Agree. The problem is over extended lengths of time the people with the skills to make these things—or make tools that make them—will leave the workforce.

That's how this goes from being a market issue to a skill issue.

The later form was part of the design from the beginning: relying on imports for something this critical in times of an epidemic was a supply chain risk. It was never intended to compete in terms of pricing.

It baffles me that this wasn’t made more explicit? That seems to be the root cause of the failure.

If the price is too high you aren’t skilled enough to make them cheaper

Over time, the latter becomes the former.

Who’s paying to bring online a factory that sites idle just in case? Are you also paying workers to sit there idle?

Or stockpile a two year supply. You can get a lot with a billion dollars.

As pointed out earlier, there is also rotation of a stockpile of gloves instead of manufacturing which reduces costs and solves the same issues.

Even things made in America were in short supply during the pandemic because workers were hard to come by as well. A factory isn’t any good if half the people to run it are sick, but it doesn’t take special training to hand out boxes of gloves.

And in the midst of a start-stop petrochemical supply crisis.

Those who do not learn from history... probably don't make gloves.

It's amazing how much those spreadsheet heads know nothing about how the actual world works

I wonder if they can at least create a small scale NBR factory.

Or maybe not start stupid wars but this is America we're talking so meh...

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.

You think someone should be made a permanent pariah for suggesting medical gloves be manufactured in Malaysia or Thailand, rather than the US? Why?

NBR = nitrile butadiene rubber, a synthetic rubber. Not really a raw material, as it's synthesized.

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.

Why is it so simple? Instead of investing billions, perhaps a stockpile is a better strategy.

The US started the tariff game btw

I did the same research in elementary school! My parents were my seed investors. They asked for 25% of equity - all I ended up giving them was some collectible artwork for the fridge.

:) Love the early research. It seems to me that your product could be useful, particularly since those gloves are hard to put on.

Medical gloves are not sterile (outside maybe of ones specifically packaged for use in an OR).

Which is fine - when you put on gloves, they just cover up whatever is on your skin in the same way.

The article states some of the companies successfully made gloves, but customers such as hospitals considered the prices too high, which is why they're looking to the federal government to be the primary customer now.

You have to separate the YouTube clickbait from the real learning content in there.

US manufacturing is expensive because wages are high, but also because we focus on the high end work that pays more . Even the small machine shops I used 10 years ago for small scale production runs are no longer interested in doing any small batch work. They have more contract work from big companies than they can handle, and the big companies pay more and have higher order quantities.

If you’re a shop or a factory in the US you’re never going to take some small orders for a grill brush from some YouTuber who doesn’t have any expertise in marketing grill brushes. Everyone is going to turn that order down because there’s no money or future in it, but there’s plenty of better work that pays better from companies who want to keep using your services in the future.

The claim he failed seems like hyperbole. He couldn't find an existing manufacturer for chainmail in the US but this is a fairly trivial and niche thing to create, and is more a reflection of how uncommon it is for people to need that specific type and size of chain mail than it is that the US is incapable of making it. The other part is from Costa Rica only bc he hasn't yet made the injection mold for it, like he did for the handle itself.

The market rewards companies that know how to play the market, and the market isn't a free market.

The market does reward proficiency. We live in the punished timeline. No contradiction. Most software is buggy and most businesses fail.

The problem with MBAs and lawyers is that they are not problem solvers. They are the embodiment of short-term thinking not all just most.

I agree, a free market would work that way... Yet 'fail upwards' and zombie companies seem to be the default. Personally I don't believe that what we have in the west is a free market. I think these days, it's probably less free than the one in China. The market here is completely smothered by regulations.

For example, about a month ago, I saw a video about people farming frogs in China... To collect secretions for medical use. At first I thought WTF. But then they mentioned how much it sells for and I thought "Wow. We have a lot of cane toads here everywhere, it would be a great business to do here." I actually started thinking of doing this... This is really out there for me because I'm a software engineer; but I started seriously considering this. But guess what? I did my research and turns out it's illegal to do it in my country (Australia) because the frog secretions would be considered an illicit substance and you need to go through some expensive process to obtain a license. Yes, you need a license to farm frogs...

A few weeks back, I read news about someone who got arrested for farming cockroaches (as reptile food for zoos)... It's like all the entry-point business opportunities have become illegal.

Every time I heard of a case like this where some really good niche business opportunity is illegal in Australia, I asked my AI if this practice is legal in China and the answer is almost always yes.

The other day, I was watching a documentary about Philippines and I saw a kind of makeshift resort built literally on top of a coral reef. Really amazing looking. They seemed to be getting good reviews and actually making money... This would NEVER be allowed in my country. At best, you could purchase a ship for millions of dollars then apply for expensive licenses, then you'd have limits on how many people you can take at a time, etc... So many constraints and regulations. Such artificially high capital requirements. It would be a worse experience and less profitable; and you'd have to be filthy rich just to get a chance to engage in that highly constrained, mediocre business activity.

Because of the slack complaints?