Report Card for Donald Trump

[Warren Dew]

(01-09-2017, 04:34 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:Assembly type jobs are not easily automated; that's why they're still done by people.  That's the kind of thing that's borderline "IRobot stuff".

I can remember when the situation I describe was the basic situation for certain categories of goods.  Protectionism against silk imports, for example, did not result in lots of silkworm farms being established in the US; it resulted in silk being virtually unavailable for those on ordinary incomes.

From the article I posted earlier, 

Quote:Where Mr. Winthrop relies on labor — the cutting and sewing of the sweatshirts, which he does in five factories in California and North Carolina — is where the costs jump up. That costs his company around $17 for a given sweatshirt; overseas, he says, it would cost $5.50.

I think you are vastly exaggerating the price pressures involved.

Knit shirts like sweatshirts specifically require minimal cutting and sewing; they are the low labor end of the market and have been since programmable knitting machines were invented.  Dress shirts require several times as much labor input.