<story><title>Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/magazine/why-are-politicians-so-obsessed-with-manufacturing.html?_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rfrank</author><text>Manufacturing also provides jobs for both high and low skill workers. As such can be seen as more valuable to a community than say, a software company that only hires engineers and a CS center in a different state. Manufacturing was one of the best roads for a low skill worker to earn good money and move up the rung economically - something that only seems to be getting harder as time goes on.</text></item><item><author>hueving</author><text>Manufacturing is a target because it&amp;#x27;s easy for people to see concrete results. They can point at something and say, &amp;quot;we made that&amp;quot;, and it tends to generate some sense of pride. The same doesn&amp;#x27;t really apply for service industries or innovation in the service industries: &amp;quot;we produced consumer surplus by lowering transportation costs via automation&amp;quot; doesn&amp;#x27;t roll off the tongue as well. :)&lt;p&gt;The same problem exists for creating software. Massive software projects tend to be unimpressive to people not familiar with the IT industry because they don&amp;#x27;t comprehend the scale or fundamental difficulties in computer science that were overcome to accomplish something.&lt;p&gt;Compare airplanes and wifi on airplanes. Most people are impressed by an A380, but they couldn&amp;#x27;t give two shits about the incredible technology behind offering wifi 5 miles above the Atlantic ocean at 700MPH ground speed. They just trivialize it by saying, &amp;quot;yeah, it comes from that little radio&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Inconel</author><text>You make a very important point with regards to manufacturing providing jobs for both high and low skill workers. I would add that it can also be a very good way to go from being a low skill worker to becoming a high skill worker on the job, meaning that you are being paid while improving your skills. If you&amp;#x27;re already poor and don&amp;#x27;t have any particular skills, it can be extremely difficult to improve upon your situation while trying to make enough money to survive. Many times additional schooling, either at the college&amp;#x2F;university or trade school&amp;#x2F;community college level, are out of reach, or at least made much more difficult, once you&amp;#x27;ve already worked a 40-50 hour week.&lt;p&gt;I work as a technician in aerospace and when I started I had zero experience in this type of manufacturing environment. If I hadn&amp;#x27;t gotten the opportunity to improve upon my skills while on the job I would most likely still be stuck in a much lower paid and less satisfactory low end retail or service job.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/magazine/why-are-politicians-so-obsessed-with-manufacturing.html?_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rfrank</author><text>Manufacturing also provides jobs for both high and low skill workers. As such can be seen as more valuable to a community than say, a software company that only hires engineers and a CS center in a different state. Manufacturing was one of the best roads for a low skill worker to earn good money and move up the rung economically - something that only seems to be getting harder as time goes on.</text></item><item><author>hueving</author><text>Manufacturing is a target because it&amp;#x27;s easy for people to see concrete results. They can point at something and say, &amp;quot;we made that&amp;quot;, and it tends to generate some sense of pride. The same doesn&amp;#x27;t really apply for service industries or innovation in the service industries: &amp;quot;we produced consumer surplus by lowering transportation costs via automation&amp;quot; doesn&amp;#x27;t roll off the tongue as well. :)&lt;p&gt;The same problem exists for creating software. Massive software projects tend to be unimpressive to people not familiar with the IT industry because they don&amp;#x27;t comprehend the scale or fundamental difficulties in computer science that were overcome to accomplish something.&lt;p&gt;Compare airplanes and wifi on airplanes. Most people are impressed by an A380, but they couldn&amp;#x27;t give two shits about the incredible technology behind offering wifi 5 miles above the Atlantic ocean at 700MPH ground speed. They just trivialize it by saying, &amp;quot;yeah, it comes from that little radio&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yummyfajitas</author><text>It may seem to be getting harder, but in reality it&amp;#x27;s not. Rank based measures of mobility are stable. Since income inequality is up, &lt;i&gt;absolute&lt;/i&gt; mobility has also increased.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eml.berkeley.edu&amp;#x2F;~saez&amp;#x2F;chettyetalAERPP2014.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eml.berkeley.edu&amp;#x2F;~saez&amp;#x2F;chettyetalAERPP2014.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>