> My understanding from talking to industrial engineers is that American manufacturing is quite competitive when the product is consistent. When the product is

> My understanding from talking to industrial engineers is that American manufacturing is quite competitive when the product is consistent. When the product is consistent, you can get competitive pretty much everywhere. That's a luxury you will never have unless you are already a big MNC. On paper, US manufacturing been cheaper than in China for quite a few years already, but you have to spell that "ON PAPER" with big bold letters. 1. Labour — flyover states had wages comparable to South China for 2-3 years. 2. Education — supposedly best in the world, supposedly, at least beating Chinese public secondary school 3. Supreme "intellectual" property regime — no comparison to China at all, you can sue whomever, whenever, for whatever, and barristers here are even calling you themselves to offer their services to sue your competitors 4. Supply chain — world's biggest companies are there, if they are all here, there must be at least something they all buy. 5. Taxes — US vs. China's tax rate are incomparable: 30% vs 60%-70% something depending on incalculable amount of fees, charges, levies How things are in reality: 1. People in US you can hire cheaper than highschoolers in China are really not-employable, in other words people with problems. 2. Education is there, but only for people who can already dish out a sum, otherwise even a passable secondary education is not a given. 3. Yes, you can sue everybody, and the same applies in reverse too! 4. Those companies really do buy, and sell a lot of stuff, just not from you, but the same guy you buy your stuff in China 5. US taxes are half that of China, but Chinese accountants know how to run from taxes 10 times better than American accountants.