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Maybe, or maybe not. Clothing imported from China didn't get expensive even after most onshore American clothing production ceased.
by philipkglass 9y ago
Maybe, or maybe not. Clothing imported from China didn't get expensive even after most onshore American clothing production ceased.
- makomk 9y agoClothing manufacturing is labour-intensive, relatively low tech, and just hops countries when labour gets more expensive in one place. Solar panels manufacturing has none of those properties. The general reckoning is that the Chinese government is subsidising local manufacturers, once the competitors close down and stop the expertise required to set up manufacturing elsewhere will decay and be lost and they'll have everyone over a barrel, and competing on cost of labour is irrelevant since it's such a small component of the cost.
- photojosh 9y agoA significant proportion of clothing production has moved to places like Bangladesh and Thailand (as labour costs in China rose over the last decade), and I'd wager that maintains the pressure on China to keep their prices low and not be able to gouge now that American manufacturers are mostly out of the picture.