Biden's inflation plan upends thinking on jobs sent overseas

[JudyM]

President Joe Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the U.S.

This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. The trend contributed to the loss of 6.8 million U.S. manufacturing jobs, but it also translated into lower prices for consumers and put downward pressure on inflation in ways that kept broader economic growth going.
…
Now, with inflation at a 40-year high, the president has begun to argue that globalization is stoking higher prices. That’s because proponents of outsourcing failed to consider the costs of increasingly frequent global supply chain disruptions. Recent disruptions have included the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of basic goods like semiconductors, destructive storms and wildfires and, now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has sent oil prices soaring.
…
The administration is basing its argument, in part, on analyses done by the McKinsey Global Institute. A 2020 report by the institute found that companies will likely experience supply chain disruptions lasting a month or longer every 3.7 years, which increases costs and cuts into profits.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-covid-business-health-prices-ea8197898a76390df54560aa4f29745d

[elleng]

1. 'increasingly frequent global supply chain disruptions.'

[JudyM]

9. "...lasting a month or longer every 3.7 years"

[halfulglas]

2. Not to mention a near monopoly of the shipping giants shipping the

cargos across the oceans.

[everyonematters]

3. My thinking:

American wages have come down to the point to where it is now cheaper to make things here rather that pay to transport them from overseas. It's the natural progression.

[JudyM]

10. If only companies were required to internalize their environmental degradation costs, of shipping,

etc. That would change the equation.

[Samrob]

4. YES! Think back to when we were living our best lives...what where tax rates then, where

was good stuff manufactured and who worked those plants. (FDR, JFK, WJC) Only talking about economic relative well-being. We still had plenty of social ills and injustices and we still have them. But working families had jobs and made decent living wages and the wealthy seemed to pay their fair share at the top. AND people had job security. Goods from China were trashed and Americans made the best of everything. And had the best educational systems in the world and most of our workplaces, even physical labor spaces, operated as a community away from home. I'm for it.

[SheltieLover]

5. Do it!

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Gimme local goods anytime

I do notice that goods produced within 100 miles of my retailers, though I've only ID'd 2 of them, do sell for less. They can be the 88 cent specials, or how you find a nationally priced $7 item at Dollar Tree. Look for bargains, and score them.

[LiberalFighter]

8. Companies could also lower costs by lowering exec salaries and bonuses.

[lame54]

11. The thing about making our crap in China...

It's a dumping ground for all the factory pollution and waste

[lagomorph777]

12. Imagine that - a President who hires actual economists.