Labor is too expensive for US manufacturing without significant price increases, and given those price increases consumers are purchasing fewer total goods because they simply can't afford more. Too much of their income is going to housing and food costs, neither of which are highly reliant on manufacturing jobs. Consumer spending in dollars may be up, but total goods consumed has to be down at this point.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Labor is too expensive for US manufacturing without significant price increases
This also isn't a problem for just manufacturing. Even USA white collar information workers are competing with information workers in other nations which earn (and cost the employer) a small fraction of the cost of a US worker.
"..total goods consumed has to e down at this point", is the problem. People just do less; it's also vicious circle. Once housing and food are paid, very little is left. Manufacturing slides, and everyone wants to be a landlord. Increasing the cost of housing. With people buying fewer things, their is less choice. A couple of big monopolies take over the few remaining industries, and over even less choice, as they make cuts. Without disposable time/income, people join fewer clubs, and have fewer hobbies. Wood working, pottery, all cost a fortune.
Don't forget medical expenses as well. The cost of living in the US has been on the rise for decades while wages have remained flat. The simple reality is while the US economy has continued to improve, only the rich have benefited from that and it's approaching the point where the majority of the US population literally can not afford to live in the US. The oligarchs are going to be forced to share that wealth or the entire US economy will collapse and they won't like what happens when a large, angry, and very well armed population decides they're tired of living off the crumbs that fall off the plates of an incredibly tiny group of the ultra wealthy.
Also the world market now no longer wants to buy a made in USA product…
IDK seems to me Trump is basing everything on just serving the home market, and pissing everybody else off with his baseless trade war.
Catering only to a home market in recession, is probably just about the most idiotic strategy to support the industry, in the history of industry.
Let me see, when was the last time "we" did that?
Oh yeah, that was during the great depression!
Also his idea of serving the home market is poison
He's a moron that doesn't understand economics and ignores the advice of anybody smarter than him (which is pretty much everyone). He has an incredibly simplistic concept of how domestic markets work and doesn't even remotely understand international trade. All he sees is the word "deficit" in "trade deficit" and thinks that means the US isn't getting paid for its exports. It's why he's so hung up on the concept of tariffs (which also don't work like he thinks they do).
The only thing Trump has ever understood is how to rip people off. If he had been born to someone poor Trump would be running the sleaziest used car lot for a thousand miles around somewhere.
They aren’t stuck. All they have to do is dip into their profits but they won’t. All they have to do is make quality products but they won’t.
Making all the raw materials used to manufacture things MORE expensive, artificially, arbitrarily, is not protection.
Well, the free market would dictate that they should go out of business then.
Shitty companies don't deserve to continue as going concerns if they continue to be shitty companies.