There's also the threat of substantially increased tariffs that could make a panel manufactured by a <$3/hour worker cost as much or more than a panel manufactured by a >$10/hour American worker.
While everyone in the U.S. I think would agree that securing jobs for Americans would be great, you just can't bend the math enough to make it economical.
Why? Everything in that plant is going to be automated anyway.
Quoting a number of jobs at "30,000" is laughable. The only reason Foxconn would employ 30,000 people is because labor is so pathetically cheap in China. In reality, they will probably employ 300-500 so there is zero reason why they couldn't pay $18+ per hour.
The idea that Foxconn would be automated less than a steel mill is absurd:
http://triblive.com/business/headlines/9409484-74/ati-worker... "Only 32 workers are needed to operate Allegheny Technologies Inc.'s new $1.2 billion hot-rolling mill in Harrison, company officials say."
I am all for Foxconn having a plant here. We need to pull some of the semiconductor and electronics manufacturing back to the US for many reasons (keeping the knowledge, lower transport costs, quicker turnaround, etc.).
Unfortunately, large numbers of jobs really isn't one of reasons.
I was making a reply to a comment of $10 am hour vs $3 in China, in which I stated it would be a lot more than $10 for a U.S factory working - amd - I don't think anyone disagrees with securing American jobs, but the math wouldn't make sense.
The initial remark discussion and reply did not relate to Foxconn jobs vs automation.
The article states:
The facility would cost more than $7 billion and may create
an eventual 30,000 to 50,000 jobs, the publication cited
Gou as saying.
These kinds of numbers are also hugely inflated and based on the most optimistic metrics.
source: worked in pr
I'm not so sure in this particular case.
People who buy Apple products are (usually) already choosing a more expensive product based on fashion and image. I can see Apple increasing the price a bit and having a big marketing campaign about being "Made in the USA."
In general though, I don't know how it's expected to work. Ironically, I think a lot of the people making the biggest fuss about bringing back manufacturing jobs will be the ones least able to buy the products once the prices skyrocket.
These people just live in a different world.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/calebmelby/2012/11/12/breaking-d...
In many cases, I would gladly pay a few percent more to have jobs back in the US. It has a cascading effect that truly "lifts all boats." A hell of a lot more than corporate tax breaks.
Everybody will say they want jobs back here, but given two identical products made in China and the USA most people will pick the cheaper one.
I'll pay for expensive jeans which will last over the cheap jeans which don't last a year. On the other hand, the fashion industry has a lot to answer for for making people always wanting the new and the trendy, even when it impacts the environment negatively (one pair of boots lasting 10 years vs one lasting a year, for example).
That reminds me of the idea that climate change can be ameliorated by a few people volunteering to recycle or ride bicycles in lieu of structural changes. TL;DR: these fixes don't work without scale.
I remember a big push around retaining manufacturing jobs in the '80s. Everything from clothes to cars to appliances was touted as being Made in America. By my recollection, the cross-industry marketing spend must have been fairly significant given its prevalence. But it apparently didn't work, and now these products are in general not made in America.
My assumption is that industry tried getting people to buy stuff based on place of manufacture and it turned out that given a choice between "Made in USA" or a few dollars off, most people chose the cost savings. Most people weren't in a position to spend more of their limited funds to save a stranger's job. If this was indeed what happened, I suspect this effort is doomed again.
edit: found the photo: http://www.strangefarmer.com/images/content/184933.jpg
I don't even know why I'm replying here if you really don't know your parents could have bought an Android device that also works and is also a "serious phone" for half the price.
When pushed on the point that he just willingly spent more than that on the apple laptop, he said "yeah, but when you use one, people know you're using a quality laptop". Yes, to this man at least, status was worth almost a grand.
The more interesting question is how much of the cost of a display on a per display basis is human labor costs and how much is material and facilities costs? 10 people with a fully loaded cost of $500/hr is the same labor cost as 100 people with a fully loaded labor cost of $5/hr. And if they can make the same number of displays per hour does it really matter what the humans are paid?
I think it is completely reasonable to point out that US factories employ fewer employees per $ of production value than Chinese factories do so building a factory here will create fewer US jobs then building the same factory in China would create Chinese jobs.
However I also agree that generally these discussions involve pulling out one piece of the puzzle and creating the appropriate narrative from that rather than to comprehensively analyze the economics of building the displays locally versus in China.
From a policy perspective I expect a company could successfully argue to use money held overseas to pay an overseas general contractor to build a factory locally. If structured carefully this would allow for funds which are currently inactive to be repatriated without incurring a tax obligation by playing to the vanities of the current administration.