Comment on Do people really think setting up domestic manufacturing in the USA is easy?
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 2 weeks agoConsider:
scenario today:
labor cost for product is $3, which goes to a chinese worker. total product cost is $5.
scenario “manufactured in the USA”:
labor cost is $6, which goes to american worker. total product cost is $10.
the product gets more expensive, but the extra expenses partially go to an american worker, which again will spend the money in the US economy, so it doesn’t really cost the national economy that much.
however, the extra $4 in the “manufactured in the USA” scenario go to american middle-management and “investors” a.k.a skimmed by the owning class. that is why the people would still lose out. that is why “home-shoring” in itself is not enough; a wealth tax is also needed.
FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Of course it works out if you throw any numbers in that you want. Minimum hourly wage in the US is 7.25-ish in Alabama and the rest of the decrepit South, to 16-ish in California. I googled minimum wage in China and its roughly 3.40-ish at its highest. At the worst, China is half as expensive, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the disparity between the actual industrial areas of China and Califonia/Colorado for example might be 8x.
Whats happening here is that the poorly educated South is wanting me to subsidize their lack of marketable job skills by making me pay extra for American goods instead of Chinese goods.
And don’t forget that the extra money these Americans earn will be partially consumed by the extra cost of living anyways. Not to mention the years or decades of investment it will take to get factories set here anyways, all for low-skill, physically demanding, and mentally unengaging employment.
Manufacturing should be automated anyways because nobody should have to sit at a conveyor belt all day and toil their lives away assembling dumb trinkets.