The labor market is slowing, but it’s all good news in the White House.
The U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, a slight decline from April, according to a jobs report released Friday. The unemployment rate remained at 4.2 percent, still within the ballpark of historic lows reached in 2023, when the unemployment rate reached 3.4 percent—the lowest it had been in more than five decades. But within the folds of the report hid a major red flag for Donald Trump’s agenda: The U.S. is still bleeding manufacturing jobs.
But even the president’s favorite conservative network couldn’t hide its dismay at the slight manufacturing downturn.
“Now, 8,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in May. That’s not what you wanted to see,” said Fox Business host Stuart Varney.
U mean asking manufacturers to pay MORE to produce in America encourages them to move production to other countries? You’re kidding!
It’s worse than that.
Let’s say I want to open a widget factory in America because of the tariffs. Sure, I can avoid the tariffs on the widgets themselves by making them here, but there’s a big problem…
What about the tariffs on the materials needed to make them?
So Trump wants to strong-arm a minerals deal with some country via a protection racket only to… tariff them?
Jesus Christ.
Unironically, depending on how the supply chain is arranged for your industry, it may actually be cheaper to move your manufacturing off shore and eat the tariff once instead of getting nickeled and dimed for every single item you need to assemble on shore. Hell, Vietnam already figured out you can ship Chinese products through to America as grey imports and skim off the top.
It is hard for me to articulate just how fucking stupid all of this is. It’s no small wonder how this guy bankrupted six casinos.
But hey, Art of the Deal, baby.
And that’s not even accounting for forecasting, which is still necessary in the stupid-frahile JIT approach. Noone will want to sign a long-term supply contract when they could get screwed by sudden tarrifs and the JIT people have to rely on luck to avoid subjecting customers to sticker-price whiplash.
It’s all just so fucking stupid.
*gray, as in ray.
Both are correct, country dependant.
Unless you also correct colour and shit as well in which case go nuts.
I always assumed they were bankrupted on purpose as part of some sort of money laundering scheme, but you’re bringing me around to the idea that it may actually have been sheer stupidity rather than crime.
This is exactly what some of the biggest manufacturers of cars in America are thinking of doing. They manufacture in America but a lot of the parts are imported and would cost them a fortune to import. It’s cheaper to move factories to China, build the full part, and then ship it over because the tarrifs are higher on the individual tech parts inside the assembly than a finished product using those parts.
I don’t disagree with your point, but except for electronics, and Italian marble America can make a lot of the materials themselves. The biggest problem is in many cases the price of labour in the US. And for complex things like cars you can’t even move the entire supply chain even if you wanted to.
There was this guy who had a theory that there was nobody on earth who could make a microwave oven, turns out he was right: there are people who can know how to make a certain part of it and other people who knew about it’s assembly nobody can create one start to finish. So imagine with more complex machines how difficult it’d be to bring all those skills and knowledge ‘home’ to America.
I am not sure about other industry, but in the pharmaceutical industry, several companies decided immediately to set up more manufacturing sites in the US after the tariff threat. But I think it is because these companies are producing weight loss drugs, which is selling like hot cakes since last year, so I think they know that the huge sales will offset the manufacturing cost and tariffs. These weight loss drugs are new and the patent rights is good for 15-20 years. Some industries are just lucky they are insulated from the worst of tariff impositions, while others are not so much.
Lol, you entirely misunderstand the issue.
Americans lack the skills and machining of modern manufacturing. It’s so expensive because they’d have to make buildings and teach skills that are already everywhere in China.
But sure, laugh like a fucking moron we’re taking behind the world because we don’t take care of workers or infrastructure.
Americans with those skills don’t want to work for shit wages. I can show you plenty of electrician/engineer/mechanic job postings for sub 60k if you would like. I’ve spent two decades in mfg environments watching poor business decisions cripple the workforce and push any and all qualified individuals out.
They’re so fucking myopic. A $50k per year chemical manufacturing operator is going to fuck up $20k worth of equipment and finished product a year compared to a $65k per year.
A $100k/yr technician will save your bacon twice a month and make it look easy. The $70k/yr parts changer will misdiagnose away that $30k you ‘saved’ in about 6 months.
Yes, it is easier to proceed assuming that I am a complete moron. Thanks :)
I did it as well, you’re welcome :)
Just to clarify, the United States already manufacturers a crap load of stuff. We are number two in the world with only China ahead of us.
So asking manufacturers to pay more for parts that we can’t produce here is good so that they can move to other countries?