There are no hands in the manufacturing. It is all robots. There are some dudes who sit around and make sure no one trips over a plug.

Do you know how many thousands of people it takes to keep Steve happy?

zageratbackatya

So why not put the robots in TX or TN (preempting any desire to secede cause then they'd have to export what they produce). A robot in TX probably charges as much per hour as one in Shanghai, I'd bet.

The robots pull the same amount of juice but the robot tenders are making ten cents on our dollar. It's a lot less people to boot. We can pass on that kind of manufacturing. Well, it's not a case of passing or a choice. They can do it much cheaper. End of story in a world driven by Capitalism.

But making the thing in country does not mean wonderful things. Japanese car makers make their cars in Tennessee. Should we say that is a win? No, the profits go to Japan.

You need another scorecard.

But . . . but . . . but . . . if it gets made here, the distribution is cheaper, and if the number of robot controllers is that small, then . . . .

The Chinese have tiny hands and can fix robots while we take paid coffee breaks and have belt buckles as big as 3X5 cards. 'Nuf sed.

Believe it or not but shipping it in is still cheaper than if made in the US = Sadly

No really.
My understanding that the autos made in the US is for the US market - However like Hawaii, they are still shipped in from Japan and and some states on the west coast.

Not to mention that Honda owns a large ship that was built to ship autos only, something like 5,000 cars at one time (had a photo of it at one time) anyway Honda also has contracts will all the other Japanese auto manufacturers to ship their cars too. <-- I bet its dirt cheap shipping compared to having Horizon or Maersk for example, ship it for you.

It's not a bunch of robots... at least not just robots. Read an article on the whole process and the company that does Apples manufacturing. Thousands of employees living in crappy 'on site' quarters and people throwing themselves off buildings it's so bad.

Foxconn.

I remember the article because it mentioned employees working looong shifts and getting thankless pay. Not sitting around monitoring robots.


http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_24/b4182035750226.htm

The government also pays for the juice over there.

The first comment to that article has a point. "So far this year, 10 Foxconn workers have committed suicide". Can I presume that was six months There are 250,000 workers.

A quick calculation. That is 8 suicides per 100,000 per year. The US overall suicide rate is 10.8 per 100,000.
Caveats:
1) this data are suspect. It is selected to enhance suicides. Every statistical number has an ebb and flow variance over time. The six months was selected to enhance the number. 2 less or two more suicides would change the numbers greatly.
2) The US suicide rate peaks at age 24-35 (2nd to highest cause of death of this age group) which is likely the age of these workers. Don't have the rate but it is much higher than the average of the entire population of 10.8

So the numbers that the story is based on are a total farce. Unless young adults in the United States are just naturally supposed to kill themselves at a much higher rate than the Chinese.

I think people are always surprised at how many people kill themselves each year. 34,000 killed themselves last year. 18,000 of them by shooting themselves. And this is likely an under reported statistic. Suicide by cop is under reported. Also how many of the 42,000 traffic fatalities last year were really someone just driving into a tree on purpose? The family certainly does not want questions asked. The 18,000 murders last year probably also included quite a few people who were asking for it.

(ps. All those numbers are USA only. Not singling out Americans, they just have the best data set at the CDC on death and disease.)