Comments by "Luis Aldamiz" (@LuisAldamiz) on "Will Young Americans Want to Work in Semiconductor Manufacturing?" video.

That doesn't seem even real. The actual enemies of Rome did not copy their style but used their own, often with great success. Hannibal with a mercenary army made up of dozens of nationalities, probably each fighting their own specialized style, defeated Rome many times. Ariminus learned from the Romans but did not copy them: he learned their limitations and ambushed them Germanic style. The Parthians and Persians often defeated the Romans with their own styles. The states that copied the Romans were Roman vassals or satellites, like the late Seleucids of Syria. Roman success was founded mostly on a strong state and almost endless manpower, as well as emphasis on fortifications (that's why Hannibal never besieged Rome probably). Also Taiwan copied the USA originally on the semiconductor industry. Sometimes copies are better than the original. The problem is not in the industry as such but in pay, which in turn depends on cost of life (Marx 101, workers won't work for less that they need, employers won't generally pay much above that). The problem is that cost of life is very different across the world. A good strategy for the USA would be relocating not to the USA itself but to a satellite with lower costs, unsure if Puerto Rico will do but Poland or Jamaica may fit in the profile.
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Because they tried so hard to make computers, phones, etc. cheap for the global markets probably. Nowadays seems that prices have stuck but unil a few years ago every new generation of computers or other electronics was cheaper (and better) than the previous one. This is achieved by cutting corners, one of which was delocalizing to Asia, where cheaper labor and the famous hard work culture helped in this process of lowering the costs. If you can get the same kind of skills in an even cheaper country, say Bangladesh or Kenya, that's where companies will get the competitive edge. Moving back to the USA while cost of life is so expensive (think overpriced homes, housing bubble that never fully burst) is not competitive for the industries unless they are subsidized. It's not just the USA, it's also Europe and probably even Japan: the cost of life is too high and thus salaries are too high for the industry to afford them in terms of competition and profits. The rising cost of energy now is definitely not helping but the housing market is the core long run problem: you have to earn a lot to have a decent or even a bad home, which you need to survive. It's a background problem of financial speculation rotting whole nations from inside.
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The real question to ask is can Uncle Sam lure enough foreigners to work in the USA in this hard and sophisticated type of work? The USA has been brain-draining the world for a century but people like my uncle, who worked for IBM all his life, prefered to get the better labor conditions of Europe (emphasis on state-guaranteed retirement) than a very desirable pay rise. That was in the 80s if my memory is correct, today the USA is weaker than in those days but with enough pay it can probably lure qualified workers from other places like PR China, India, etc. The real question is that the companies don't want (or can't in terms capitalist of profit and competitiveness) afford the extra costs. This is in any case not really a question about US-Americans working in this strategically key segment, it's about the USA as polity making sure that, in a crisis, it has some of that strategic sector to make sure that the military and other industries keep operating normally. It is an strategical move by the state, which fears China will invade Taiwan any day and let them without access to a most strategical sector, one that can make the USA and its imperial projection collapse catastrophically, considering how important is electronics today.
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Have you heard of "Big Quit". The USA has now 3.5% unemployment (effectively zero) so people is quitting for less horrible jobs as much as they can. Also this is not addressed to the general workforce, these workers are hyper-specialized and such hyper-specialization doesn't grow on trees.
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But no clean suits...
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@doug9000 - Software makes (sometimes) overpriced unique products, hardware competes for the lowest price/quality ratio in a standardized segment. My best guess anyhow. Anyway you could say the same of bankers... Capitalism is not ruled by socialist logic, which is what you say: similar job: similar pay.
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Employers will always pay as low as they can, everything else equal (Marx' law of salary). I guess that for the context of Taiwan that enough to lure some qualified workers into it.
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@louisazraels7072 - All I can think is that one is like Hollywood and the other one like the Rust Belt (when it wasn't yet rusted). Also that's in the USA, my sister and her husband are software engineers here in Europe, and while well-off hardcore engineers of any kind are probably better off.
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@sisyphus_strives5463 - Nobody is talking about quantum computing, which in reality is still sci-fi stuff (yes, they're working on it but taming the quantum realm is very hard, maybe impossible).
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No, because there will be competition. For starters it seems that mainland China has already the capability (made in China, discovered recently in a raid against crypto-miners someplace, can't recall the exact details) but other countries will develop it anyhow (think Indonesia, India, Mexico, Brazil or South Africa maybe). The USA can't and won't get a monopoly, it's just trying to ensure a lifeline in case China forcibly annexes Taiwan; most fabs will be where the manpower is relatively cheap.
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@johnl.7754 - Those qualified workers from decades ago have moved on: retired or are working in something else.
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@thatchinaboi1 - I beg to disagree. China will anschluss Taiwan, it's only logical after its raise to first global superpower. The only alternative is that there is a democratic revolution in China but then Taiwan will annex China (sorta). But China will be China anyhow as it's not really an ideological battle, but classical imperialism (PR China is not socialist anymore, it's fully capitalist and that's why it's growingly confronted to the rival capitalist superpower). The only way China and the USA can be friends is if a third power (say India) replaces the USA as the second power, else they have to rival and Taiwan/unification is a core issue in that dangerous rivalry. Anyway, China does have plans to invade Taiwan, they would just prefer that Taiwan self-annexes instead. They don't want to get into an ugly urban war against other Chinese but they need that access to the sea and they want the USA (and growingly militarized Japan) out of "their turf".
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