| ▲ | karakoram 4 hours ago |
| A very important question to ask. Should the US make medical gloves? |
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| ▲ | kaashif 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Asking this question only a handful of years after a global pandemic... If the next pandemic is 50% deadly, not being able to make gloves is surely the canary in the coal mine proving we wouldn't be able to make any other PPE. And no country can rely on another if it's do or die. Other blocs will keep to themselves. |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | And in the midst of a start-stop petrochemical supply crisis. | |
| ▲ | jeffrallen 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Those who do not learn from history... probably don't make gloves. | |
| ▲ | raverbashing 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's amazing how much those spreadsheet heads know nothing about how the actual world works | | |
| ▲ | hypeatei 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Doing basic math makes someone a "spreadsheet head"? If the "actual world" wanted American-made gloves then this cash injection from the government would've resulted in a boom in glove manufacturing here, no? I always see catastrophizing and autarkist-coded takes like this which imply the US is a house of cards because we don't manufacture everything under the sun at all times. You have to realize that preparing for a doomsday scenario like 50% fatality rate pandemic has a cost that someone foots the bill for. Even in 2020 with a buffoon running the country, we still reacted very quickly and developed multiple vaccines to combat a novel virus (yes, the response was bungled in other ways but I digress)... people, markets, etc. are adaptable and we will figure it out. | |
| ▲ | vrganj 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You gotta optimize everything for the market man! It's magic! Everything will work out if we only make number go up! Who cares about silly stuff like health emergencies, the climate catastrophe or war. Number must go up! | | |
| ▲ | ikari_pl 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | correction: the number must go up FASTER. if it just keeps going up same as yesterday, we will lose investors | |
| ▲ | philipallstar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You don't need to optimise for the market. The market is the optimising machine. Get in its way with slow regulators or subsidies or bailouts and you get all the problems. | | |
| ▲ | vrganj an hour ago | parent [-] | | Heh sure, it's great at optimizing. The problem is it's an optimizing function for the rich getting richer, not for the good of society, not for reducing human suffering, not even, y'know, the survival of the human race. |
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| ▲ | fartfeatures 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Redundancy is just waste wearing a trench coat etc etc. | |
| ▲ | matchbok3 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well, for the most part this is actually true. Taking care of the exceptions is the hard part. Also, "climate catastrophe" is not a thing. | | |
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| ▲ | jofzar 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Looks like most/all manufacturing happens in the SEA/China, so I can see the logic that it could be considered a military risk for it to not be manufactured/possibility to scale manufacturing in America. |
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| ▲ | maxglute 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Someone already decided US should. The important question is whether 1B should have gotten the job done, and if not... is it matter of throwing good $$$ after bad $$$... or is it just bad sign 1B wasn't enough. |
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| ▲ | barrenko 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yeah, you should make stuff medical staff needs. |
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| ▲ | PowerElectronix 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Making them? Not in the least. But being capable of making them? It's a must, be it gloves, EVs, semis, or screws. |
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| ▲ | fl0id 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's all a question of price, based on the article. And not planning how much it takes to start up. In any case it's also not feasible to keep a plant on standby, just in case you need it one day. |
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| ▲ | goalieca 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The USA can make anything if there’s money in it. Right now, I just don’t think there’s any. |
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| ▲ | warumdarum 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The more important part is how to make people who ask this question a permanent pariahs? |
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| ▲ | tonyedgecombe 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Also what the cost is. If the US really wants to reshore this sort of work then it will become materially poorer. |
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| ▲ | einpoklum 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The story says the US doesn't have the raw material(s): NBR. Not quite sure what that is. |
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| ▲ | oasisaimlessly 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | NBR = nitrile butadiene rubber, a synthetic rubber. Not really a raw material, as it's synthesized. | |
| ▲ | RetroTechie 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | With all the chemical industry already in the US, and $1B to throw at it, production capacity for the raw material couldn't be included? It's not like you need a metric ton of it to produce a box of gloves. | | |
| ▲ | wildzzz an hour ago | parent [-] | | The issue is that domestic sources of NBR are few because of the type of petroleum extraction we do here. This makes the cost of NBR relatively high and consequently makes the gloves pricey compared to imported ones. We can definitely make.a glove but no one wants to buy them. |
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| ▲ | roysting 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes. Next question |
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| ▲ | rileymat2 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Why is it so simple? Instead of investing billions, perhaps a stockpile is a better strategy. |
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| ▲ | like_any_other 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It should be able to. A country that can't, cannot hope to remain sovereign in anything but name, for long. |
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| ▲ | Hikikomori 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| 1-200% tariff applied at random if you don't. |
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