5 ms·
So you are only cheaper on expensive stuff.
by jkot 11y ago
So you are only cheaper on expensive stuff.
- chralieboy 11y agoFor now, but the trend in the article is related to mass manufacturing. Fracking (lower electricity prices, cheaper oil) helps large steel and aluminum manufacturers. Cheaper raw materials leads to cheaper widgets.
- nickpinkston 11y agoBetter != Cheaper - We're able to make more profitable manufacturing companies, by cost or performance.
- ghaff 11y agoIt's not that simple. I was just happening to look at a plastic bucket I was using yesterday and it was manufactured the next town over in Massachusetts, It's probably true that the US tends not to be competitive for cheap goods that don't have a large individual labor component. But it's more than high-margin items.
- ams6110 11y agoInjection molded plastic seems to be one industry that is still viable in the USA (just my observation, it seems common to see plastics factories here). Not sure why this is.
- starky 11y agoDoing tooling in China and then shipping the molds to NA is the common way to do injection moulding in NA. After that injection moulding is so automated that the labour cost to run a machine isn't that high. That said, I've yet to have a NA injection molder beat out the ones we use in Asia.
- ghaff 11y agoAssuming it is in fact the case (and it probably is for larger items at least), it's probably as part of the US-based hydrocarbon refining ecosystem in some way. (The city in question in my comment was also one of the first places to do industrial plastics manufacturing as a way to replace tortoise shell for combs etc.)