I'm not sure how deep the desire of corporations and businesses really is for buying and manufacturing goods in America, but imo, the public conversations and sentiment are there and at it's highest level in a long, long time.

That said, will the next recession (likely very soon, if not already started) curtail businesses from making the commitment needed to shift manufacturing and buying habits? It will take a tremendous amount of $$ to make this switch. Will the long term vision of not being dependent on our enemies outweigh the potential difference in profit dollars? Will the pain of the current supply chain crisis subside enough that CEO's, CFO's, etc say..."ya, it would be great to build here but it's too expensive and things will never be as bad as 2020 - 2022? Or will enough of them say, "sure we might lose a couple points of profitability but there will be a much higher level of predictability to those profits that it is worth it?

You'd need a political base to help cut through all the red tape of starting a business here. And we don't have that.

Only option is to move to LA or African countries. Americans love low prices and I don't know of any CEO of a multi-national corporation wants to give up profits. We don't view countries as allies or foes we view them as something we assess risks on to put assets. So if there becomes projects where those risks outweigh the benefits they will reallocate resources. See Russia the last 15 years or so…too much uncertainty, volatility so companies have been cutting investment and or walking away.

DrEvazanPhD said:

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You'd need a political base to help cut through all the red tape of starting a business here. And we don't have that.

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I agree about certain regulations, but let's not pretend the gov't doesn't handout massive subsidies for businesses to relocate and/or build a new factory. It's often the single biggest factor in companies choosing one state over another.

Something else to consider is AI/ML and 3 D Printing are changing what manufacturing means for a LOT of products and very fast. Labor costs and the need to get parts from all over the world is starting to shift. Not there yet but it's coming.

Hate to bust your bubble but there is no move to shift production to America. American consumers are interested in one thing: lowest prices possible. Sure, if you ask, they may tell you they want to buy American, but on Saturday afternoon they go to Walmart buy made in xxxxxxx. What people say and what people do are very different things.

In a recession, it's worse. People will line up 72 hours early before Black Friday to buy a made in China TV. They may even try to cut in line to get it.

Aggie95 said:

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DrEvazanPhD said:

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You'd need a political base to help cut through all the red tape of starting a business here. And we don't have that.

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I agree about certain regulations, but let's not pretend the gov't doesn't handout massive subsidies for businesses to relocate and/or build a new factory. It's often the single biggest factor in companies choosing one state over another.

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Yes, but most of those these days are for unicorn fart factories

A recession would be useful is it drove people to consuming less and being more self-sufficient and involved more in the local communities. My fear is that it will just be used as a crisis for the ever-expanding state.

The manufacturing of goods overseas is an arbitrage of cheap labor and lower regulatory expenses relative to the transportation cost.

I hope, the next couple decades are a period of deglobilization for American goods. The robots will not charge more to operate whether they are in America or China. Therefore, it should make sense for companies to manufacturer good in the same country as where there is demand to sell them.

America's challenge will be electing politicians who don't put up artificial barriers that stop / slow this transition.

JSKolache said:

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Hate to bust your bubble but there is no move to shift production to America. American consumers are interested in one thing: lowest prices possible. Sure, if you ask, they may tell you they want to buy American, but on Saturday afternoon they go to Walmart buy made in xxxxxxx. What people say and what people do are very different things.

In a recession, it's worse. People will line up 72 hours early before Black Friday to buy a made in China TV. They may even try to cut in line to get it.

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One caveat: American consumers are interested in the lowest price possible, as long as they don't have to see what it takes to provide the lowest price possible here in the US.

Technology is deflationary, so everything should continually be getting cheaper. It should never be cheaper to buy commodities. Yet it doesn't, because we have layer upon layer of ever increasing regulations artificially inflating costs so that we don't have to see people getting laid off as technology replaces jobs. And then when our policies come back to bite us in the ass with artificially inflating the costs, big daddy government comes in and prints more dollars, further exacerbating the issue.

Wafer and chip manufacturing has already started to come back to the US.

Broseph said:

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Wafer and chip manufacturing has already started to come back to the US.

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That's what got me started thinking about this. About 7 years ago there was a huge chip plant project (Hemlock) in Tennessee that went belly up after a few buildings were built but was shuttered before completion. This was due to China dumping cheap semiconductors all over the world flooding supply. Will the same thing happen again or will these chip plants be willing/able to endure cheap ass pricing as to help eleviate the problem of the supply chain being held hostage by China?

Gaw617 said:

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Only option is to move to LA or African countries. Americans love low prices and I don't know of any CEO of a multi-national corporation wants to give up profits. We don't view countries as allies or foes we view them as something we assess risks on to put assets. So if there becomes projects where those risks outweigh the benefits they will reallocate resources. See Russia the last 15 years or so…too much uncertainty, volatility so companies have been cutting investment and or walking away.

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I know Louisiana is full of LSU fans, but it can't be a big of a mess as it is in Africa?

Point out how much bad nasty emissions are let into the atmosphere by foreign unregulated factories and power plants, and the emissions created transporting products around the globe, then the left will get on board with domestic manufacturing. Or wait, no, not in my back yard liberals couldn't stand the sight of advanced and world leading efficient and clean energy and manufacturing in their own back yard.