Espi said:
In my mind no company wants to pay a fair wage to Americans for manufacturing jobs, even though minimum wage is lower than it was 40 years ago when adjusted for inflation. That's what China and Vietnam and other 3rd world countries are good for. Minimum wage isn't minimum enough for greedy companies.
Starvation wage is key to good profit. That is why there are so many illegal aliens here. The companies LOVE to pay them dirt cheap wages. They wouldn't come here if they didn't get jobs.
I agree, the trade policy and labor, immigration and economic policy is set by and for the wealthiest. You couldn't even own and keep slaves as economically as the average worker. And an illegal alien worker is an even better slave you don't have to pay minimum wage. Manufacturing is the highest of productive endeavors. If it can't provide a middle class income like it use to then nothing can. They can collapse, and to a degree are, the income of STEM and middle management too. If you're not one of the few wealthiest, then you're just a working stiff too no matter how skilled and rare you think you might be.
Good publicity stunt perhaps? Nothing better than an "American made" gun company opening its factory doors to grateful hardworkign Americans, even though the gun parts are probably made overseas, much like today's "American" automobiles...
It probably does have some marketing value to be "American made" but I think the main thing is without free trade stuff would very profitably be made here. The media has brainwashed people to be so unproud of American made that seems like most people prefer foreign made products.
Bokanovsky said:
Many American gun makers, including once legendary companies like Remington, S&W and Colt, have endemic quality control issues these days (to a point where people would rather buy a 40-50 year old specimen over a new production version of the same gun). Other American-made products, such as automobiles, aren't exactly known for high quality either.
The American manufacturing industry is not very competitive and it's not just because of unions and relatively high wages. Germany has the strongest manufacturing industry in the world and it has unions too and even higher wages than in the U.S. The difference is that the Germans make high quality, desirable stuff, which justifies the high prices. The Americans...not so much.
I agree that wages and unions have little to do with US manufacturing industry cutting quality. Germans still have some pride left in the country and their manufacturing. American products tended to have been better quality years back when wages were higher and unions were more common.
The reason for lower quality is the same reasoning for outsourcing and cutting wages, short-term profit. These companies have mostly been taken over and ran by equity holdings. I don't agree that American products are second to German or Japanese at similar price levels. I don't agree that German cars or Japanese cars on the whole are better made. I believe America had better engineering and manufacturing than any other country.
What America has is a problem of management focusing on profit and cost cutting. The problem is increasingly most things are being made in China and other 3-world countries. America could compete with Japan and German on a level playing field, but China and 3-rd world countries is a different matter.
