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USA is already effectively priced out of manufacturing due to high labor costs. Doing things with the "correct choices" simply makes the impossible even more s

• kardianos 7mo ago
  I live in Texas, which is still part of the USA, and we manufacture a great deal. I have a friend who works as an environmental engineer at a chem plant. They work hard to keep things safe and clean, and rigorously monitor their output. I'm sure we could do even more if we weren't competing in meany areas against legal jurisdictions which DON'T care about such things. We aren't "priced out". We are regulated out and out competed by jurisdiction which have many fewer labor laws and much more lax environmental monitoring. If we are out-competed on product, then we deserve to loose, which is where libertarians and free-trade have a point. But if we are out-competed on keeping people and the environment reasonably safe? That's when we enact trade barriers. That is how you actually keep the environment and people safe.
  • bilbo0s 7mo ago
    This is what I don't understand? We do manufacture things. Just not in California. So why does it even matter if California bans manufacturing dangerous things? Who cares? Just manufacture it in some other state. As a bonus, you don't have to pay those high California taxes. In what world is this a problem?
    • carefulfungi 7mo ago
      California produces ~$350B in manufacturing GDP. It is the #1 state in manufacturing jobs in the US.
      • SoftTalker 7mo ago
        By its sheer size and population it is probably #1 in almost anything you care to rank.
        • bloomingeek 7mo ago
          Damn, don't tell the guy from Texas.
    • CharlesW 7mo ago
      > We do manufacture things. Just not in California. Texas beats California in total value of manufacturing shipments only because because of its petroleum and coal products manufacturing. And California beats Texas in manufacturing employment.
      • bilbo0s 7mo ago
        None of which answers the question of why we can't manufacture things in other states? Things that California clearly doesn't want to manufacture. Again, what is the reason New Mexico, or Utah, or Nebraska, or Tennessee cannot manufacture these things? And why is it a problem if they do so instead of California?
        • yndoendo 7mo ago
          Big companies already handle manufacturing in other states. Often in states that have the worst education systems and quality of living. It is frequently done to reduce the cost of labor. Manufacturing jobs are also some of the most unstable because big companies will shop around for tax breaks. Once they find a political sucker ... they build a new plant and close the old one which wrecks havoc on the local economy. PR teams are designed to mitigate negative feedback when this happens. Smart politicians know this and will not concede to tax breaks for big companies, like Amazon.
          • bilbo0s 7mo ago
            Doesn't that just make California's case for them though? I mean if these jobs are so bad, isn't it good that California is trying to not have them in its own municipalities? The way you laid it out, shouldn't everyone be trying not to have those jobs?
            • yndoendo 7mo ago
              Quality of a job matters. So does proper regulation so the job is not harmful to the worker or community or environment. Those others state politicians that welcome those jobs without proper regulation are willing to ignore the health and well-being of their neighbors. Manufacturing jobs are not bad. The environment and de-regulation makes them bad. To me a job must have a living wage tied to it and it must be in an environment that doesn't poison the employee, community, and nature. Others have low standards like calling USA McDonald's a job when they don't even pay enough to live off of. EU McDonald's is forced to pay a living wage because of proper regulations.
    • dragonwriter 7mo ago
      > We do manufacture things. Just not in California. California has the highest manufacturing employment and most manufacturing companies of any state, the second highest (behind only Texas) dollar value of manufacturing output. It is just below the national average in manufacturing as a share of GDP, but its also the fifth highest state in GDP/capita; leaving it still above average in manufacturing GDP/capita.
  • Fischgericht 7mo ago
    I am not saying that you should tear down anything that works for you. Trade barriers however are bullshit and don't work. And they are a lie. You are not building IPhones in the US because building an IPhone in the US would cost three times as much as it would doing in Shenzhen. And people would not be willing to pay that. And that's why they get an exception from the trade barriers. And that list of exceptions basically goes on and on and on... Anyway, what works, works. This is especially true if that industry had been in the area for long, and therefore has access to a lot of skilled and experienced workers. But it does not make sense to cry and complain that building such a thing from scratch is "banned". No, it is not banned. It's just a stupid idea, and there are laws against stupid ideas using limited natural resources.
• rini17 7mo ago
  Central/Eastern European here. Our labor costs are comparable or even lower than China today. And the manufacturing is still struggling. So it's not only that.
  • kspacewalk2 7mo ago
    In Central/Eastern Europe, the problem is increasingly one of demographics. You can sometimes find somewhat cheap labour due to shitty (geo)politics, stagnant economies and poorly trained workers, but big-picture-like, the age of labour abundance is over. These economies have nowhere to go but down, down, down, starved of talent due to the twin cancers of bad demographics and emigration. Some countries are better, some worse, but the overall trend is the same all over the region. Going gentle into that good night. (China's predicament is not much better, with the added wrinkle that there's absolutely nothing whatsoever they can do about bad demographics due to their size, whereas Central/Eastern Europe can import people once we collectively get over ourselves and let go of uppity xenophobia).
    • baybal2 7mo ago
      [dead]
    • joe_mamba 7mo ago
      >the age of labour abundance is over. There IS labour over abundance. Unemployment in most EU countries is at record highs. And it shows no sign of slowing down. The problem is it's mostly white collar labor overabundance. And those college educated people aren't gonna want to make sneakers in sweatshops.
      • kspacewalk2 7mo ago
        The number of kids born in 2025 in Uzbekistan (population 38 million) is about the same as the number of kids born in 2025 in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland, *combined* (total population 131 million). The age of labour abundance IS OVER, we're witnessing its very last days in EE. Unemployment may remain due to terrible politics and economic mismanagement. There's not going to be any point even having sweatshops or factories in this region soon. Why bother? If it's anything low or medium-skill and low or medium-capital intense, just open up shop in... Well, why not Uzbekistan? And if double-landlocked isn't your thing, there's dozens of other options.
• vablings 7mo ago
  This is false, patently incorrect. With a good manufacturing line workers are not priced out by "cheap labor" they are priced out by almost zero cost labor, Robots are basically a rounding error compared to human's wages.
  • psychoslave 7mo ago
    Robots bring very different tradeoffs on the table. But they are not built and maintained autonomously by the all mighty benevolent skynet, all working 100% on renewable energies abundant at geological scale. Plus scaling industrial production is one thing, but if proletarians are unable to afford them because wealth distribution is exponentially concentrated, what is the point?
    • vablings 7mo ago
      >But they are not built and maintained autonomously by the all mighty benevolent skynet, all working 100% on renewable energies abundant at geological scale. No but they are significantly cheaper than an employee, A robot can pick up something and move it from A to B for upwards of 10 years. The programming and setup are a fraction of the time a robot can operate reliably I cannot stress to you how reliable and little maintenance is required for a $60,000 fanuc robot.
      • inigyou 7mo ago
        A factory isn't made of workers who pick up something and move it from A to B all day.
        • BobaFloutist 7mo ago
          Frankly, that doesn't need a robot, it needs a concert belt, maybe a hopper.
          • vablings 7mo ago
            Robots are great for this kind of work because they require little engineering work and modifications to the base machine. There are now many old manual machines used for various machining operations that can be completely robot tended with a palette. You don't even need manufacturer support or access to the PLC. You want to start the machine? Just have the 6axis robot hit the start button lol
• parineum 7mo ago
  It's actually not labor costs at all. The difference between the USA and, for example, China, in manufacturing is the difficulty of getting a new factory built. If you have a product designed and ready for production, it will take you years to build a factory in the USA. All the while you'll be losing money managing the build, paying your employees and, most importantly, letting your competitors get a head start. Likewise, if you build that factory in China, it'll be up and running in less than a year and you can start making your R&D money back, get to market before your competitors and not bleed money keeping your companies doors open. The labor costs are easily offset by removing the logistics of moving the product. Tesla Gigafactories are a pretty good example of this. The first two took ~3 years to build in Nevada and New York. The third, in Shanghai, took 10 months.
  • _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
    'Company learns from mistakes, third time it does something it does it better, quicker'
    • parineum 7mo ago
      The 4th one, in Germany, took 2 years.
      • _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
        Gigafactory Nevada notably became the second-largest building in the world (by volume) and was a joint partnership with Panasonic, locating two major manufacturing facilities within the same structure. Seems like a big project with additional joint partner complexities. Making the second largest building in the world as your first try is going to maybe run into some things. Gigafactory Berlin is a different beast and produces a different product mix. Gigafactory New York produces photovoltaic cells and Tesla Supercharger assemblies but does not produce batteries or vehicles yet another product mix. Giga Shanghai just does final vehicle assembly (basically the easiest kind of factory and most minimally regulated) and is a million square feet smaller than the other factories and with no joint partnership/co buildout.
      • 7mo ago
• HardCodedBias 7mo ago
  You sure it is about labor prices? These are highly capital intensive businesses. You may want to ask your LLM to do very detailed research.
  • bloomingeek 7mo ago
    Ouch!
• deepsun 7mo ago
  Shipbuilding in particular has negligible labour costs, even for rich countries. Cost to build a ship is about 80% materials costs.
  • rerdavies 7mo ago
    Which leaves plenty of room for a non-negligible 15% discount.
• guywithahat 7mo ago
  I don't think we're priced out, there's still a lot of competitive manufacturing in the US. I think it stems from a regulatory side, primarily in unions and logistics, which is unfortunate because these provide very little or no benefit to citizens but make it sometimes impossible to invest heavily in manufacturing here. People can't create dense factories cities like Detroit if a union may come in and destroy it, and we can't move fast enough if it's going to take years to get regulatory approval to develop a large factory (the Micron factory in Syracuse comes to mind, although there are many like it).
• shimman 7mo ago
  The USA is priced out of manufacturing due to greedy capitalists and business owners. Acting like labor is an insurmountable expense is just hilariously out of touch. Maybe those that own the wealth should pony up more in taxes or give away their factories to the workers so they can run it themselves (something tells me they'll do a better job than greedy owners that just care about money rather than building a community).
• Fischgericht 7mo ago
  For most industries: No, you aren't. The limiting factor mostly is natural resources. Which is what the articles author is complaining about. "I am not allowed to use up the last drops of drinking water California still has! SOCIALISM!". And the other limiting factor is knowledge/education. Your region has been known for 100 years to be highly skilled at building $THING? That knowledge is still there and has not fully retired? That's also a resource. "High labor cost" is a smoke screen. We are not talking about acquiring from a pool of lazy dancing monkeys. The labor you need are for tasks that machines can not yet do. Those jobs are either really shitty, or need a lot of qualification. Due to this: If you want to build a factory in an area where there aren't already similar factories, you first need to build a University and come back 25 years later. The articles author should next try to build a business based on offering camel riding in Greenland. Camel riding? Banned in Greenland!!!1