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Manufacturing labor cost in China has surpassed parts of Eastern Europe. I agree that infrastructure, supply chains, political stability, and education are the

• myrmidon 11mo ago
  > Manufacturing labor cost in China has surpassed parts of Eastern Europe. This is a good point, but I think that only really the underdeveloped/underindustrialized/unstable parts really qualify, possibly Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, with similar caveats than Chinas neighbors. Despite all this a lot of European manufacturing (e.g. cars), has shifted into the more viable low-wage countries over the last decades (despite language barriers and very high automation; talking mainly Poland, Slovenia, Hungary here). You still need labor to build, maintain and operate factories, even if they are filled with robots; people here underestimate the benefit of cheap labor by a lot.