[nebula8804]

Here you go: enjoy your $120 American jeans: https://originusa.com/collections/jeans (Oh look its on sale 20$ off...yay :/ )

The sale discount is the entire amount I was able to buy my non American jeans for. :/

I guess I can make due with one pair for the week...or wash them each day(oh wait thats gotten more expensive as well).

[k4rli]

Proper jeans aren't really washed more than once a month or at all. Especially every day. They also will last for years therefore buying 1-3 pairs a year means your wardrobe will have plenty.

Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities. Sending it to China is just awful for your country/region and kills local businesses.

Disclaimer: from Europe so I don't care about USA at all. It's still having the same effect here

[runako]

> Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities.

Is the thinking here that increased scale would allow production to get cheaper? How would this account for the fact that production was scaled here, but was not cost-competitive when it was operating at scale? What's different now?

[buzer]

Let's say currently it costs $15 to make thing 1m units of X in China and $50 to make 10k of them in the USA. USA could be scaled to make 50k of them for $40 and 100k for $30. 1m could cost like $25. There are people for who are ready to pay more for local products so the current production volume makes sense, but majority of people will go for cheaper option when given the chance so it doesn't make sense to scale up the production currently. If the import cost of the item goes above local production cost and there is still enough demand for the item, it can make sense to scale up that production even if you cannot compete with the China made things internationally.

Of course that assumes your own costs (like raw materials) do not increase at least on the same scale and that you can rely on the situation being long-term thing (i.e. will last years rather than weeks) as costs include your CapEx on things like new machines.

[runako]

> say currently it costs $15 to make thing 1m units of X in China and $50 to make 10k of them in the USA. USA could be scaled to make 50k of them for $40 and 100k for $30. 1m could cost like $25.

So here we are assuming that we could get a 50% reduction in cost by scaling to 1m units of a thing. The problem with this logic is that many product categories currently made overseas were produced domestically at scale until relatively recently.

This assumption also appears to imply that the goods in question either have a very low labor input or are produced using automation that is not available to Chinese manufacturers.

Reframing my initial question, what advantages would a US manufacturer have today that they didn't have in e.g. 1990 that would allow them to manufacture for only 66% more than the same manufacturing in China?

[forgotoldacc]

> Proper jeans aren't really washed more than once a month or at all.

I've had a lot of people say this to me. I've known their policy on washing jeans without them ever having to tell me, though.

People become noseblind to their own stench. Unfortunately, it's not easy to ignore the stench of someone else wearing pants with a month of sweat and fecal bacteria soaked into them. I know lots of people also only wash their coats once a year, and trust me, being more resistant to stinking isn't the same as being completely immune to stinking.

Wash your clothes. The idea of not washing them is a meme and it's incredible how many people have fallen for it lately.

[nebula8804]

I don't know about you but it feels icky to me to wear dirty pants. I could probably get by wearing them two days in a row. If I have one paid of jeans, im washing them at least every other day. If I have 7 pairs of jeans im washing at least half of them once a week. I'd rather have 7 pairs of jeans. They last long enough for me(a few years). Maybe its just because I dont have to taken them to the laverie (as the french would say) but clean clothes just feel better.

[blitzar]

> kills local businesses

The business-to-consumer businesses, which take the largest markup, employ the most people and pay the highest wages in the supply chain, have thrived under this system.

It's not the customers that demand products be made in China, it's these "local" businesses.