Soundwave said:
Bottom line is people are willing to work for far less in other countries. Americans thumb their nose down at $8/hour. $8/hour gets your 4-5 workers in China, lol, and Americans expect paid medical, dental, paid vacation, etc. Not saying they're wrong to want that, but this is the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. If you don't do it, then your competetion will do it, and now suddenly you are at an competitive disadvantage. Corporate tax rates and trade deals don't change the fact that you can make virtually any product cheaper any where than in America. The other problem -- automation is becoming cheaper than any workers at all. I've a robotic spot welder in a car factory for example costs $8/hour (averaged out) to function. To pay an actual worker to do that job is $25/hour and the robot can work 18-19-20 hours, etc. |
What you are describing is called a middle class. Places like India where such work and factories were shipped out there now have developed a middle class and expected wages and benifits have gone up thus making jobs that use to be farmed out there go to Africa and China. The key point is that the products produced by such factories are sold globally around the world and companies that make those products must compete with other companies that use cheap labor. When all is said and done, the American econony is not going to raise or fall based on manufacturing jobs. Those jobs will go to cheaper labor or automation and there is pretty much nothing to stop it from happening. The ideal situation is that the American labor force matures further or develop new industries. If anything we should be pouring a lot of our money into our education system so that even the poorest child graduates with a high education.
