Quote:
Originally Posted by bobtn
It could well be some additional inflation. I don't like paying more, and in an era with rising Health Care costs its painful on many, but GE recently announced plans to in-source 500 mfg jobs to upstate NY.
Most say "Can't compete with China", that's only partly true. They say they make $5 a day or so. Pretty close, but a 40' container from asia-US cost $12k to get here, with oil at $70 or so. One only gains when the labor content alone would have cost >$12k more in the US. With $100 oil, perhaps its $16 or $18k by now, or soon, as the pump/refined prices have not yet caught up fully to $100 oil.
The flipside of pricey oil is its in everything, and steel, and copper are also soaring. That spells inflation. If its not Carteresque inflation, having an above avg comfortable income level and knowing its safe, I'd accept that trade.
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Which is why I am convinced we will see thousands of mill jobs open up along the south in the near future.
With the cotton crop failure in China they would have to pay to ship cotton from the US and then back again and they just can't do that which is why textile mills are closing all across China.
Shipping container standard dimensions
40' Dry Freight Container
Maximum Gross Weight: 67,200 lbs.
Tare Weight: 7,782 lbs.
Payload: 59,417 lbs.
Capacity: 2,376 cu. ft.
Internal Dimensions
Length: 39' 1"
Width: 7' 6"
Height: 7' 8"
A bale of compressed, standard cotton measures 57" × 29" × 23" and weighs between 500 and 520 lbs.
That's 22.00 cu. ft..
A 40' shipping container can hold 108 bales of cotton which would add if it "cost $12k to get here, with oil at $70 or so" (but what if it is $102?) that's $25,000 for the round trip or adding an additional $231 to the price of a bale of cotton.
I should add you will not get 108 bales in a container. You will be lucky to get 90 because it is already compressed to feel like concrete blocks from the mills.
As I said in another thread the only country in the world today with cotton is the United States. Cotton crops have failed everywhere else most notably China and Pakistan.
Shipping alone can easily add $2.50 to $3.00 to the price of a pair of jeans (weight 2 lbs ea) and for that, added to what Chinese manufacture costs are, we can manufacture it here.
Textile plants are closing all across China leaving hundreds of thousands unemployed. Allow me this moment to laugh at all the Chinese freakazoids with claims the coming century will the the century of China. China is done.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/work-...egins-abc.html
In the course of my job I've seen a number of plans for reopening mills, with some employing 500 to1,000 people, all across the south. Knock it if you want but these are exactly the kind of jobs America so desperately needs right now. $10/hr to start, $12 to $14 average but the big thing is all mills I have had contact with in the past offered medical benefits to workers and their families. This isn't high end work that requires college... you don't even have to have finished high school just have the ability to show up on time and work hard every day will do it. Husband and wife team working can earn $50k/year and in many parts of the rural south a family can live rather well on that.
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