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Americans seem to think that with a snap of their almighty fingers, the US will magically have all sorts of manufacturing capabilities, retail and transportation chain links, raw material and partS links to make and service all sorts of stuff.....sure just like magic! Lol
You know nothing about World War 2, do you? The American production lines spun on a dime from manufacturing consumer goods to making war time goods.
The only raw materials China has more of than the USA are Rare Earth Minerals, but we have a massive mine out west that hasn't had 1 shovel stuck in the ground yet. I dont think we know how much is there.
We refine almost no rare Earth minerals, and that must stop NOW. We recycle some, but ship the ore's to China to be refined, and then they are shipped back to us. REM's are our #1 exposure, and that is one area that can't spin on a dime.
The majority of people have a hard time making ends meet now, they could not afford to pay for US made products that would cost 4 to 5 times more than Chinas or other countries prices.
The majority of people (~88%) in the U.S. are making ends meet. Only ~12% live at, or below, the poverty line. Even most people in poverty have housing with running water/sewer, electricity, HVAC, TV's, cell phones, cars, & food to eat. The poverty line in America would be considered affluent in many countries across the globe.
imho, American made products do not typically cost 4 to 5X more than Chinese products. That differential would be an outlier. Can you provide a link to support your claim?
The average worker in Shanghai makes ~$20K (in US Dollars), and the median US income is ~$63k, so that is only a factor of 3, and China must transport their goods a long way that adds cost. They also have to pay middlemen. I often shop products from both places, and my finding show an average of 40% difference, and its been falling.
Automation will erode China's labor cost advantage as time passes. China is in a short-term cost advantage cycle, but it's eroding due to their rising wages, and global automation. When energy costs normalize, they will take another cost hit.
The US has less than 5 % of the world’s population, yet consumes 35 % of global resources. The US does not have a population adequate to meet its level of consumption. So the US imports people and goods.
Regions in China set their own Minimum Wage which according to this, ranges from $1.62- 3.35/ hr USD. What a wage buys in the local economy matters far more than the actual wage. For all we know the lowest wage of $1.62 may buy more in the local economy than 3.35 does in another region.
China has many labor laws and social benefits, including Rest Days, OT ranging from 150-300% of base wage, Paid Holidays, Sick Leave, Maternity Leave, Paid Vacation, Pension, Medical Insurance, Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance etc.
Wage/ benefits is only a part of the cost of production. The cost of land, construction, maintenance, utilities, equipment, insurance, safety, fire and building codes, transportation, taxes etc are all factors of the wholesale cost of goods.
The ever increasing cost of production is why China continues to lose market share to countries with cheaper sources of production like India, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Combined these three countries have 5x the US population. Then there’s Indonesia....
Where the US can compete are those products that can be mostly manufactured by custom robotics, requiring higher skilled people.
I just bought a set of sheets made from a cotton mill in Alabama using 100% American grown cotton, woven percale style. Very nicely stitched, big enough with room to spare for the mattress, thick and cool to sleep in. And they weren't loaded down with smelly sizing that takes forever to wash out. They did cost more, but it was well worth it.
Nothing like the foreign made thin high thread count "satin" sheets that pass for quality in the USA these days.
Paying more for domestic products, better service, and safer products/service is often advocated. It never happens.
We are all the authors of the world we live in.
If most consumers see a pad of paper selling for $1.00 and another selling for $0.97, they buy the cheaper one. They do not flip it over to see the country of origin.
We all hate air travel, but the crowding, terrible service and overall low satisfaction are all a result of everyone demanding the cheapest price.
If a politician wants to score points with the electorate, they rail against excess regulation and preach how businesses can regulate themselves. We end up with our parents and grandparents dying of neglect in long term care facilities, unsafe food, and Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
All of this and more is driven by the collective “us” demanding the cheapest possible ticket price for everything. When things go badly awry, we all demand things change, but it’s all forgotten when things normalize.
“We have met the enemy and he is us” - Walt Kelly
In my former career I used to travel weekly within the US. An unrestricted Coach seat sold for what a First Class seat sells for today on any major airline on the same route. Lower cost carriers eroded the traditional business model. Consumers increasingly chose to fly low cost carriers and either did without bells/ whistles or were willing to pay for just the bell/ whistle they wanted.
Mainstream commercial carriers had no choice but to compete with low cost carriers to survive. And many carriers did not survive.
Anyone can continue to sit in comfortable seats with leg room, dine on a choice of meals, travel with nearly unlimited luggage, etc. All they have to do is pay more for a First Class Seat. The masses either won’t or can’t afford to do so. And instead, fly Coach and complain.
You can see how the conditioning has been a sucess..people actually argue for supporting the communist Red Chinese and prefer their cheap goods over American manufacturing and jobs for America. We are addicted to cheap slave/child made cheap foreign goods the heck with what its done to our economy. When the coming war with Red China finally breaks out and ALL cheap stuff stops coming and once the shelves are empty see how that works out..."free trade" is how you take down America without bombs or bullets.
I just bought a set of sheets made from a cotton mill in Alabama using 100% American grown cotton, woven percale style. Very nicely stitched, big enough with room to spare for the mattress, thick and cool to sleep in. And they weren't loaded down with smelly sizing that takes forever to wash out. They did cost more, but it was well worth it.
Nothing like the foreign made thin high thread count "satin" sheets that pass for quality in the USA these days.
Nearly every producing country is capable of producing high quality and crap. Depends on the job specifications.
There are some US manufactured bedding companies in the US. The cotton is typically grown in California. The business relies on custom industrial robotics to create the fabric and focuses on e- commerce sales. Such bedding sells for multiples of what most consumers are willing to pay for bedding at say Bed/ Bath, Kohl’s or Overstock like online retailers.
The My Pillow guy claims his pillows are made in the US. He does not mention the contents are imported. He expanded to sheets made in Egypt from cotton grown, harvested, spun and woven in Egypt.
I remember when WalMart prided itself upon selling mostly American products, and would even help their American suppliers scale up to their volume needs. That sold in rural America where Wal Mart began, but when they came to the big cities, they started peddling the Chinese products to lower prices.
The cost advantage China once had over the US, and other places has eroded a lot in the last 20 years. If the current trend continues, in some of our lifetimes, China's cost advantage will be mostly gone. Remember, China must transport their goods a long ways. When the cost of energy rebounds, China's transportation costs + their ever-increasing labor costs will slow their growth.
China also now has strong anti-China sentiment across the globe.
china's labor costs have already risen to the point they're not the cheapest player in the game anymore. that's why production is moving elsewhere.
even if it moves back on shore, it will not be the employment boom we all think it is. with automation and robotics constantly improving, it will be a few techs maintaining the robots and some combination of high skilled workers/engineers, and low skilled labor where it still makes sense to use human labor (cleaning toilets, etc.).
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