First off, where would you put the new plants and where would you find the needed, skilled workers for hire?
Hang on. Just how skilled do you think workers need to be to work in a PC, server or cell phone assembly plant? All the factories moved to China because they were labor intensive and labor is less expensive over there than it is in the USA. The Chinese laborers' lives are (compared to lower middle class US lives) miserable, work six days a week, make almost no money, live in a "worker's village" dorm type thing, and the USA is getting the benefit of that low cost labor.
The issue is not that skilled workers in the US are not available. The issue is that we're trying to repatriate undesirable jobs. Just because you call it "manufacturing" does not make it a desirable high paying job.
Manufacturing tries to pay the laborer as little as possible for an always increasing level of more and more work. That's how the factory generates profit.
The US should be trying to ensure that no country (ie, China) gets a monopoly position in manufacturing because then they can use the monopoly to raise prices and we customers got no choice but to pay. However, if there is competition (Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Mexico, etc etc) then the factories compete with each other always driving their costs (including laborers' wages) lower, and the customer (the USA) gets the product at lower and lower prices. It's great to be the USA in this situation. It's a pain in the butt to be the dog eat dog factory, because the factory across the street is always trying to undercut you on price - there goes all the profit!
Overseas factories should be viewed as distribution channels for US designed semiconductors and US created software. It's how our semi and software companies sell their products. Why are we destroying our leading companies' distribution channels?
Assembling PCs has a gross margin of 15% and a operating profit margin of 4%. It's a lousy business. Let them have it. |
