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Shouldn’t we be making things in the U.S.?

It seems that corporations reliance for Luther countries to make everything for us is not working out.

Shouldn’t we be bringing factories back to the U.S,?

We should have started 2 years ago. This supply chain stuff seems like corporate greed run amok.

by Anonymousreply 63January 16, 2022 3:46 PM

What happened to all the factories that Trump was going to build?

by Anonymousreply 1January 14, 2022 12:59 PM

Remember when the republicans would run on “jobs, jobs, jobs?

Well those jobs were crappy and it appears nobody wanted them.

Now what?

by Anonymousreply 2January 14, 2022 1:00 PM

If you have American production you can believe these supply chain issues would be over by now.

by Anonymousreply 3January 14, 2022 1:06 PM

All of it can be traced to cheaper workers. That's why manufacturing left the U.S. First Japan, then Korea and now China and India. On the one hand it's lead to less animosity between the nations. On the other it's screwed the U.S. workers something fierce.

by Anonymousreply 4January 14, 2022 1:15 PM

I recall job hunting. The spouse just said take admin assistant or other type jobs. But if you look at my resume I've never been one of those.

by Anonymousreply 5January 14, 2022 1:17 PM

[quote] This supply chain stuff seems like corporate greed run amok.

Wrong. It’s American consumer greed run amok. In a country in which consumers continue to knowingly patronize businesses which pay their employees so little that a full-time worker qualifies for food stamps and public assistance the low price is king. American consumers, accustomed to Walmart and Target pricing want more for less and any company which manufactured consumer goods in the US, even with paying their employees poverty wages, would have to charge so much for the product they would price themselves out of business.

Americans low prices are built on the backs of SE Asian workers making two dollars, or less, an hour and no rejiggering of the supply chain will change that fact.

by Anonymousreply 6January 14, 2022 1:17 PM

It’s never too late. Companies can start behaving better now. They can bring back factories and pay workers fairly and still make plenty of money.

by Anonymousreply 7January 14, 2022 1:20 PM

Americans are lazy. Americans as feel entitled. Americans are 5% of the world population, and use 40% of the world resources. You get what you deserve. Americans are lazy.

by Anonymousreply 8January 14, 2022 1:26 PM

If you think people complain about prices now...

by Anonymousreply 9January 14, 2022 1:29 PM

R7, please provide something other than opinion. Would Americans pay higher prices? He threads complaining about a measly 7% annual inflation rate don’t seem to suggest that is true.

by Anonymousreply 10January 14, 2022 1:29 PM

R6 hits the nail on the head...yes, manufacturing within the US is important (especially since it would keep North America self-reliant) but how do you pay good wages and not charge 5X more for your product?

It makes me sick that the functioning of the1st world relies on the hard work of people in the 3rd world. We all say how bad slavery is...but the only reason we have what we do is because of it. Poor people earning slave wages in other countries.

by Anonymousreply 11January 14, 2022 1:30 PM

“but how do you pay good wages and not charge 5X more for your product?”

Oh come on. You have been brainwashed to the teeth.

It would mean a little less profit for the trillionaires. They can live without it.

by Anonymousreply 12January 14, 2022 1:34 PM

R12, these aren’t privately owned companies. They are publicly-traded companies which are owned by lots people, many of which are middle-class Americans with 401k plans invested in the stock market.

The problem with America and our economy is that we have been brainwashed to expect bigger and greater without having to pay for it. You can blame faceless rich guys all you want but no one believes your simplistic world view.

by Anonymousreply 13January 14, 2022 1:41 PM

The hedge funds have bought all the legacy brands and turned them into zombie companies. We need new commerce. New companies and a new way of doing business that’s not so styled in the ways of the mafia.

by Anonymousreply 14January 14, 2022 1:42 PM

If you put a Made in the USA store next to Walmart all the yahoos would still go to Walmart since their items would be a third of the price.

by Anonymousreply 15January 14, 2022 1:44 PM

Private equity owns more of these companies than all working Americans combined. Don’t sing that song. It’s a new day and a new year and that is not going to cut it.

We are in this mess because corporations are addicted to easy cash and so are their zillionaire benefactors.

by Anonymousreply 16January 14, 2022 1:44 PM

R15

Exactly.

by Anonymousreply 17January 14, 2022 1:45 PM

Except OP then we'd have to pay factory workers a living wage and benefits, executives would have to pay more in taxes (UI tax for one) and, worst of all, consumers would have to pay more. Plus we've had it drilled into us that everyone should go to college, so who's going to work these jobs if we think we're too good for them? Immigrants? Sorry, we have to pay them living wages now, too, as well as prevent workplace injury/death (with the possible exception of slaughterhouses). We also can't count on endless convoys of Irish/eastern Europeans/Mexicans to do the grunt work we no longer want to do. This is a problem in Switzerland, where population growth is negligible and (non-skilled/non-white) immigration is tightly controlled: when possible people go to France/Germany or Italy to stock up because consumer goods are always more expensive in Switzerland. As R14 rightly says, the rise of private equity also means that running a company consists of squeezing out as much cash as possible in the shortest amount of time with no regard for employees.

by Anonymousreply 18January 14, 2022 1:47 PM

OP- EVERYTHING was made in the USA prior to the mid 1960's which is when the Japanese started DUMPING their televisions , transistor radios and other stuff into the U.S.

In 1965 95% of all the clothing sold in the USA was made in the USA.

by Anonymousreply 19January 14, 2022 1:49 PM

Manufacturing will continue to become automated.

While bringing it back to the US might alleviate some short-term employment issues, in the long-run, it will provide fewer and fewer jobs. The time, effort, and resources to bring it back would be better spent on other sectors of the economy if the point is to raise the overall standard of living and wages.

This is why people on message boards who don't understand business, finance, economics, and the required analytics should do some research before making absurd claims.

by Anonymousreply 20January 14, 2022 1:49 PM

Well these people who make excuses for corporations are so sick and inhuman. It’s like they are masochists who want to be treated as badly as possibly and then want to defend their abusers. A bunch of sickos.

by Anonymousreply 21January 14, 2022 1:55 PM

Maybe not everything. But we should be making more things here.

by Anonymousreply 22January 14, 2022 2:17 PM

The average smart TV is under $500 and made in China and still turns a profit. If the same TV was sold in the US it would probably cost $2500 for the company to make a profit.

It’s not just employee cost (salaries, insurance) but the US corporate tax rate, real estate and infrastructure costs. Manufacturing has been priced out of the US. We are now a knowledge and service economy. Manufacturing and production will never return as a viable industry.

by Anonymousreply 23January 14, 2022 2:18 PM

Of course OP. sure, the American made goods would be costlier. Slap heavy duties on imports to make them competitive.

by Anonymousreply 24January 14, 2022 2:50 PM

R23 is weak Chinese propaganda. That at is their favorite argument to trot out when demands are made for stateside repatriation. It’s basically cut and pasted from the Chinese goverment website.

by Anonymousreply 25January 14, 2022 2:55 PM

Stuff was manufactured in the US for a century with no problem. Stop falling for the corporate/Chinese talking points.

by Anonymousreply 26January 14, 2022 2:56 PM

[quote] corporations reliance for Luther countries

I can't stand those Luther countries!

by Anonymousreply 27January 14, 2022 2:58 PM

It's plain old corporate greed at the expense of the people.

by Anonymousreply 28January 14, 2022 3:04 PM

R24 Import tariffs are not a one way street, If you impose them on foreign made goods they will impose the same on US made goods and current manufacturing jobs will be lost.

Your largest exporter is Boeing and they already have stiff competition from Airbus and the new Chinese aircraft to contend with.

If you are willing to live with that you become North Korea eventually.

by Anonymousreply 29January 14, 2022 3:51 PM

Anything that Trump did was a scam on the American people and benefited him in some way. He was paid off to enact those tariffs. He received something for that transaction.

Maybe it was the steel industry, maybe it was the Chinese, but somebody compensated him in exchange for him implementing those tariffs. And I bet it wasn’t cheap.

by Anonymousreply 30January 14, 2022 3:54 PM

Sure, r24 & r25. I’m lifting this right out of a Chinese playbook.

by Anonymousreply 31January 14, 2022 3:57 PM

Sorry, profit margins won’t allow it.

by Anonymousreply 32January 14, 2022 4:21 PM

Then lower the profit margin. At least there will be products to sell. Half the stuff is not even making it back overseas. It’s such a mess. Time to bring it home.

by Anonymousreply 33January 14, 2022 4:38 PM

Reduce the profit margin and you need to cut costs = lower wages.

by Anonymousreply 34January 14, 2022 4:41 PM

Also you can Cut cost by keeping wages the same or raising them but lower profits. Nobody is guaranteed high profits. They are not entitled to them.

They are getting them from exploiting child workers in China who work 18 hour days. Poising them in dirty factories. You’ve seen the pleas slipped into products.

Not cool. How do they sleep at night?

by Anonymousreply 35January 14, 2022 4:49 PM

Cut executive pay.

by Anonymousreply 36January 14, 2022 4:49 PM

Charge an extra dollar for the roster made in Ohio. I’d gladly pay it.

The point is why do we lays go to cutting workers pay? And not other solutions

by Anonymousreply 37January 14, 2022 4:50 PM

*toaster

by Anonymousreply 38January 14, 2022 4:50 PM

R35 If the profits do not cover the costs of running a company they go out of business.

R37 Your Ohio made roster/toaster would cost $30 more not $1.

by Anonymousreply 39January 14, 2022 4:55 PM

[quote] Stuff was manufactured in the US for a century with no problem. Stop falling for the corporate/Chinese talking points. [quote]

This is not true. The US exported the unbelievable pollution that comes with manufacturing for a reason.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 40January 14, 2022 4:57 PM

Manufacturing has come a long way in the last 70 years but nice try.

Even if you make 1 dollar in profits you can stay in business. That’s why it’s called profit.

Let’s stop making excuses for these bloodsucking companies. There is no elaborate reason for this. They are greedy and unconcerned with anything other than maximizing profits above all else, no matter the collateral costs to the country or anything other than enriching themselves.

by Anonymousreply 41January 14, 2022 5:05 PM

R26, yes, stuff was manufactured in the US for a century with no problem. But even in China, one by one the factories replace 90 percent of the human workforce with machines. The total number of jobs that will be created by manufacturing will not be anywhere near the same as they were in the 1960s. Having the factories in the US means the air pollution will also be in the US and also there will be less living space.

by Anonymousreply 42January 14, 2022 5:23 PM

You'd be surprised how tight the margins are in brick & mortar stores even with the manufacturing in Asia.

by Anonymousreply 43January 14, 2022 5:23 PM

Manufacturing IS growing in the US. For one example, there's going to be thirteen new lithium-ion battery manufacturing plants built here over the next few years to meet the growing demand in the auto industry.

However, mass production jobs will not add significantly to the nation's workforce. Automation, people. Manufacturing is increasingly automated, meaning very few floor workers, and very few management positions as well.

This is why all the people yelping that the US needs to grow its population via immigration are only right in the very short term. There's a current short-term labor shortage, but realistically, most of the jobs vacated by retirees are not being replaced. And with shopping shifting even more to online sales as a result of the pandemic, the retail sector is learning that it can get by with fewer service workers. We've already got a huge disconnect between wages and the cost of living, and adding more people only results in more pressure to keep wages down, and more demands on public assistance by everyone who can't get a living wage job.

by Anonymousreply 44January 14, 2022 5:26 PM

Companies like wal mart use accounting tricks to try to convince the public of small margins. And the public really believes this. That they only make a few cents per product. They will even show you wal marts balance sheet to prove it. Or their p and L. Whatever documents they can Google.

But what they don’t tell you is that wal mart owns the real estate. And lots of other ways they increase their wealth and you don’t see that on a every document.

Just the real estate alone makes the company so valuable.

Amazon too. They own the real estate.

by Anonymousreply 45January 14, 2022 5:28 PM

American Business: Look over there

(While we do this thing over here)

by Anonymousreply 46January 14, 2022 5:29 PM

We should be making things here because of the supply chain issues. Not net jobs.

But the Chinese will fill up every thread with propaganda before they let that happen.

by Anonymousreply 47January 14, 2022 5:31 PM

R45 So if retailing becomes unprofitable they sell the real estate holdings putting more people out of work.

by Anonymousreply 48January 14, 2022 5:32 PM

Don’t buy this poor-mouthing bull crap form American corporations.

Don’t make it so easy.

by Anonymousreply 49January 14, 2022 5:34 PM

R16 "Private equity" is a bit of a misnomer suggesting it's all Rockefeller and friends money sloshing around in these funds. But pension funds, university endowments etc are the real big players. CalPERS, for example, has recently decided to increase its private equity allocation to 13 percent of its $500 billion of investments.

by Anonymousreply 50January 14, 2022 5:45 PM

Oh boy. Here it goes. The hedge funders always drag up “pension funds” and try to hide behind granny.

You can set your watch by these attempts to hide and deflect. Sadly the get picked up by everyday people who just repeat it. Giving these people cover to continue pillaging and picking at the bones of what’s left after a decade of post-recession hoarding by the usual players.

by Anonymousreply 51January 14, 2022 6:01 PM

At least R50 brought some numbers.

by Anonymousreply 52January 14, 2022 6:21 PM

13 percent is nothing. But let’s use that as the huge, shiny distraction.

. thanks for the “numbers”

by Anonymousreply 53January 14, 2022 6:30 PM

uh r53, 13 percent of 500 billion is $65 billion -- hardly nothing.

by Anonymousreply 54January 14, 2022 6:42 PM

Frankly, it seems to me that working in an Amazon or Walmart warehouse would be better than working in a factory.

by Anonymousreply 55January 14, 2022 10:11 PM

Many people regularly offer the opinion that the DL is too small and unimportant for Russian, or other state-sponsored, attention but this thread and the one about abortion are so out of the ordinary as to raise the hair on the back of my neck.

by Anonymousreply 56January 15, 2022 12:31 AM

Wearing those special glasses again, are you? The ones that let you see Russkies hiding under every bed? I thought they stopped making those in the Fifties.

by Anonymousreply 57January 15, 2022 12:35 AM

The US was a manufacturing god after WWII because they were the only ones who could. EMEA and APAC were destroyed and needed to rebuild. Once they could, the US could not compete with them and APAC. Finer quality, better engineering, cheaper labor all combined to be the end of the US as the manufacturing king. It was artificial created by the war.

by Anonymousreply 58January 15, 2022 12:44 AM

R58, except most of not all of the engineering, even for the chips produced in Taiwan, is done in the the US.

by Anonymousreply 59January 15, 2022 12:52 AM

[quote] Just the real estate alone makes the company so valuable.

I am curious if the real estate really is that valuable. Most WalMarts in my area, if they closed down no other store or store(s) would move in, so how valuable could the land be?

by Anonymousreply 60January 15, 2022 4:07 AM

Most chain stores don’t own the real estate. It is owned by institutional investors.

by Anonymousreply 61January 15, 2022 4:32 AM

R61 McDonald's is famous for being more into real estate than burgers.

by Anonymousreply 62January 15, 2022 10:28 AM

r59 not true. TSMC and Samsung make 70% of the world's chips - engineering included happens in Taiwan and South Korea.

by Anonymousreply 63January 16, 2022 3:46 PM
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