is 100% based on bilateral definitions
2) See Number 1
Trump is indeed absurd to imply, with that stupid formula, that anything other than balanced trade is somehow abusive. That said, trade IS bilateral, even if the cargo carrier calls on ports in more than one country. Reciprocal and bilateral are different things. Mish, consult a dictionary.
The problem of jobs in the service vs manufacturing sector https://www.amazon.com/Sortir-travail-qui-paie-plus/dp/2815960745, but too bad the book isn’t translated. Peoples reading it will find the situation of reindustrialization in France very similar to what happens in the United States. (France experienced the same decline in manufacturing jobs over the last 50 years)
“There are about 1.1 million international students, making up about 7% of students on all campuses.”
That is a student population of 15.7 million, compared to 8.1 in manufacturing. Either manufacturing is too efficient, or the education industrial complex too inefficient (but hugely profitable).
Manufacturing, research and development creates wealth, as opposed to services which are mostly rent seeking.
It is important not only for national security.
Services, no matter how important, are mostly a remorrah fish riding on the backs of manufacturing, agriculture, and energy.
You hear that “giant sucking sound” Ross Perot warned us about when debating NAFTA? No body listened to the man , just made fun of his ears.
I don’t know if Trump is taking the right actions, but business as normal is not working. At least this is showing everyone how dependent the US is on a country that wishes us harm.
We need to “hope” this works, or at least provide constructive ideas to save this Republic.
“In reality, ‘millions and millions [thousands] of human beings screwing in little, little screws’ is a requirement because no one has figured out how to automate this. Otherwise, this would be automated already“ -Mish
I am certain that someone has already designed a robotic screwdriver. It probably can’t compete with cheap labor and state subsidies for chosen industries. And even if such a screwdriver wasn’t possible, any good design engineer can design a product that can be assembled in a lights out factory. It just needs a shove in the right direction.
The mythical robot factory built iPhone might not look exactly like the one we have, but it would still exist.
At what price?
If the price is too high – It won’t happen
I thought all of those poor Chinese died in the videos you posted 5 years ago.
It’s not the jobs that matter, regardless of Trump’s rhetoric. It’s the output that matters. U.S. industrial production has been flat for 15 years, even though the population has grown by 11%.
Look at agriculture as a comparison. In 1900, the American farm population was 30 million. Today, it’s about 3 million. Crop yields are 5 times what they were 125 years ago, and machinery has replaced 90% of the labor. This is progress. Would we want to import all the food, or grow it here?
Industrial production is wealth and security. It’s not the only source of these things, but only fools would suggest that making things is superfluous. Mish, you dismiss all of that in an unthinking, one-sided jihad against Trump. Hey, it’s your site, your rules.Free speech, baby. One of its greatest values is to unmask foolishness by letting it play on the front lawn.
This is your front lawn, and you are dancing away..There are all kinds of perfectly valid criticisms of how Trump has been handling tariffs, but you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater to flog your purist libertarian ideology. Oh well. Keep that knee jerking. I read everything I can, not just to find value to embrace but to find foolishness to avoid, like your stuff lately.
“It’s not the jobs that matter…”? What foolishness. That’s exactly what individuals care about – their jobs and the quality of life they can afford with it. No wonder you can’t understand what you’ve been seeing lately.
Even with your own agricultural example, of course it’s better we produce more crops with less workers today, but NOT if those workers don’t have some kind of (different) jobs to buy this food – which they do. And plenty of those previous farm workers are very glad they have a different and probably easier job now and can afford that same cheaper food (plus extra).
It’s the same with industrial output. We produce more/the same with fewer workers than previously. That’s an improvement as well. Why are you so infatuated with 15-year industrial output level specifically?
And your tone implies Mish really hurt your feelings. Why? Did you lose your own job in NC as a textile worker? Or do you just not like it’s getting harder and harder to defend your flawed positions?
If it was the jobs that matter, is it a mark of failure that our farms produce at least 5x as much food with less than 10% of the labor compared to 125 years ago? What matters is the value created.
Yet here you are, lol.
Haven’t found a new forum yet?
Um, genius, exactly when did I threaten to leave? Reading is fundamental. Try it.
we know this: The Trump administration’s DOJ has removed a study from the NIJ website that found that immigrants, and particularly undocumented immigrants, commit crimes at significantly lower rates than U.S. citizens.https://bsky.app/profile/ashtonpittman.bsky.social/post/3lmpojri4kk2f
Mish, I cannot agree with your claim “Contrary to popular myth, neither NAFTA nor China entering the WTO impacted long-term trends in manufacturing employment in place since 1953.”
The graph you give distorts the picture because it is linear versus semi log. using rough eyeball est from your graph I find. From 51 to 71 manuf % dropped from 32% to 25%: 25/32 = .78 giving about 1.1 % decline per year. From 71 to 99 the ratio is 14%/25% =.56 or about 1.56% per year. from 99 to 2009 the ratio is 10/14 =.71 over a 10 year period, about 2.9% per year. The latter period had a large increase in the rate of decimation of US manufacturing. Job losses far exceeded those due to automation. Thousands of long time manufacturing facilities were shutting down resulting is large losses in employment and in the local economies where they were located.
I also note that this presentation also seems to under rate the importance of US based manufacturing, which goes far beyond the number of workers directly involved and classisfied as “manufacturing” jobs. These include local taxes paid that in part support local support of the facility and its workers, other direct and indirect jobs classified as construction, services, transportation, utilities, engineering, IT management etc.
My calendar reads April 14th not April 1st.
Balance the federal budget and you force foreign countries to trade for actual US products instead of treasuries. But the only way you can do that is with thoughtful budget cuts and tax increases. Something no American patriot would stand for.
Or tell Americans that they have to save more for retirement. Another thing no American patriot would stand for. Blaming foreigners, and the Chinese in particular, for your self-made economic problems is much more practical.
This piece is worth reading.
https://www.molsonhart.com/blog/america-underestimates-the-difficulty-of-bringing-manufacturing-back
Outstanding article. Thanks so much.
BTW the world is absolutely fixated on the aftermath of #47’s tariffs. It will be difficult to convince anyone that the SPX 3 Feb 2025 8/19/20/6 of 13 day :: x/2-2.5x/2.5x/1.6x global equity crash was going to happen anyway as a result of US saturated consumer debt load and the Chinese imploding residential property bubble.
The one aspect this conversation overlooks is global conflict. The risk of a war with China is not zero. We need a base level of independence as well as a broader level interdependence. IMHO we’ve become far too reliant on a smooth global supply chain. Tariffs may not be the correct tool to fix this, but it does need to be fixed and addressed.
It is a very real threat. Ignoring it will lead to destruction.
Kudo’s on this posting … one of your best. If it could be explained to #47, that the US has had a mob-boss-like protection racket for the last 80 years, where our muscle (deliverable nukes and military protecting the sea lanes) allows the US to trade its paper and debt notes for manufactured goods … a really good deal for the boss … maybe the prior arrangement might have greater appeal.
In an apocryphal story, Milton Friedman was treated to a propaganda tour in China in the 1970s. The Chinese showed him how they created full employment in dam building by giving the workers shovels. “Why not give them spoons instead?” he said.
the chinese told Friedman to “go get forked” if I recall correctly.
Friedman the economist saw only the economic side. Mao saw the political side. The shovel kept the restless peasantry occupied in work. Friedman in this story comes out as someone who sees the trees and not the forest. I have no idea if this story is true or taken out of context but the lesson is there.
the story goes, Friedman, saw Chinese laborers digging a trench with shovels, instead of using a backhoe or other digging machine. He enquired, why that was.
The local communist chinese politician and guide told him, a machine would dig the same trench, but only employ 1 or 2 workers, while the shovels, employed 20. Friedman being the insightful sort, asked
“why don’t you use spoons then?” – ie thinking more is better, amplification of stupidity by use of college trained economists, etc.
A great story, but many missing factors.
From Time Immemorial:
Proverbs 16:27 Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece,
indeed.sir…
Unfortunately your very sound logic is incompatible with the extreme reductionist environment which governs the vast majority of political discourse today. But… well said!
The cheap ‘made in China’ stuff has disguised the rate of inflation since the late 1990s when we first started importing manufactured goods en masse.
Up until the early 1990s, the U.S. made its own appliances, furniture and clothing for the most part. I don’t recall these things being unreasonably expensive for the times.
The real problem is the purchasing power of the dollar has collapsed, so if we were to bring those things back, they won’t be made with $5 an hour labor.
One thing we can’t import that has reveled the true rate of inflation is health care. The Federal Blue Cross family plan costs a total of $29,610.88 per year, with the employee share of that being $11,040.90. That’s inflation for you.
Meanwhile, my local health care system has cut staffing and services to the bone and there aren’t enough doctors to go around. Colonoscopies are booked out 10 months in advance.This is in Massachusetts.
Healthcare in the USA has nothing to do with capitalism. The AMA and AHA lobby state governments to artificially reduce the supply of doctors and hospital beds. Pharmaceutical companies abuse IP laws to keep prices high. PBMs use their position in the supply chain to profit with higher prices. Health insurance companies simply maximize profit by limiting competition and getting 3rd parties to pay them. The whole thing is a racket. Fortunately though, as Americans we’re too stupid and lazy to do anything but complain.
The health insurance cost has to do with capitalism. My non-profit insurance in Korea was around $100/month. But UnitedHealthcare’s stock has been going up even on days when the rest of the market crashes. It’s ridiculous. And my American health insurance has never even covered anything. In 1996, I had a colonoscopy at Baptist Hospital in Knoxville, TN and it cost over $2000. The insurance didn’t cover any of it. A colonoscopy last May in Korea cost less than $100. I got one there the week before I returned to the USA because I heard on Aaron Clary’s YouTube channel that he was charged something like $3600 and his insurance didn’t cover it. And Americans always say, “but you pay higher taxes there,” but that’s not true either. My taxes are always WAY higher in the USA.
Blue Cross pays for the colonoscopy, but not for the anesthesia. I have yet to receive a bill for the anesthesia and I expect that to be several hundred dollars.
Hold onto your seat, because Blue Cross paid $5808.99 for my colonoscopy so far. Plus I had to travel over 70 miles to have it done because the local places are booked solid.
I find much of this argument specious, comparing the known to the unknown, but painting the unknown as negatively as possible.
one example – “Manufacturing some one’s American Dream – Just not Mine”
compares the concept or idea of domestic manufacturing (very desirable) against working in a factory (very undersirable) – this is meant to show us what?
That the two notions are incompatible? Most Americans don’t work in a factory, have no idea what working in a factory would be like if we had new factories, so no basis to make their observation on. The data is flawed, it only shows “feelings” not facts.
There is no reason factory jobs cannot be well paid, interesting and desirable. Until factories are actually created and workers employed, most Americans have no idea what it is like to work in a modern factory. The data is flawed unless its meant to induce emotion bereft of actual edification or knowledge and understanding of the area of interest noted here.
I think i could do a chart that shows most Americans would rather work in factory than a McDonald’s take-out window, or cleaning toilets, or running the checkout counter at Walmart. It doesn’t mean its fact however, nor does it prove domestic manufacturing is possible or impossible.
The flyover people, who produce real stuff, working overtime, day and nights are proud men and women. They can feed a family and buy a house.These people don’t make men’s underwear or bras. Bangladesh can do it cheaper. Before my retirement I stop paying my insurance premium. I told my doc: I am pretty healthy. I am willing to take a risk. I am not going to pay these jackasses 188K before retirement. The cost of visitations was much smaller than my annual premium. No ER.
I appreciate that Michael, however flyover people, are people, and they produced real goods sold domestically and internationally for decades if not centuries. Bangladesh can do it cheaper, does that mean they should dump their goods into flyover country destroying native domestic production?
Should Bangladesh dump low paid ceo’s into wallstreet to run Goldman Sachs for 23k$ per year? where is the line, who decides what is dumping?
I’m not sure what your comments vis a vis health insurance have to do with trade policies and manufacturing, but you probably did the right thing.
When I was young I worked in a factory for summer jobs. In many ways it was more intellectually stimulating than the some sit-down jobs I have done. There was a wealth of problem-solving and finding workarounds to pass the time.
Then pick up a wrench and go back to that work. No one is stopping you, except your own current lifestyle you are sticking with. And then pontificating on the good ole days on this blogsite
your heart must be heavy filled with so much bile.
I don’t have bile at all. I have realism and I call out hubris wherever it may lie.
I also worked on farms and in factories when I was younger. It was hard work and didn’t pay enough for what it was doing to my body. So I got an education and found other employment that I find more suited to my talents to make money to buy food and manufactured goods from others (abroad and in the US). That decision was better off for me, and my spending rewards those others that choose to be in farming and in factories. What’s the problem?
Sounds like you and Doug did something similar in career choices. And yet, you want to make the choices for others here in the US more difficult by taxing (w/ tariffs) their spending, and encouraging them to stick with farming and manufacturing when they may want something else. All while pontificating about how good things used to be (before you left them).
That’s hubris
Please, get real. When I was 17, my boss called, it was time to make hay. He made us work an extra four hours jacking the bales of hay up into the loft for storage to beat the end of week rain. He handed us $20 and a six pack each, we were underage of course, and that was that. My heart brimmed with pride at my work.
I sit here typing at my desk, making huge bank. Do I have fond memories of that hard labor? Sure. Does it help me appreciate my good desk fortune? You betchya. Will I ever set foot in that field to farm again? LOL, what kind of sucker do you think I am?
Doug78 is obviously just blowing hot air, pretending that he would rather work in a factory and hop in a time machine bound for 1965
I too worked in a factory or two as a young man. I fixed machines for production for awhile, I know the joy of understanding a device and how to make it work properly. I also worked in a CT Imaging manufacturer in Cleveland,OH that was bought by GE and shut down (they only wanted the customer base and the MRI magnet designs) – I’ve also sat on my ass and programmed computers. All things being equal I’d prefer to produce something tangible with my mind and hands, rather than code that will be obsoleted in a few years and never existed as anything but magnetic charges in a computer.
There is an entire chain (the supply chain) that supports all manufacturing and encourages and develops a viable healthy chain reaction of innovation, abilities and higher learning.
The USA threw away a lot when they gave so much IP to China to offshore their profits.
1) Millions of working antes are assembling our cell phones, assembling – only – our computers, before completion and making our junk stuff from A to Z. Trump preempted the Belt and Roads Initiative before its completion. 80% or a 145% tariffs are all the same. After a dead cat bounce the junk is dead. It will no longer come from China. There is no inflation or deflation on dead pcs or bad pcs. Bad is bad. Dead is dead.
2) Trump trains our entitled dems elite for “Stress Tolerance”, so these clowns can handle distress and discomfort in the long run. Learning how to handle stress on regular basis is better for the pukers and the whiners mental health. Stress avoidances can overwhelm during disasters and cause an unskilled leader to make bad decisions which can break us apart and lead to collapse.
3) Millions of starving unemployed antes might rise on Gulliver the giant and eat his flesh.
I have long felt that Americans may revolt when the cheapest single pair of cotton boxer shorts cost $75 to $100.
America should export all manufacturing and services to low cost countries and stick with what it knows: borrowing money and printing dollars. /sarc
going commando for the win!!!. Hemp last far longer than cotton. Wool is a much better fabric in cooler climates.
Cotton is over-rated, but prefered to the coal-tar/petroleum derivitives like polyester and rayon.
remember when science was going to make the world cheaper,better,faster,safer? Now it just makes video games and cell phones to fill landfills, and AI data centers to track other AI data centers.
Seems a shame really, the world we could have had, versus the one we got.
Greed kills. Big Cotton won’t let hemp thrive for clothing, the reasons are so obvious that if it needs explained, someone wouldn’t understand that anyway. Not to mention hemp’s other many enemies, big Pharma, Oil, Alcohol, and more.
Why don’t we tackle the ultimate root of our “economic unhappiness”? As documented elsewhere, the US education system has left about one third of the population behind as numerically illiterate. This part of the population therefore cannot compete in a modern economy—be it manufacturing or services—except at very low minimum wages. Political snake oil dealers like Trump have convinced these people that it’s the fault of foreigners, and not their education, that is to blame for their economic misery. But I guess “Let’s fix the education system” would never get you more than 1 or 2 votes in a primary, be it a Democrat or Republican primary.
who made the education system? who created the “department of education” as valid a name as “homeland security” (the government has a sense of humor, its just always at the rest of the populations expense).
I agree education is terrible and getting worse, largely by design,not happenstance.
Along with education (or a different sort of education (non-scholastic) ) is the programming or propagandizing of the US population, to be neurotic, self indulgent, inward focused children for their entire lives. They are not taught to solve problems, they are not taught problems are solvable. It becomes an endless circle of self hate, neuroses, and failure, leading to stress, violence, passive aggressive behaviour, obesity and general moral turpitude .
Much of the problem can be laid to the modern smart or internet connected mobile phone, a finer propaganda device has not yet been invented. Remove the phones and begin curing the nation. Make phones stupid, make smart phones available by license to adults only and conditional on mental health, limit social apps.
Endless sugar produces obesity, diabetes and death
Endless portable hand held Internet and social apps, produces depression, mental illness, violence, stupidity, and moral and personal malaise.
we can observe the demise of society, and we can observe the reason, but we cannot act because it makes someone money killing us. we must pay for the weapon that will destroy us because we have as a society gone insane.
tldr
The broad sweeping approach of bringing manufacturing & jobs back is senseless – which this sweeping broadcast tariff implementation without any kind of strategic plan, in large part is intended to do. When the country either has no native materials to manufacture or the industrial supply chain is weak or cost-prohibitive to acquire the materials it makes no sense to throw big investments (gearing up is expensive & has a long time lag) into trying to establish it here. Add on rapid AI/robotic development, worker distaste for mundane, laborious jobs & it gets worse. A lot of this current rhetoric & tariff-making is political & will result in misery for lower income Americans without positive gain. I don’t believe the current slogan ‘suffer now for a golden future’ because there is so little solid planning behind what is being done. .
agree, we should be totally helpless, and depend on others to make and raise everything we need forever. great plan… can’t see any flaws from here…
Many here do not want to find solutions to problems but only complain about those who try to find them. Everything is always “impossible” or “can’t be done” and occasionally “useless”. If they were in my company I would fire them all and start over.
I hope these are software bots, if they are truly human, society’s reasoning capacities have fallen far more than I realized.
Don’t know but their proliferation makes me less inclined to contribute.
Thats a feature not a bug, its part of the propaganda technique – to snuff out dissent and discussion make it difficult and uncomfortable.
A writer once told me, you must have the hide of a rhino, for the world will come at you with a venegance. Its true. You must understand, most of them aren’t real, and the rest are likely insane, deranged or misled.
The interesting thing about the internet is to see just how badly people will behave when they are not face to face with who they are communicating with. It says more about those who attack you, then it does about anything you could have said.
ignore the idiots, and realize most of the world is idiots….
It’s a bad plan by design. It’s designed to squeeze the middle class and working class so ordinary Americans can’t afford to pay for mortgages and property taxes so the oligarchs can own it all. You’ll own nothing and be happy.
if we measure by results, rather than the cover stories, your premise seems to bear itself out.
The core problem is we don’t have millions of people sitting idle waiting to go make clothes, autos, microchips, pharmaceuticals, etc. China has hundreds of millions of people manufacturing now so if somehow all of Trump’s dreams came to fruition and ALL 100% manufacturing came back to the U.S. who would work in the factories? At least trump wised up a bit and is now letting all those hated “illegals” stay and work on farms and hotels and wherever else business bros beg for slave labor. Someone must have slapped him in the face and told him we don’t have the labor!
All we got are 80 million boomers lounging around collecting social security, the rest are employed barely scrapping by doing 3 jobs but now they’re going to have a manufacturing job too?
“The core problem is we don’t have millions of people sitting idle waiting to go make clothes, autos, microchips, pharmaceuticals, etc.”
People tend to line up at job fairs. All that is needed for one, is the opportunity.
Are the lines 400 million long? what about 300 million? 200 million? Do you know how many Chinese are making all that stuff in your house right now, tools in garage, cooking stuff in your kitchen, your wardrobe in your closet, the meds in your bathroom? Your drywall, carpet, roof shingles.
Are you dumb enough to think we have enough people to make all the stuff China is making right now? Are you really that dumb?
you do know we made all of our stuff once upon a time right? You know you don’t need as many workers to supply only our own nation, as China needs to supply the entire world, right?
you know it can be done in steps, incrementally working towards a goal of 100% if that is desired. You know there are a lot homeless, and people working 3 jobs cause they can’t make it on the money from 1, that would love to walk away and only work 1 good paying job.
its more complicated than you realize, but its also solveable, and has been done before.
The narrative here has been that China will cave because the US is their sole largest customer now you’re saying that China is producer of the world. So which is it?
If China is producer of the world, losing the US will mean little as there are 8 billion people in the world and only 340 americans.
If the US is China’s largest customer then logically, America doesn’t have enough labor to produce all those goods at low cost or even at all.
You dug yourself into a nice logical trap but your solution is worse even if we assume you are correct. You live in a country in which people were willing to die on their sword for doing as simple as wearing a mask during COVID but now you expect those same outraged americans to suffer without goods and services for a period of time.
About that drywall …,
I doubt he is that dumb, but it DOES seem like he isn’t trying to be smart.
You think people are lining up to sew hems into fabric? For what wage? I believe a UBI is coming before that ever happens.
Bingo, you put your thumb on it. Even if Trump gets 100% of what he wants, it cannot be a true victory because the USA still loses on this deal.
Apply for a job at Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and learn how to make some real money.
The real dough is massaging electrons at the Federal Reserve, turning electromagnetic vibrations into electronic deposits.
Engrave pictures of the presidents of the Federal Reserve on electrical box knock-outs.
When the Bond Market Panics Like This… Trump’s global tariff war has wiped out more than $5 trillion in equity-market value. But, as always, the most reliable clue about what’s heading our way is the bond market. Buckle up…
https://puck.news/what-it-means-when-the-bond-market-panics-like-this/
What has really been wiped out? The Nasdaq was recently 65% above the trend line off the 2009 low. The market always corrects extreme deviations from the mean. In 1929, Babson declared that the market had reached a permanently high plateau. In 2000, the sky high Nasdaq crashed 76%, in a symmetrical collapse. The laws of math always end up enforcing themselves. Parabolic markets are based on an illusion.
Citadel over leveraged in the bond market bets. Kenny G is no Jeremy Irons / John Tuld. Ask his x .
The 10 year is back to what it was only a year ago.
Brilliant! One of your best Mish.
This economic experiment with tariffs seems to have the goal of taking our economy a hundred years backwards while alienating all our trading partners.
My message remains the same. Let’s see it play out. Let’s see the results. And let’s learn from it.
Trump’s supporters have bought into his economic lies and narratives and will never be convinced by arguments to the contrary. Perhaps the reality of the actual results will slap them in the face and wake them up.
No need for it to play out. Central planning communism has never worked anywhere. Trump wants to make America like North Korea where Kim Jong Trump wants to make all the decisions for everyone. Supposedly, Trump alone what is best for every single business in America, every.single.one.
The U.S. consumer helped build China into a rising Empire. You seem to lose sight of that. China is working hard to replace the U.S. China IS a communist Party run country. Trump is trying to counter that. Hence, all the noise about obtaining Greenland and control of the Panama Canal, of which the Chinese run the ports. China is seeking hegemony. The U.S. cannot continue to front the EU’s defense and Trump is goading them into doing so for themselves.
The U.S. cannot risk being dependent on China for things that China can cut off access to. Trump wants to make the U.S. self sufficient. Trump understands that better than you. The world becomes a dangerous place during Fourth Turnings.
Greenland is supposed to be a gift to Peter Thiel and Panama is supposed to be a gift to Blackrock. Wake up. And after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died for Corporate America already, Trump has the arrogance to act like the Ukrainians owe us? What an arrogant slob! He’s trying to gift Ukraine to Blackrock, Cargill, DuPont, Monsanto and several other US corporations. And it’s not like ordinary Americans are going to benefit from any of this. Maybe a working stiff that owns a few shares of those corporations can eat a few of the crumbs off of the floor while the Thiels, Finks, and others feast, but is just a cost burden for most Americans.
When I was a kid in 1985, the Soviet Union, China, and Vietnam had tightly centrally planned economies and the USA was the free market economy with Trump being the very personification of that. If you would’ve told me back then that in 2025 Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, China, and Vietnam would have freer markets than ours and that our entire economy would be subject to imperial decrees by a lone central planner and that central planner would be Donald J. Trump, I would NOT have believed you. No way. Yet, here we are!
How did the last Fourth Turning play out? How did the last rise and fall of an empire turn out? Why are there 4 turnings? Human nature continues to follow the same cycle over and over again. The lessons are never learned, but repeated over and over again. As Mish has mentioned, we have had 3 financial bubbles in a row. Lesson wasn’t learned after the first one. Who listened to the economic lies and narratives that a financial bubble can replace a financial bubble? Those in the DOW at 45,000 and over priced homes, etc.
A cycle always goes backward. It is called the down phase. The U.S. became producer to the world, then China became producer to the world.
What is the reality of CRT and DEI? Of mass migration from the third world? What is the reality of a globalist Great Reset? What reality slaps those people in the face?
Do you propose going back to what it was before? If so why? It clearly wasn’t working for most people. Granted it was working for people like us with financial assets but not for the majority of people and some are fine with that. I myself am not. If you would like to change things then tell us where would you like us to go and how to get there.
Lol! As always, I propose that we watch Trump’s tariffs and see what they will do to our economy.
What a show! Are you enjoying it as much as I am?
By the way, most Chinese manufacturing companies rely have basically one customer , the United States of America. The videos of how pissed they at at their communist government is mind blowing. While their mow like leaders that killed millions by starvation when they put their own farms out of business during the trade wars in the past , the people their today I think will rebel as they realize one of four dollars that the world transact come from America. They need us or they go out of business. Trump knows this and is banking on their bending the knee.
It is not about bending the knee. It is about decoupling as much as is possible.
We only import around 13.5% of China’s exports which is around 3% of China’s GDP. They’ll never miss us. Even Russia has the fastest-growing economy in Europe despite losing the USA, Canada, most of Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and other nations as customers. China is going to lose only one customer. American farmers will be hurt a lot more than the Chinese, but at least the Brazilian agricultural industry will benefit. I’ll be buying Brazilian ag shares. They pay high dividends too.
Nope. Do you just make all this sh*t up and hope that no one will call you on it?
In 2024 Chinese exports totaled $3.58 trillion. The US received 448 billion of that total. Or 12.5% of Chinese exports.
The US is certainly not China’s only customer.
And why won’t you answer my questions from earlier? I want to hear what a US manufacturer has to say.
As this piece vividly illustrates, we are ruled by economic illiterates, with the President the most clueless among them. This is not about being Democrat or Republican, or being on the left or on the right. Trump’s tariffs are stupid economics from every political angle.
Trump is going to virtually guarantee that democrats control congress for the next 40 years after he’s done pooping on America.
The democrats just need to be sane: stop promoting “gender affirming care” on minors and “equity” that expects 50% of pilots to be women. Can they do it, though? A party that uses terms like “birthing person” and “pregnant person” will struggle with normal people.
and a real democrat party platform will spend months writhing over “normal people” being a discrimantory term and offending “non-normal people” and creating special classes, parades, demonstrations and fire bombings (aka democrat holidays) to raise awarness of the growing disparity between normals and non-normals and the inherient bigotry of the distinctions as well as the ensuing arguments over whether it is gender biased, a product of birth, class or environment.
god they are a strange bunch.. I voted democrat when i turned 18, but I got better…
Only after the cat Karens die off.
If this continues America probably won’t last 40 years.
Doesn’t matter if it’s the Red team or the Blue team.
America is a dream that resides in a population within a certain geographic location. The geography will remain, the dream needs refreshed, like all dreams.
America will last as long as there are free people who wish to live without kings or dictators, who want to build their own nation, in a matter that behooves them.
America is bigger than its politicians or the propaganda – America is an outlier, a very dangerous idea to the people at the very top of the food chain.
They have been trying to kill it since the declaration of independence. They can’t kill it, but only we can let it die.
the world is in our hands, if we but notice and care.
Sure what a wonderful thought running a country where no one knows how to make anything. All that is needed is a degree, a computer and a Mouse to click. Heavenly.
Another private plane crash upstate NY but what the Hey.
There is a Mechanic shortage in aviation. Planes falling from the sky, no worries no chance any correlation is possible.
Just like commercial Truck drivers, fast track illegals into CDL’s that way it is cheaper.
Ignore those people getting killed by bad drivers who can not read English. Stick them in the Cab and let er Rip. After all it’s cheaper.
Absurdity continues.
it seems we are trapped in a black comedy of perpetual length and universal proportions. most are too happy to not notice.
Remember Tuesday is Soylent Green Day.
See you at the Colosseum.
Well the little screws on iPhones will still be done overseas. I do find it interesting how the folks that hate Trump are totally dissing the world’s workforce when they imply this work is just beneath the upper class people that live in the USA. China ticktock videos showing all the big pot belly men working on assembly lines. You do remember Henry Ford and the assembly lines in the Industrial Revolution I hope. These comments are also demeaning to millions of Americans that work in manufacturing jobs today , I employ a bunch of them, they toil all day but so do the American farmers , they never stop working. It would be a good thing for the vast majority of Americans that sit around complaining about life to get out there and bust your balls once in a while. Life isn’t a bed of roses never has been.
Excellent. A US manufacturer.
Some questions for you.
1. What type of manufacturing are you involved in?
2. Where do you source your inputs?
3. Have tariffs affected you, your suppliers, or your customers so far?
4. Do you have much foreign competition?
5. How skilled are your employees and how much training is needed to get skilled?
6. Can you easily find more skilled workers if they are needed?
7. Can you increase automation much more to reduce employee levels?
8. Will Trump’s tariff policy be successful?
For two decades China built the Belt and Road Initiative BRI. It’s a civil-military network that can choke the US in the pacific and force Taiwan S. Korea, Japan. Australia. the Philippines and New Zealand to be on their side and win against the US without firing a shot. Newsweek Yang: the BRI is potentially a military infrastructure that will force the US to retreat from the pacific ocean. China pearls necklace has 50 naval, air ports and early warning stations stretching from Papua New Guinea, Fiji to Samoa. They are also expanding in the Indian Ocean. If they win they can bend us and break us apart.
Yep. China has spent two decades attempting to become more influential in Asia than the US with little success. In just a few months, Trump has done more to make the US less influential and China more influential. He is a dream come true for China.
Trump stopped the frog cooking that can threaten any ceo who pays attention to the day to day problems and to his co five years plan.
Slow changes are deadly
Yup, fast ignorant changes are best!!!
Ready, Fire, Aim…
and stagnation is decay. surely a middle ground can be found. One crawls before one walks, but one frequently bangs one head on things before the crawling phrase is finished.
we may bang our heads for awhile, but we’ll eventually walk and then run. Life is a learning process, if we fail to learn, we learn to fail.
Our armed forces have no business being halfway around the world. It’s bankrupting the USA.
Of course Americans won’t screw in tiny screws. The work will be mostly automated.
Automated production in China has bad economics. If you can pay a person $10k per year, the person is cheaper than most automation. If you have to pay a person $100k (including benefits and overheads), a lot more automation makes sense.
Products are likely already being redesigned for more automated production – replacing screws with welds and adhesives, for example.
Most of the factory jobs will be destroyed. The automation industry will boom. 10s of thousands of good jobs, not millions of bad ones.
BUT – jobs that are really hard to automate like clothes, butchering, and some farm labor will result in much more expensive products because immigration and trade policies are reducing our access to cheap labor.
glue and other adhesive have replaced most tiny screws. its one reason most things aren’t repairable any longer.
Are US tariffs just the beginning? With Abraham Newman
Alan Beattie talks to Abraham Newman, professor of political science at Georgetown University
There’s a narrative which is about, you know, it’ll help our manufacturing. I’m struggling to believe that that is actually the goal of the administration because they’re taking a whole set of policies that undermines US manufacturing capabilities.
https://archive.ph/b3BQ8
= china
as usual, there is a very famous YouTube channel ( petya english), it is Ukraine dude from Odessa (ABOUT 30 years old), he is Russian speaking , and he is married into Chinese girl, he met her in china about 8 yrs ago.
he has been travelling all over china in RV for last 2-3 years.
try to watch. some videos have English subs it will open your eyes.
========
watch old videos from Chinese backyard, videos w/ girl’s parents.
how much they work. how much they care for family. each year on Chinese new year they got together. no matter what.
Chinese TRAIN WONT STOP!!!!! everything works, smartphones are everywhere. everything is automated.
and Chinese mostly are honest people.!!
alx
don’t beleive everything you watch on the internet..Its mostly distraction and propaganda and advertising. what did you just buy?
I worked in China in 2011. China already had lots of high-speed rail even back then while the USA still doesn’t have any. Neither Biden nor Trump can figure out how to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge. China would’ve had it rebuilt in less than a month. I could walk around alone at night in all parts of Tianjin. I can’t do that in Atlanta. I could see doctors, even specialists in China on the same day. It takes days or even weeks in the USA. They have an educated population. We don’t.
Trains as whole, are not profitable transportation methods. High-speed rail just loses money faster. The USA has few dense population corridors to make high speed trains feasible, the densest population being in NYC/Boston/Washington D.C. which explains both the train problem and the other political and economic problems becoming unsolvable to an increasingly dense population.
Its okay to build bridges slowly so they don’t fall down fast. I kind of prefer that method myself. Everything doesn’t need to happen like cup of noodles in 60 seconds.
I could go on, but I’m sure you are itching to get your bags packed and get out of Atlanta and head back to Mao’s paradise in the forbidden city.
Enjoy spending the rest of your life in China, all the best. We will think about you here in the land of the free home of the Braves…
China decided to make a lot of engineers.
America decided to make a lot of lawyers.
The results speak for themselves.