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They tried Made in the USA – it was too expensive for their customers
- franktankbank 1y agoI don't think the American small business owners are interested in making bullshit. What you need to do is fully destroy the middle class until you've got an air gapped lower class bent to your will building human doggy beds.
- helpfulContrib 1y agoSome destruction is necessary for all creation, but generally its a bad idea to destroy the middle class instead of shoring it up. >making bullshit Make things that empower people and give them the ability to be class-fluid. That's what the world really needs, after all.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> Make things that empower people and give them the ability to be class-fluid. That's what the world really needs, after all. The problem is: by the way you were raised, you have become deeply brainwashed into the social norms of your class for decades. Becoming class-fluid means getting free of this whole brainwashing, and then get a brainwashing for your destination social class. This also implies that you have to give up all your friends (if you keep them, they will back-brainwash you into your old habits; additionally, by the reprogramming these old friends will be unable to get on with you anymore because you have become a "different person" for them). Thus, I believe only very few people want that.
- RonSkufca 1y agoWow! You just articulated a feeling I have had but could not put my finger on it until I read that. I grew up in a blue-collar Midwest US city that was decimated by the loss of domestic manufacturing. I went to college and got a CS degree and went on to enjoy 2+ decades of the tech boom and was paid well for it. Thus, allowing me and my family move into a different class i.e. white collar, educated, entrepreneurial, class-fluid. But now at middle age I don’t recognize any of my friends from the “old” neighborhood as I have changed so much, we don’t really know each other anymore. Our views on many things are so different we might as well be strangers. But due to being raised in that blue-collar environment my thoughts and ideas sometimes don’t mesh with the new class of people I find myself socializing with now. Which leaves me in some kind of limbo. I don’t fit in with the people from my past, but I don’t fit in with the people of my present.
- helpfulContrib 1y agoWork on not seeing class at all - this is the ultimate fluidity. Embrace differing views. It can be done in a way that makes everyone win.
- wholebusiness 1y ago[dead]
- wholebusiness 1y ago[dead]
- Workaccount2 1y agoOr people making doggy beds and going home to a 3000sq.ft home on a 1/2 acre with a stay at home mom and 3 kids. We just need to accept that everyone with a dog will need to purchase an $800 bed for their dog. Or since that is obviously untenable, charge billionaires $8 million to buy a bed for their dog. At this point you might be unsure if this is sarcasm or not. Which is pretty telling about the state of things.
- v5v3 1y agoTrying to make all your products domestically may be the wrong approach for many. Instead make specific lines domestically. There are lots of companies who standard ranges are made in China, but they also have a Made in America/other for their premium range. That way customers who are less price sensitive can choose to pay more. And those who can't still buy regardless.
- PicassoCTs 1y agoSubsidize capability upkeep - as in if you need it, you still have trained machinists, specialists and retoolable machinery in storage, to copy and buildup a capability at scale.
- XorNot 1y agoThe question is why do this though? This is basically a defense economics argument. If there's no adversarial conflict, then who cares where something is made?
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> If there's no adversarial conflict, then who cares where something is made? I think you just answered your question by yourself without realizing: the signs are that an adversarial conflict might come up - so be prepared for it.
- XorNot 1y agoThat's presuming that such a conflict would be fought as the sort of industrial war that WW1 and WW2 were. But there's little evidence that's the case: the lead times on modern weapons systems are enormous, and the attrition rate of hardware is enormous too (i.e. consider that the Javelin can put a tank out of action permanently). It is an unproven criteria that it is reasonable or possible to expect to produce the munitions and equipment for a conflict during the conflict if it's the sort of near-peer thing people usually cite for this - i.e. rather you go to war with what you have, and you're unlikely to rebuild that advantage in time if you don't win then. Which is the point: localizing a bunch of industries on that basis may not make any sense, compared to simply stockpiling from the cheapest accreditable sources.
- aeonik 1y agoSmarterEveryday is trying this right now too. He details all the challenges, and it's a pretty good watch. The grill brush they made is a bit on the expensive side, but I bought one. https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?si=TP1ez9tIEkpEu1Xf https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?si=TP1ez9tIEkpEu1Xf
- numbsafari 1y agoHow does it compare to a wet rag with tongs?
- pirates 1y agoOne of the main issues they raise is that the bristles on common brushes can be left behind and are difficult to pick out of food, so the wet rag probably exceeds expectations in that way.
- potato3732842 1y agoGrill brush bristles in your food are the "they went on a vacation and brought back flesh eating bacteria" of the culinary world. The fear-mongering greatly exceeds the danger. Edit: There are approximately 130 ER visits per year[1] on account of grill brushes. Mowing your lawn (something else people do on about the same frequency in the summer) is far more likely get you, as are god knows how many other things. [1] https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/ama-press-releases/ama-cautions-about-health-risks-wire-bristle-grill-brushes https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/ama-press-releases/ama...
- charcircuit 1y ago>$100 overall cost to make the beds in China >faux fur lining for the cover, which would still need to be imported from China—adding another $100 per unit. How is the cost of a part the same as the whole product?
- zdragnar 1y agoVolume of the material and volume of the demand for the material, probably. The foam for the beds is extremely compact when vacuum sealed, and is used in tons of other products. The standard fabric cover is also probably produced in massive quantities for other products, and also folds down to be quite compact. Faux fur is basically only used in blankets, pillow and toy linings, and depending on how dense the "fur" is, may add quite a bit more volume (a bigger problem if shipped to the US from a separate supplier than the foam). With that said, $100 does seem rather steep for the cover. I'm assuming they had to use a specialty version to make it more rugged than the cheaper stuff used for other products to be pet friendly.
- ForestCritter 1y agoFaux fur retail costs 20-45 dollars a yard and requires a multithread overlock machine. Liner fabric costs 1-4 dollars a yard and requires less skill and a plain (single stitch) machine. Obviously they will be paying wholesale prices but the cost difference remains. The real difference in the costs between China and the US is the labour. Americans want cheap prices at the store but a living wage at their job. China is the capital of slave labour and Americans are supporting it with their wallets.
- adammarples 1y agoBecause of these new tariffs.
- fnordpiglet 1y agoI’m guessing most people these days don’t remember when everything moved to China to begin with. People blamed it on globalization but the trend existed long before that because Americans didn’t produce a quality product. “Made in the USA” became synonymous with poor quality and high prices after the corporate mavens of the 1980’s hollowed out manufacturing for quality along with the factory workers pension plans. It’s not like America didn’t do it to itself - globalization just allowed specialization to set in and efficiency to dominate. Chinese manufacturing struck a middle ground between very high quality in Germany and Japan and very low quality in America then scaled it up and out to ensure a total vertical integration. For segments of the supply chain that were inefficient the state assumed the losses to ensure an ever increasing capture of the end to end ability to produce in an entirely integrated regional manufacturing center. I think instead of getting our panties in a wad and wishing for the 1950’s to return - which weren’t that great to begin with despite our rose colored glasses - we need to lean into our strengths and specialized role. The question though of what are people to do who are “displaced” by globalization, automation, and now AI has never been answered and leaves us where we are today. I don’t have the answer either. But it’s become more destabilizing than I imagined as I saw things unfolding.
- franktankbank 1y agoWhat are our strengths/specializations in your opinion? My main concern as a millennial, who rightly put didn't witness this transformation, is that by continuing down a path of fewer and fewer specializations we get pinched off completely.
- PaulHoule 1y agoLet’s see.. higher ed, which Trump is trying to eliminate.
- franktankbank 1y agoCome on Paul. I hope that's not the one and only. Without raw experience how useful is the higher ed?
- netfl0 1y agoI’m glad our country doesn’t make plastic dog beds for adults.
- xiphias2 1y agoThere are countries besides USA and China. It was just terrible geopolitics decision for US to depend on 1 country for imports instead of keeping the power balance between countries of the world.
- dgb23 1y agoIs it geopolitics that is at fault here or rather corporations? I think Coca Cola might be a counter example if we look at how they procure their sugar.
- _heimdall 1y agoI have to assume it wasn't a concerted effort to depend mostly on China for imports. Companies are each making the best financial decision for themselves and China turned out to be the more competitive option most of the them.
- piker 1y agoI've always understood China's currency manipulation to play an initial role in making it an attractive source of commodity products.
- ImHereToVote 1y agoWhy can't a sovereign state control their fiscal policy? Who should decide what the value of the Renminbi should be if not the PBC?
- cma256 1y agoThe same reason a sovereign state can't act unilaterally in any domain -- diplomacy. If your actions affect another (or even just inspire interest) then the other party may make decisions which affect your country.
- _heimdall 1y agoCurrency debasement is more monetary policy than fiscal policy I think. Either way I didn't read the GP comment as saying China can't do that, just that doing so is what gave them an edge long enough to gobble up a lot of our trade.
- k__ 1y agoI think, the issue is about producing the same stuff people already buy overseas. Can you make a shirt for 10 cents in the USA? Probably, if you get innovative on automation and remove most human labour you might get there in a few years or a decade, but not tomorrow. If you can get creative with new solutions those products solve, you might get a foot into the door. What does the shirt solve for a customer? Could there be a (better) alternative that could be built in the USA? But yeah, you won't compete on price...
- soco 1y agoOnce you produce everything for 10c locally without human labor, those unemployed human laborers won't buy your 10c thing because they are unemployed. You need more to bring back the production: bring back the employment as well.
- bluGill 1y agoThere is plenty of employment in the US. What there isn't in the US is employees for someone wanting to pay less than $12/hour - and to get that low you need to find a small rural town in the middle of nowhere with nobody else paying, which in turn means you can only get at most 200 low wage employees in your factory, and you are risking someone else moving in offering more pay. Or you can go to China and pay much less (I don't know wages in China, but I'd guess under $5/hour), or some other poor country and you can pay $1/hour.
- kenmacd 1y agoAre you arguing against the automation here? Because if so it seems we could bring back a lot of employment by simply getting rid of machines, but would we really be better off? Is it better for humans to spend their short lives working as telephone operator, knowing it an entirely pointless job? If you're not arguing against automation then I think we need to think about what happens when we expand your timeline a little. Are there really enough 'employment' jobs that can't be automated for billions of humans of different intelligence/physical abilities?
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- superultra 1y agoIt’s not just too expensive. We need to seriously ask ourselves do we want too, at all, even? My dad worked in a steel mill all his life so that me and my siblings didn’t have to. We’re he and the other guys at the plant proud of their work? Absolutely. Does nearly everyone wish their kids would do something else? Absolutely. Industrialism has ipso facto become the soup du jour for thr agrarian myth. The reality is that it’s long, hard, relentless, menial labor. It’s also terrible for just living in general. My dad basically turned the lights off on a steel plant. That was 20 years ago and the land it was on will be unusable for even landfills for another 100 years. It was on a river and the river still smells like chemicals, and fish routinely die when passing through that area due to chemical runoff from the land. So, I’m sorry, why do we want that here (let alone anywhere)? I’m not saying that I don’t complain about my work from home job or that there aren’t negative effects but good luck weighing me getting carpal tunnel or taking anxiety meds to the stuff that industrial labor does to your body and our living environments.
- xienze 1y ago> So, I’m sorry, why do we want that here (let alone anywhere)? To the second question, not everything in the modern world is going to be clean and green. If you want things like steel, plastic, computers, etc. there's gonna be some dirty manufacturing involved. No way around it. To the first, ideally every country wants some amount of self-sufficiency, or at the very least, some amount of redundancy. Remember how badly the world's pants got pulled down during Covid? And finally -- frankly, not everyone is capable of more than unskilled or semi-skilled labor. Supply-chain redundancy with a side-effect of employing people who might otherwise have very little in the way of employment prospects? That's a good thing!
- carlosjobim 1y ago> The reality is that it’s long, hard, relentless, menial labor. Which is perfectly fine to do for some time if the salary is great. Which it should be, considering the high productivity output from those kind of jobs. Steel mill workers of your dad's generation had a much higher living standard and much more money than service or office workers of today's young generation. Young people are supposed to work hard and build up their wealth so that they can change to a less taxing job when it's time to make a family. Not waste their time in academic institutions for 20 years and then work for a low salary.
- rayiner 1y agoAs recently as the 1980s, 70% of domestic clothing was made in the U.S., including by brands like Gap and JC Penny. Did Americans have an impoverished standard of living in the 1980s? Is the cheap, disposable, foreign made “fast fashion” we have today better? https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica
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- soco 1y agoToday it's also the desire of the customers, as pushed by social media, to follow a fashion changing almost every month. You didn't buy in the 80s stuff to be obsoleted in a few months. And because most of the people cannot afford every few months a new wardrobe made of (halfway) quality items, today's taste requires fast fashion garbage. So here we are, and we can get back to sanity only when we get rid of the influencer-led economy, good luck with that.
- protimewaster 1y agoI'm amazed how much of the internet economy has turned out to be advertising. People complain about ads when they watch TV, but they'll go out of their way to spend hours watching ads on social media. And lots of kids dream about being an influencer, basically an advertiser, for their work.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoOne reason why I have no interest in going to facebook anymore is that the vast majority of people's social media activity on there nowadays is advertising... something. People showing their latest purchases, vacations, experiences, etc, all basically showing something they spent money on.
- carlosjobim 1y agoThe desire of costumers is to go well beyond psychotic measures in order to save the tiniest amount of money on a purchase, rather than purchase domestic or locally produced for a bit more expensive. And that applies almost worldwide, not only to Americans.
- kgwxd 1y agoRight now, there's nearly a 100% chance any "Made in USA" brand is a grift, by direct members of the grifting party. I'm for the idea, done correctly. I'm completely against it in it's current form. They're taking your money rubes. If you want the real thing, you're going to have to help fix the country instead of falling for basic scams, in all areas of life.
- glimshe 1y agoOne has to wonder how the United States survived before the rise of Asian manufacturing... As recently as the 1980s we had full computers made in the US. We can get it back, at least the more interesting parts of it. If this movement was being sponsored by another political party, as it used to be the case, we would see a complete inversion of the journalists defending and criticizing it.
- cosmic_cheese 1y agoThe thing about the current movement that draws criticism, I believe, is the wildly unrealistic expectations. The party in question has treated bringing back manufacturing, even that which is skilled and requires large quantities of highly specialized machinery and supply chains and trained workers to supply it, as if it’s something you can flip on like a light switch. If you factor in building factories, building supply chains, training workers, and regaining lost institutional/tribal knowledge, you’re looking at a monstrously expensive endeavor that’s going to take a long time. Probably at least a decade end-to-end, shorter in some fields and longer than others. No level of tariffs or overconfident statements on social media can change this reality. And as a cherry on top, companies are supposed to set this all back up without help from the government, despite it being so expensive and time consuming to do so, and despite Chinese manufacturing having benefited immensely from its government pouring vast sums into bolstering its manufacturing capabilities to reach its present position. What corporate leadership is going to see any of that as reasonable or remotely a good deal? They’re more likely to play up investments they’d already planned to make during the previous administration and wait for another dice roll come next election. TLDR it can happen, but not on a short timeline and not without government incentives to smooth over the massive costs of bring it back.
- Workaccount2 1y agoIf you look at the income curve of household income over the last 100 years, you will see that the curve went from clumped around $60k to flattened and rolled out extending up to hundreds of thousands. Put simply, back in the day everyone earned pretty similar pay. Nowadays pay is much more spread out and lots more families make way more money than they would have 40 years ago. The market really loves these high earning households (not billionairs, I mean $100k+) and naturally gravitates towards catering to them. The $60k households get left out.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 1y agoSo, if retailers are resisting raising prices, who will pay the increased costs? Domestically sourced goods can be no more than 55% more expensive (otherwise the imported goods would be cheaper), but we can be sure that locally sourced goods will be priced as close to the full 55% as possible (and as the article points out, some locally manufactured items are probably never going to be less than the overseas cost, even including the tariff tax.) Now take a look at Walmart's margins https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/profit-margins https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/profit.... Their gross margin is ~25%, with a net around 2%. Even if Walmart decides to eat the tariff cost out of patriotic duty, anywhere near a ~50% hit to supply chain costs would put them out of business. Heck, even a few percent would require a huge business restructuring, if it were even possible. So prices are going to be higher - it's a given. In the short-medium term, the tariff tax is simply a large regressive transfer of tax obligation onto consumers.
- 1970-01-01 1y agoI think Walmart is too big to fail at this point. If the gold standard for brick and mortar 'low prices' needs some restructuring, then it's time for the house of straw economy to finally see the big bad wolf and go running for the hills.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoWalmart will just raise prices and their customers will eat the increased prices through reduced purchasing power or going without, while complaining but doing nothing else (because they have no leverage to do otherwise). https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-price-increases-items-tariffs-target-reddit-2025-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-price-increases-item... | https://archive.today/4Kcqf https://archive.today/4Kcqf
- macartain 1y agoor those same customers may elect the next, even-more-extreme, ill-informed idiotic wingnut that comes along with a pat theory about bringing industry back on-shore in 4 years by tossing out foreigners/applying ludicrous tariffs/whatever... increased prices affect politics - which affects everything.
- PaulHoule 1y agoTextile manufacturing is the absolute bottom of the barrel. The town I grew up in (Manchester, NH) had the largest textile plant at the beginning of WWI but it was out of business by 1933. The industry moved first to the American South and by the time they'd paid the loans of the factories it moved again overseas.
- bluGill 1y agoTextiles are something that we cannot automate with current technology. We know how to automate plastics and metals. You can buy off the shelf injection molding machines (3d printers too, but they are rarely used in production). You can buy off the shelf machines to cut and form metals. Even things like steel mills are automated with custom equipment. But sewing two pieces of cloth together is beyond current automation, and thus there is a lot of manual labor. In the US (and Europe) manual labor is expensive, so to make something you need a lot of automation. Once it is automated the next step is enough volume to pay for the automation (which needs expensive engineers). Of course maybe this will change. Basic textiles were one of the first things we automated 300+ years ago, but we are only able to go from a bunch of cotton to a bolt of fabric today. As I write this making a shirt (or dog bed as this story) seems beyond what we can automate. Maybe a little investment will fix that, maybe not. I'm not an automation engineer so I can't tell you how solvable the problems are.
- PaulHoule 1y agoRobots that can fold towels are an active research area https://www.npr.org/2022/10/22/1130552239/robot-folding-laundry https://www.npr.org/2022/10/22/1130552239/robot-folding-laun...
- cratermoon 1y agotowel folding doesn't seem like a step towards automating clothing, any more than building a tall ladder is a step towards ladders tall enough to reach the moon. Anyway https://ruthtillman.com/post/all-clothing-is-handmade/ https://ruthtillman.com/post/all-clothing-is-handmade/
- MangoToupe 1y agoI don't really seen any benefit from buying American. The entire point of being capitalist is to let the market solve these issues, and the market has. I don't have any more loyalty to Americans than to any other people on earth, and I think that impulse is rather odd.
- bluGill 1y agoI do see benefit from not buying from China. China is making geopolitical moves that I do not like and suspect will result in war in the future. They are making moving to take Taiwan. They are clearly supporting Russia against Ukraine.
- MangoToupe 1y agoWell, that's your prerogative. I don't like the way most states behave (very much including our own warmongering state), but I'll be damned if this alters where I buy basic goods and services. If America wanted my money, it wouldn't behave in such a blatantly hypocritical manner. Either we're a free-market society or we're going to take care of each other. We've prioritized crying over business owners for decades while letting people go homeless. Fuck those businesses; where were they when the homeless needed advocacy? They chose to spend their time trying to complain about society rather than contributing to it.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoI feel like you're misdiagnosing the problem. One of the key ways in which we've been prioritizing business owners for decades is uncritically accepting their arguments for free trade.
- bluGill 1y agoIt is not business owners, it is economics professors and philosophers for free trade. Free trade can be better or worse for business depending on what business you are in. For the people, and for the philosophy of freedom free trade are both good.
- giantg2 1y agoI get that this is an example, but I'd like to see other examples. An expensive niche dog bed, niche beverage, etc doesn't seem very representative of the economy. If it is, that's concerning.
- horsawlarway 1y agoI guess a counterview here: These are the sorts of things small companies can actually make and be successful making. Are they representative of the economy as a whole? Maybe not - the majority of that spend is going to go towards housing (~35%), transportation (~17%), basic food (~13%), and (somewhat surprisingly) insurance/pensions (~12.5%). Those are all incredibly competitive. High barrier to entry, legally challenging (lots of bureaucratic red tape and hoops), already dominated by large companies with economy of scale in their favor. So that essentially leaves niche, high margin, products as the ONLY products a small company can competitively make. So it you want to be a small company selling a physical item... this is the market you tend to play within. You make an expensive niche/luxury product with a limited appeal but higher margins. We already get plenty of news about how the large corporations say they are going to respond (prices will go up).
- bluGill 1y agoAnd on the third hand, those are things that you cannot buy off the shelf machines to automate. Sewing is an active area of research, but it still needs as much labor as in 1930. Beverage packing is automated but a lot of it is custom machines so you need a lot of up front money. (though it appears their limits were containers - al is made in the US so I'm surprised they cannot order the alloy they need).
- giantg2 1y agoIt's probably material cost and not the actual manufacturing. The aluminum smelting industry in the US has been in decline (and for other metals too). It was also only 4 cents per can, a 1% increase in end unit price. But how it it affecting the products that can be made with off the shelf machines? How about in sectors other than consumer discretionary, like consumer staples?
- strict9 1y agoIt will always be like this until scale ramps up and costs come down as infrastructure ramps up. China's advantage is always communicated as cheap labor but it's also the ability to almost infinitely scale production lines in a short period of time. America has mostly lost the muscle memory and tooling to do this. And that ability to scale matters with materials costs. There are incentives that would benefit domestic producers and companies but those take time and don't make good soundbites for politicians. The blunt tariff sledgehammer that was dropped isn't going to do it. Small experiments like the one in the article will try and mostly fail. Meanwhile producers will find loopholes and workarounds to tariffs. And the margins and viability of domestic designers and businesses will continue to weaken. Consumers will increasingly eat the cost and lose the convenience.
- tantalor 1y agoAll high school students should be required to complete the Factorio tutorial before graduating.
- idrios 1y agoCongressmen should be required to complete the Factorio tutorial before taking office
- Workaccount2 1y agoFactorio is just a programming game with a manufacturing texture pack. What we want is wood shop and machine shop classes.
- tantalor 1y agoHumbly and politely disagree. Factorio taught me about supply chains, manufacturing bottlenecks, and tooling dependencies. These concerns don't really crop up in day-to-day programming, but they reveal a lot about why we struggle manufacturing anything in USA anymore.
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- misterbishop 1y agoThis headline is a lie. It's not a matter of being "too expensive for customers", it's a matter of undesirable profit margin for the company.
- wholebusiness 1y ago[dead]
- thotghig5896 1y agoDuh. All the economic dimwits (both on the left and right) who constantly harp that real wages have been falling, don't take into account the steep fall in prices of consumer goods due to offshoring. Ofc. this does mean that US becomes the world's "bitch" eventually following the economics of things, but the alternative is essentially becoming Soviet Union or Argentina.
- thotghig5896 1y agoI prefer option 1. the world's policeman being a public servant instead of the feudal warlord that we currently seem to have.
- selectodude 1y agohttps://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q Real wages haven’t fallen at all. We’re far wealthier in real terms now than ever before.
- zahlman 1y agoPeople complaining about real wages are for the most part just out of date. Your data shows about a 0.9% growth compounded per year over the last 10 years - and a 0.17% growth compounded per year over the 35 years before that. The numbers were effectively stagnant for my entire childhood and adolescence. (I'm Canadian, but I imagine the picture has the same basic shape here.)
- selectodude 1y agoBeing able to consume .2% compounded more per year with no increase in labor just for free is pretty nice!
- Workaccount2 1y agoProbably the most annoying thing about conversations on this topic is peoples ignorance or inability to acknowledge the insane availability of so much stuff are such low prices. A typical persons load out went from personal possessions that could fit in a microwave sized box to personal possessions that overflow the bedroom and living room of their apartment.
- hammock 1y agoThere is a mattress company called Tuft and Needle. They started right at the early beginning of the mattress-in-a-box trend, but offered a unique product. For the first six months of operation, they made a Japanese-inspired cotton mattress filled with wool batting and was made in the USA. Before I had a chance to order one though, they had already pivoted away from that unique product (that doesn’t exist even today) and were dropshipping the same generic PU foam mattresses made in China as everyone else, with very little change to their website even. I was sad
- ArtemZ 1y agoHave you looked at Avocado mattresses? They state they make them in California.
- hammock 1y agoI have. Definitely one of the better options out there. I recently got a mygreenmattress which are latex and made in Chicago. Still would like a wool one. Everyone already knows this but the mattress industry is absurdly opaque and most reviews are fake
- justonceokay 1y agoT&N has such a great product but it was one of those things that failed because the innovation/disruption had no market. I personally believe that the Japanese futon mat is the healthiest way to sleep, and after you get used to it even extra-firm mattresses are soupy and uncomfortable. Downside though is that it is very difficult to be comfortable on if you are significantly overweight, and it’s a pretty hard sell for couples unless they are both bought into the idea beforehand. From my personal experience of sleeping on one for the last decade, not having a bed with a mattress on it is beyond the pale. I have a nice townhome that is well decorated. But when people see my bed, they assume I have a health issue, some kind of homelessness trauma, I’m a weeb (definitely not), or that I’m too poor to own a bed. They assume that they could never be comfortable on it, as a pillowy mattress on a high frame is associated in people’s minds with high luxury, angels with harps, royalty, and sexual intrigue. Sleeping on a mat on the floor is associated with camping, homelessness, destitution, and failure. To each their own I guess
- xyst 1y agoDecades of private equity/vulture capital shipping overseas has allowed for other countries to overtake the USA. It all boils down to awful pseudoscience pushed by Reaganomics/trickle down economic theory. This pseudoscience has been used to write policy in this country which has only benefited the ultra wealthy.
- ajuc 1y agoFor any given thing produced abroad USA could produce it domestically. But you simply cannot produce ALL the things domestically. Population matters. There's not enough Americans, not even going into how many want to work a blue-collar job and how much you'd have to pay them.
- jayd16 1y agoIt's so frustrating that policies to subsidized growth in a targeted way (paid for by our progressive tax system) are ignored and we're stuck with these wide impact regressive policies. As described they're poor policy, and as implemented they're simply a tool for shake downs.
- jimt1234 1y agoSo, what I get from the article is that all US business is initiated by Shark Tank? LOL
- dardeaup 1y agoIn my opinion, the following are additional factors that are often overlooked when discussing the competitiveness of USA manufacturing: 1) OSHA - if you have more than 10 employees, you're subject to OSHA regulations. Do other countries have comparable regulations for keeping their workers safe and healthy? 2) Decline of shop classes - shop/industrial classes used to be widespread in high schools. Not as much these days. Why? 3) Litigious society - our society is quick to sue and the legal standard used in civil trials is "more likely than not". 4) Drug addictions - look at any job posting for manufacturing, labor, construction, etc. and you'll see mention about drug screening. 5) Fat, dumb, and happy society - we care more about Super Bowl Sunday, Hollywood, reality shows, etc. On average, we're lazy and care more about being entertained.
- telesilla 1y ago>5) Fat, dumb, and happy society - we care more about Super Bowl Sunday, Hollywood, reality shows, etc. On average, we're lazy and care more about being entertained. Respectfully, people care about supporting their families, having health care coverage, paying off their student loans, having a safe job that they can get to easily and cheaply and have general good work conditions. The first 4 points may be true, but the 5th point is an unfair characterisation.
- delusional 1y agoOk, I'll bite. What would be some solutions to these supposed factors? What policy are you suggesting? I notice that these "additional factors" happen to align with right wing politics, which implies to me that you may be smuggeling something in along with these "additional factors" I should also consider. "Consider that working people may just be lazy drug addicts, and why do you care about their workplace safety?" Is not really something I want to consider.
- dardeaup 1y agoYou read more into my comments than you should have. I'll expand on my points: 1) OSHA - I'm delighted and proud that we have OSHA! OSHA regulations have saved lives and prevented serious accidents/sicknesses and continue to do so. Does Vietnam, China, India, etc. have comparable regulations? I don't know the answer to this question, but my guess is largely 'no'. There is a cost associated with OSHA compliance and it's worth it. Is it ok that a factory worker is killed or maimed in some other country for your low prices? 2) Decline of shop classes - I don't know why they're not as prevalent as they used to be. To be honest, a shop class of 2025 should not look the same as a shop class of 1970. In my opinion, a modern shop/industrial class would include robotics, 3D printing, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), etc. I honestly don't see how anyone would consider this to be a bad thing. 3) Litigious society - I'm not passing judgement, just calling it like I see it. Many lawsuits are deserved and many likely result in better processes and procedures. I don't have an axe to grind, just stating that the US probably has more lawsuits and judgements than most other countries. 4) Drug addictions - I don't think that drug addictions are good for anyone. I know that this is a very complicated topic. I'm just pointing out that it may be more difficult to hire manufacturing workers in the US who don't use illegal drugs than in other countries. 5) Fat, dumb, and happy society - I'm just calling it as I see it. A huge part is because as a country we don't eat healthy enough and get enough exercise. Look at the skyrocketing cases of diabetes. It's a huge problem. Dumb because it seems we continue watering down our schools to make it easier for kids to get through. If you read everything I wrote above, please tell me where I'm right-wing or left-wing. Of the 5 factors I listed, the only one that I would advocate for a policy change is (2). I would like to see broad funding for shop/industrial classes in high schools throughout the country. Again, these shops would not look like they did in 1970, although they would likely still have some of the same tools. However, they would also have modernized, high-tech ones like robotics, 3D printing, etc. Where am I so off-base? Where did I make value judgements (aside from fat, dumb, lazy one) about Americans? Am I promoting some right-wing agenda with my comments? I believe that these are honest points that should be discussed and debated.
- dadjoker 1y ago[dead]
- jjangkke 1y agoPeople point to China's 'cheap labor' but this downplays why this is only possible under its political system and the tremendous human cost involved. Rather the framing shouldn't be whether its too expensive or cheap but why so many people are willing to arbitrage industrial scale abuse of human labor only possible under an authoritarian regime and then virtue signal about anything else. Even more puzzling to me is why nobody is making the connection between the dilution of US dollar value via exporting inflation that props up totalitarian regimes and its growing reliance on it to make things its people want to feel they are above others. They tried Made in the US but customers found it too morally expensive to care as to why making it outside the US is cheaper especially in China.
- Joker_vD 1y ago> industrial scale abuse of human labor only possible under an authoritarian regime Taylorism definitely originated in the US, and the modern Amazon's worker-related practices (in the US) are direct descendants of it. So while democratic regime makes industrial-scale abuse of human labour harder, it absolutely doesn't preclude it.
- thaack 1y agoMy family runs a small plastic (injection molding) business in the USA. Second, soon to be third generation. The only reason it still exists is because the products made are too expensive to ship from a country with cheaper labor as they are pretty large and heavy. And it's quite a niche product/vertical. The biggest problem that the business faces on a day-to-day basis is employees. It's a very low skill manufacturing job. You pull parts out of the mold. The pay is good for a large midwestern MCOL city, plus full health benefits (employees don't pay a cent). It is downright impossible to find and retain reliable employees. The job sucks. I worked there when I was younger helping out and you do the same thing every minute for 8 hours a day in a hot and loud factory. It's not a career - just a job. I'm not sure how you fix that. The American appetite for a low skill manufacturing job is dead - I'm not sure it's a bad thing either. Even the high skill stuff has already been taken over by China, their process is far more efficient. When the business needs design/tool & die for a new plastic injection mold costs and speed associated with getting that mold designed and made in America are astronomical compared to the Chinese. The Chinese will get back to you with a design proof in 24 hours at a 1/4 of the cost.
- peterldowns 1y ago> The American appetite for a low skill manufacturing job is dead - I'm not sure it's a bad thing either. It probably isn't a bad thing, as long as we continue to invest in automation and high-skill manufacturing. The Economist wrote about this recently: the fantasy of "low-skill factory jobs for all" is just that, a fantasy: https://archive.is/YoMs1 https://archive.is/YoMs1
- thaack 1y agoFascinating article. They have toyed around with automation but the capital required to retrofit for such a small business would be intensive but is coming down. Interestingly the automation pieces that they have been testing (multi-axis robot arms) have only became cost effective since the Chinese robots entered the market. The Chinese have completely dropped the floor on automation tooling.
- farceSpherule 1y ago
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago"They tried Made in the USA - it was too expensive for their customers" Did they (the companies profiled in the article) actually try it Or did they investigate the possibility of trying it Did customers have an oportunity to determine it was too expensive Or did these businesses make that determination themselves NB. I am not suggesting their determination was incorrect. I am only highlighting how the title refers to something that did not actually happen. A more accurate title might be something like They considered Made in the USA - they determined it would be too expensive for their customers
- 9awj35pja 1y agoSome people are actually trying https://www.smartereveryday.com/smarterscrubber https://www.smartereveryday.com/smarterscrubber
- jopsen 1y agoIf the retailer they normally sell to say they want stock the product at the given price, then you don't get to try? If you could sell it for more using a different avenue, you probably should have done that before. Tariffs this way will kill a lot of small businesses.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agoIn addition to giving free advertising to companies mentioned in the article that are _not_ producing prodducts "Made in the USA", the article could also mention some companies that _are_ producing products "Made in the USA" Would that be unfair https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/01/21/made-in-usa-trend/1785539/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/01...
- User23 1y agoIt took decades to gut American consumer manufacturing. Anyone who thinks it can be brought back without pain is deluded. But nevertheless, it’s worth that pain. As the Chinese are well aware, every time in history a great financial power and a great industrial power have come into conflict, the industrial power wins.
- tboyd47 1y agoYou only get to pick one: labor laws or a manufacturing industry.
- wholebusiness 1y ago[dead]
- mzs 1y agoNone of the three businesses reported actually even build one prototype in the US and the arithmetic doesn't work out for the last example but a lawsuit has been filed.
- poorcedural 1y agoRight now, as for the last century, the USA manufactures identity and all the products that make you feel like YOU. It used to be Levis and Coca-Cola, now it is all the premier tech Hacker News places value FAANG+ (minus TikTok). If the USA continues inventing identity, those identities should be grounded in merchandise only made in the USA.
- SkyMarshal 1y agoIt's interesting to me that there was already a manufacturing facility in the US that could readily make something as random as a memory foam dog bed on short notice, even if somewhat more expensively. I had though all such simple things had been completely outsourced to China or Vietnam or somewhere. That does imply if that if manufacturing economies of scale can be returned to the US, the price could become competitive, even for low value-added products like this.
- teyc 1y agoI’ve often wondered about PPP and why China is cheaper. Deepseek provided interesting answers, and it’s nothing to do with pollution or cheap labour. Turns out socialist policies, investing in free markets, cheap education, open competition, public infrastructure result in competitive manufacturing.
- wholebusiness 1y ago[dead]