Made in America: The short list

[mookiemookie]

Well, you can pay $30 for a shirt made in America, or you can pay $10 for one made in India. You can have a workforce of 1,000,000 factory workers all making $10 an hour, or you can have 1,000,000 workers who engineered the item the factory workers are assembling and they get paid $25 an hour. A million people with $10 to spend are not going to make for as powerful of an economy as a million people with $25 to spend.

Manufacturing was doomed as soon as international shipping and communication became as cheap and efficient as it has become.

[CaptainMattJ.]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Well, you can pay $30 for a shirt made in America, or you can pay $10 for one made in India. You can have a workforce of 1,000,000 factory workers all making $10 an hour, or you can have 1,000,000 workers who engineered the item the factory workers are assembling and they get paid $25 an hour. A million people with $10 to spend are not going to make for as powerful of an economy as a million people with $25 to spend.

Manufacturing was doomed as soon as international shipping and communication became as cheap and efficient as it has become.

Why not pay the workers 25 dollars an hour. Then youll have two million people with 25 dollars to spend, instead of one million. Henry Ford had this crazy idea of paying his workforce enough money to buy the products he sold.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.

Why not pay the workers 25 dollars an hour. Then youll have two million people with 25 dollars to spend, instead of one million. Henry Ford had this crazy idea of paying his workforce enough money to buy the products he sold.

Because labor wages are an input to the final cost of your finished good. A company can sell a Chinese shirt made by workers making $1 an hour a heck of a lot cheaper than they can an American made one where they paid workers $10 or $25 an hour, ceteris paribus.

And we Americans have become very accustomed to cheap shirts.

[Tchocky]

What Americans tend to make now are the machines that foriegn low-wage labourers use to make things Americans used to make.


I *think* that was English, not sure.

[the_tyrant]

Made in the USA (or Canada, or the UK for this matter) is not competitive world wide.

Maybe Ducimus will buy something because it is made in America, but people like him accounts for only a small percentage of the American population, and the US accounts for only a small percentage of the global population.

To the rest of the world, why would they buy something that is more expensive because it is made in America?

Also, people usually say Made in America = better quality. Well thing is, there is no correlation between quality and the location where it is made. I have seen amazing quality on some things that are made in Japan or Germany. in this age of mass production, there isn't really anything stopping the goods made in China or Mexico from being bad quality really.

I just don't see a future where more things are being manufactured in the US. Hell, I don't even see a future where manufacturing is done by cheap labor in China or Mexico.

[MH]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Made in the USA (or Canada, or the UK for this matter) is not competitive world wide.

Maybe Ducimus will buy something because it is made in America, but people like him accounts for only a small percentage of the American population, and the US accounts for only a small percentage of the global population.
.

True...that's the reality but question is if this kind of economy is not causing circular reaction that actually turns against the very people who enjoy it in long run.
Regulated chinese economy may delay the equilibrium of wages and work condition for long time to come.

[Stealhead]

Actually they are already building factories in places like Vietnam and Cambodia because there are enough Chinese workers wanting higher pay.

I agree that quality is relative just because something is made in the US or any other country does not mean that is the best quality product or the best priced product.That being said I do find generally speaking that products that are made in a 1st world country usually are better quality.

Why someone would be impressed that a German or Japanese product is of good quality is a bit beyond me both of these nations are known for having workers that take pride in making a good product Japan did not become known for this until after WWII first with very well made metal toys and later with complex machinery and electronics now only certain components are made in Japan.Same goes for Germany it has been known for quality manufacture for some time in fact this actually hurt them during WWII because they just could not pull them selves away from high quality complexity.

Wal Mart and over consumerism is what has done us in people want low cost over anything else and that is why most items are not made in the US or 1st world nations now our only major in demand comity are high cost items that require complex machinery and engineering to even produce the problem is that these types of items usually do not require very many workers to produce so less jobs you only need maybe 100-150 workers at a GE turbofan factory you might need 500 or more workers at a t-shirt factory.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

What Americans tend to make now are the machines that foriegn low-wage labourers use to make things Americans used to make.

Spot on.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

What Americans tend to make now are the machines that foriegn low-wage labourers use to make things Americans used to make.

One has to wonder how long it will take before that comes full circle?