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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Webster Groves who wrote (82602)	4/6/2007 9:51:15 AM
From: CommanderCricket	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 206323

"when Americans are willing to work for Chinese wages, manufacturing will return to America" Let me provide an example of why this isn't the problem. Intel or BMW or whoever wants to build a manufacturing plant near their customers. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new greenfield manufacturing facility employing the latest in automation, they don't need cheap labor. They need highly skilled labor and are willing to pay for it. An example I'm well aware of is electronic components. Labor makes up less than 5% of total costs. Transportation and logistics is much more expensive. Cheap labor isn't the issue. Once again it's available skilled labor. China has plenty of it but it's no longer cheap. When I left my position two years ago, we were paying $25K plus bennies for regional sales managers and $35k for a country manager in China. Wages are going up fast. Want a good technician in China who will stick around? Its not cheap. Don't confuse manufacturing tee-shirts and toys with assembled electronics and industrial goods. Manufacturing jobs are returning to US but they won't be making tee-shirts or toys. How about Toyota's in Texas or Hyundai's in Mississippi. These companies could've built new facilities in China and exported to the US and they didn't. The low skilled North America worker has to compete with the rest of the world but any with a half a brain and a few skills will do just fine. Michael