Starting to think people have a very abstract idea of what it might take to “onshore” or “bring jobs home” as if you could just load a shipping container full of jobs and send it on over
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decades really. the economy has already changed massively across many decades and it cant just be de-changed to a century ago. it wouldnt even be desirable to do so without strong unionization
I have worked in the office of a little manufacturing company for the last 25+ years. We're in New England. People have absolutely no comprehension of the state of things.
The same people who dismantled those businesses, see Mitt Romey and Co, will take 20 years to build back and will want taxpayer subsidies to build anywhere.
Trump is lying, he just wants a taste from all the countries, to him.,
Trump said the jobs are coming back and so they think that factories, infrastructure, and natural resources will be brought online shortly after the businesses decide to bring jobs back.
They proudly don’t know how all this works. So they choose to believe a fairy tale.
Yes. Who’s going to spend 100 million dollars to build a factory when trump might die or lose the next election and the tariffs are reversed.
Business doesn’t invest and people don’t spend during periods of uncertainty.
i haven’t seen any economist yet explain why the idea that we will manufacture everything in america is a fantasy. or that if we did it would hugely drive up costs.
The cost question is obvious - what are Chinese labor costs? What would American labor need to charge so they can survive (not even thrive) with rampant inflation?
The last three months have shown that our regulator environment is unstable and subject to sudden change at the whim of someone with zero economic understanding.
Who is going to invest the capital to build new factories in that unstable environment?
I assume most of them, having decided for other reasons to say supportive things, are just stumped trying to come up with semi-coherent talking points.
Imagine they could ship a thousand pallets of jobs to the US tomorrow. Then imagine that the Americans working those jobs would want a living wage, health insurance, time off, whatever. The goods will be two, three or four times as much as imports. No one sees that we engage in SeS arbitrage 1/
Incentivised by crashing the market and tariffs on building supplies, machinery, parts, accessories, no government services, elderly homeless and unmedicated, dying in the streets, and no affordable housing anywhere near a new factory.
Modern manufacturing no longer employs many people. Latest Chinese EV factories are increasingly “dark” with neither lights nor workers. Fully automated. Their main recruiting focus is SW and semiconductor designers.
At some point the US population will need to experience 21st century realities.
The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of business, and they seemingly have no clue how complex, risky, and expensive it is to overhaul a company's production facilities, workforce, and supply chain.
To be fair, my employer could actually re-shore jobs without any additional costs by simply rehiring the programmers they laid off when they chose to off-shore our work to India and Eastern Europe.
Something like 3 million call center, sales, customer service, tech support and software engineering jobs have this same feature. Doesn't take much infrastructure investment to put a dev team together.
But rising payroll costs is bad for the stock price, so...
Well, we COULD bring a whole lot of customer service jobs back home. You know, all those jobs where agent sit at home, on their computers, talking to customers via telephone to solve issues, arrange deliveries, etc. Those would be EASY to bring back.
The management is gonna have to take less than they're used to. Right now, they're a class of parasites that feed off the backs of slave-wage workers and ignorant consumers.
They could start by asking “why were the American jobs replaced by foreign jobs?”
Or just do what you should always do when things are inexplicably screwed up: follow the money.
Most of the manufacturing done in Asia is low-cost goods that it doesn’t make economic sense to make with high income labor. It’s not even corporate profit— you can’t find people to make plastic toasters at a price point where those people could then afford to buy said toaster.
But that's exactly the corporate profit problem though. Because if you don't pay americans properly? On account of our cost of living which corporate also controls. Americans can't buy stuff. And our economy still takes massive hits. We're still talking the same thing here.
Americans buy lots of stuff. We consume 36% of the worlds goods! We are a high income country, on the global scale. There’s no comparative advantage to us sewing a pair of jeans here at our wages, we should be way higher on the value chain. Trade is good.
There literally is. A stable economy that isn't at the whim of weirdos. And then of course. Once more. Those companies paying living wages so they themselves can get more profit.
There is no living wage you can pay someone in America to make goods that are cheap and plentiful. The opportunity cost is *to the worker* is too high. It’s the same reason cardiac surgeons don’t spend time sewing their own clothes. You get that right?
Investing in factories not in america because of the low wage aspect? Makes sure that america can't compete. Because there are always a billion countries willing to do slave labor. The morality aspect is a money maker. Or could have been. Because it attaches directly to stability.
The general idea. Because of line go up an down. Is that making sure americans can continue existing is moral an there for bad. There's exactly zero attention paid to the fact that american business people have categorically screwed themselves and us for temporary profit.
That is exactly what they thought, because that is what they were told by the orange one, and of course they believe anything he says, let's keep America dumb.
I remember attending an event you participated in at Davis back during the recession in which you were discussing economic history. I feel the farmers and others asking you and your fellow panelists questions had similar misconceptions. Sad we as a country aren’t learning
But are we really surprised? I've been telling people logic and morality are directly attached when talking human beings for a while now. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia have had direct effects on how americans even can think. As in. Those are the core of what you said.
To understand that tossing jobs overseas is bad for america/americans? You'd first have to care enough to inspect it. Which means caring about america lives. And bam. There goes jobs, our economy, etc in one go. So are we really surprised? Or are we surprised at how bad it got?
I don’t want to onshore banana picking jobs to pick bananas we can’t grow here, or t shirt sewing jobs that would make all t-shirts $50. Rather my kids be cloud engineers or doctors, but that’s me.
Made a similar comment to my wife yesterday that it seems too many people think they can just pick up the overseas factories and overnight them to the US...
Where are all these people clamoring to work manufacturing jobs? They are horrible places to work, and only with Union won wages and benefits had any positive effects. The Unions have been destroyed. Hell, we're still waiting for Foxconn to be built.
I’m old enough to know this, workers in manufacturing are the salt of the earth BUT they really aren’t always the sharpest pencil in the box, hence the reason so many of them couldn’t get jobs. For the education side most of them had at best a high school diploma or maybe a vocational degree.
So the reason they are so drawn to that industry. When it all started evaporating in the late 80’s early 90’s it was absolutely devastating for them and they struggled to find jobs especially in small towns. You have to understand that most baby boomers manufacturing was all they knew and so most
Went under employed for half or worse what they made in the plants. So for them it was devastating and it baked on the brain and it’s still there and the sadness and reality of it all was pushed up to GenX it was always do better than your parents if you can.
People confuse the thing they miss, which is living wages for "unskilled" labor, with missing manufacturing jobs which actually sucked and got people killed.
One response to our tariff message was that we should start manufacturing our own brake components here in the US.
That would be nice to see! But would be millions of dollars and many years away - we need brakes (and myriad other components) to put on our bikes right now in 2025.
My impression is many people are totally clueless. Just easier to be told how it’s gonna work, even if the authority is a stupid dolt.
Whoops. That’s redundant. The authority’s
incredibly DUMB.
It would take at least 5 years and tens of millions of dollars to build just ONE new factory from scratch and get it up and running, fully staffed, mostly with robots.
Some factories they’ve left are still standing. For example StarKist/Heinz. Levis. Detroit still there. We rarely demolish those properties, just let it crumble. It would hurt to come back but it should. They want our markets without our workers.
Factory workers' wage in China is about USD $6/hr, in USA is now $28.64/hr
Old US factories are full of asbestos, lead, PCBs, chlorinated solvents, etc. They don't have the HVAC or wiring now required by electronic controls and robots. It costs a fortune to renovate or tear them down, & takes years.
Yes, everything built before the 80’s? Some I’ve mentioned have been in use till 2003’ which means it’s still usable. Toyota closed Cali’s in the late 90’s. It’s expensive but necessary. We currently depend on that $6/h from elsewhere and look how it ended. Manufacturing is security.
Also there's the absolute lack of any White House programme/plan to ensure crippling tarrifs have the "alleged" desired effect of increasing domestic mfg. They didn't even bother building a Potemkin Village. There's no "there" there. No assistance or education programs to help businesses transition!
I would think something like a tax cut for keeping business in the USA would be more incentive than tarrifs...but I am not very familiar with the business side of politics and such so perhaps I'm way off
But only the UK is trying. Australia, Canada and the EU are flipping the bird. Mexico and the other Spanish empire nations are aligning with the ACE coalition.
And we’re not actually “bringing jobs back.” Even if manufacturing came back to the U.S., it would 100% be AI and machines doing the work—because corporations have zero interest in paying people
They’ve been working overtime to cut human labor out of their equation entirely
We aren’t even discussing white collar jobs including tech jobs in India, The Philippines, Chile, Ireland, and so many other countries which actually might be easier to bring back than manufacturing. This hurts more and avoids hurting many of the Fortune 500 companies.
It's all so stupid and exposes what little he actually knows about "business." Other than effing up every business endeavor he's ever been involved in. Stunning incompetence. 🙄😠
Trying to math this theory.
Say a car will be 20% more after tariffs with everything exactly as it stands today… to do the same thing here, manufacturer would still have to import many parts at 20%, building materials for the factory also at 20%, plus labor costs up 10-20%…
Which one will ppl buy?
I’m no economist nor am I particularly good at math. But I can’t wrap my head around it at all.
I think he’s not faking the tariffs being here to stay, but he’ll start cherry picking what industries/companies & countries he’ll offset them with subsidies. It’s financial autocracy. Only he can choose.
I know how to sew, most Americans are not going to learn to sew and do it for less than $20 an hour. Our clothing will cost much more, which I think is a good thing. Cheap clothing is bad for the environment, bad for the skilled workers in poor countries being taken advantage of and bad for America
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Trump is lying, he just wants a taste from all the countries, to him.,
Trump said the jobs are coming back and so they think that factories, infrastructure, and natural resources will be brought online shortly after the businesses decide to bring jobs back.
They proudly don’t know how all this works. So they choose to believe a fairy tale.
Business doesn’t invest and people don’t spend during periods of uncertainty.
Here’s a piece discussing the costs of building new factories:
https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-tariffs-manufacturing-onshoring-obstacles-a36686cb
The cost question is obvious - what are Chinese labor costs? What would American labor need to charge so they can survive (not even thrive) with rampant inflation?
It’s a fantasy.
Who is going to invest the capital to build new factories in that unstable environment?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_status
he's so full of 💩
At some point the US population will need to experience 21st century realities.
But rising payroll costs is bad for the stock price, so...
Or just do what you should always do when things are inexplicably screwed up: follow the money.
Cheetolini doesn't know how to do anything so he blows everything up and makes others fix it
Since working beyond my life expectancy is now a certainty.
What people want are better jobs and you aren't getting those without Unions and probably some time training up to do the job.
Jobs don't come home -> no manufacturing boom -> tariff income but inflation and no jobs
with what
That would be nice to see! But would be millions of dollars and many years away - we need brakes (and myriad other components) to put on our bikes right now in 2025.
Industrialization & trade make technology accessible to everyday consumers.
Unfortunately it's just not feasible to make a quality Bunch Bike from scratch in your garage!
We need this trade fellas.
Whoops. That’s redundant. The authority’s
incredibly DUMB.
https://textilefocus.com/occupational-hazards-in-textile-sector/
Might stop feeding them three meals a day so they’re small enough to crawl inside the machinery and fix it.
Old US factories are full of asbestos, lead, PCBs, chlorinated solvents, etc. They don't have the HVAC or wiring now required by electronic controls and robots. It costs a fortune to renovate or tear them down, & takes years.
Let's drop all pretense and admit that the plan is to crush wages.
But only the UK is trying. Australia, Canada and the EU are flipping the bird. Mexico and the other Spanish empire nations are aligning with the ACE coalition.
It's such FLIMSY economic premise.
They’ve been working overtime to cut human labor out of their equation entirely
Say a car will be 20% more after tariffs with everything exactly as it stands today… to do the same thing here, manufacturer would still have to import many parts at 20%, building materials for the factory also at 20%, plus labor costs up 10-20%…
Which one will ppl buy?
I think he’s not faking the tariffs being here to stay, but he’ll start cherry picking what industries/companies & countries he’ll offset them with subsidies. It’s financial autocracy. Only he can choose.
It took him 2 years to even begin to spin that up in Texas, and he’s still totally reliant on supplies from China.
You don’t just snap your fingers and boom, there’s a spiffy new manufacturing plant.