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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   31758 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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The problem is the tariff boosters don't care. They believe in some unicorns-and-rainbows benefit from tariffs that's never going to happen

I don't think that tariffs are going to result in a magical surge for the US economy, no.

I am happy to accept a net reduction in wealth, even a significant net reduction, as long as we get something in return. A weakened China, a more self-sufficient US, manufacturing jobs for the working class. Something.

If we just get literally nothing in return, not even pain for our enemies, then yeah, that would be a bit silly and that should ideally be avoided. But the PRC online army is calling us bitches and saying that we'll back down because we can't take the pain. So we may have to keep going even if it turns out to be purely self-destructive. Because the one thing you can never do under any circumstances is look like a bitch.

I am happy to accept a net reduction in wealth, even a significant net reduction, as long as we get something in return. A weakened China, a more self-sufficient US, manufacturing jobs for the working class. Something.

We might get a weakened China, in as much as we'll weaken the entire world. I'm not sure why you want manufacturing jobs for the working class -- what difference does it make if they bust their butt in a shoe factory rather than an Amazon warehouse? But you won't get it. Nor self-sufficiency.

what difference does it make if they bust their butt in a shoe factory rather than an Amazon warehouse?

There is one, and it's that one of these can be transformed into an arms factory and the other can not.

That's most likely not why this is being done but it's still conspicuous.

This is one of the worst arguments for tariffs! If we want arms factories, we can just spend 1% of our GDP on arms factories, have some competent individual (I would've picked Elon a year ago but we've seen how that's gone) manage 'procurement' instead of the existing bureaucracies, and we'll have a ton of arms factories. We do not need to make shoes to make missiles.

You can't just tax and spend your way to an independent supply chain for military goods. Small countries have the luxury of doing efficient off the shelf procurement because they don't need to be able to fight China and win. The US can't.

Who's making the electronics in your missile ? Who's making the inputs for those and for every other part of the process? If it's your enemy you're fucked.

I'm not saying tariffs, let alone those tariffs, fix this, but your solution isn't one.

And I know that because it's what France has been doing. We can still make planes and submarines locally, but we don't have enough tanks and small arms to correctly maintain the small forces that oversee our crumbling colonial empire, let alone anything approaching the requirements of mass combat.

Mass can't be just bought. You need to build the factories.

I don't understand the argument here. The thing you are paying for is the construction of those factories. And the factories for the inputs. This is expensive. But so are tariffs.

And you don't need to source literally all of the inputs (for instance the electronics) domestically. China is not the only country we can import inputs from. We have allies.

Do you?

What allies do you have that produce electronics on the scale that is required? ST doesn't have the capacity. It's pretty much just Chinese foundries and TSMC.

Besides. Alliances are always temporary.

TSMC has fabs in the US now?

TSMC Arizona's first fab started high-volume production of its N4 process technology in the fourth quarter of 2024

I don't think military tech uses latest-generation chips.

This isn't an area I have much knowledge in though.

Tell me you've never worked in the semiconductor industry without telling me you've never worked in the semiconductor industry.

You don't understand the level of investment and richness required in your industrial base to get any exploitable scale. The CHIPS act investments may yield something that might be relevant in like ten years. If the US is lucky. And yes this holds true even if you know what you're doing to the frankly impressive level TSMC does. It really is that hard.

Starting a fab, despite costing dizzying amounts of money, means nothing. Europe has a couple, and they don't even begin to cover the needs of a single of their domestic industries. Let alone something as complex as procurement for a whole military.

Toasters or shoes you could more easily relocate as long as you had cost effective labor or machines. But for semiconductors you have to multiply that by a whole lot of very specific disciplines, unique, expensive and rare machines, large scale infrastructure requirements and a general uncertainty that the endeavour will be profitable at all that can last decades.

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An Amazon warehouse is more likely to be transformed into an arms factory than a shoe factory is. Unless your arms are slings and such.

Soldiers need boots.

In 1941 when the US entered WW2 the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company in New York notably took only a few months to pivot to produce military boots, ammunition belts, holsters, gas masks, parachutes and many other leather or textile implements of war.

Today the number of textile based pieces of kit for the common soldier has vastly increased. Body armor, rugsacks, complex sleep systems and multi layered clothing are all common issue.

Being able to make these in large quantities is as important as the metalworks for your guns and shells.

Are either particularly likely to become arms factories?

My guess is that an Amazon warehouse is marginally more likely to, since the building itself would be larger, be better logistically, and have up-to-date infrastructure. But neither would have much ability to transfer either their machinery or skilled labor to arms production.

I guess the shoe factory could easily transition to making combat boots.

I have it on good authority that the professionals also value "logistics" (warehouses, trucks, trains). Which isn't to say that the factory isn't useful, but the ability to ship it's outputs to where they are needed is important too. I'd be watching for investments in navy transport abilities there too.

This is absolutely true. But logistics only matters if you have some outputs to ship in the first place.

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