gr1ml0ck wrote:Obviously because slave labour isn't available in the US. What a stupid idea these people have about manufacturing returning here. We outsourced everything, no way its coming back. These greedy companies will simply make us pay the difference rather than pay people fair wages.
It's not slave wages. The wages they are being paid are a living wage in those countries. We've come a long ways since the pre-80s and 90s when Nikes were being sewn together by kids in dirt floor shacks. These factories now offer incentives like food, housing, transportation and healthcare, and the facilities are being inspected by human rights watch dogs. I hear the same complaints from US tech industry opponents which is ridiculous when they require clean, if not sterile, conditions. There's any number of videos from inside toy factories in China, these aren't sweatshops.
You want to talk about slave wages, our government doesn't even offer living wages for crying out loud, inflation outpaced minimum wage long ago, more US factories isn't going to change that! Federal minimum wage in 1968 would be worth more than $12 right now in 2025 when the federal minim wage is only $7.25. 21 states have state minimum wages tied to the federal rate. Bet I can guess which states will be getting factories!
What Trump and his cronies want to do is move manufacturing to the US is automate it, this has nothing to do with American jobs. You can't automate toy manufacturing, it's impossible, you can't make a specific machine for every toy ever made unless it's something very simple and timeless. Every action figure and doll is hand assembled and hand painted, lots of hands touch every single one of them down the assembly line. This isn't a cheap process. All that will happen with high Chinese tariffs is companies will just find a new low tariff, low living wage country to move to and it wont be the US.
Emerje
