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How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

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689 points taubek | 4 comments | 09 Apr 25 12:58 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Clubber ◴[09 Apr 25 13:38 UTC] No.43631933[source]▶
>The second thing we see is that Asian manufacturing in Asia produces US jobs. You go to Footlocker to buy a pair of $100 shoes because you can afford them. This creates jobs for the Footlocker employees, Nike designers, marketing teams, and other US people throughout this chain.

In all fairness, most of those jobs would still exist if manufacturing was brought onshore. The fact that they were manufactured in Asia makes no difference here, except for perhaps the longshoremen that was included in "other US people."

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ravelantunes ◴[09 Apr 25 13:55 UTC] No.43632163[source]▶
The author’s point is that the lower cost of goods coming from Asia results in increased demand, which then generates more jobs in the post-manufacturing part of the chain.
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xienze ◴[09 Apr 25 14:08 UTC] No.43632322[source]▶
That completely discounts the strategic value of self-sufficiency. I mean, why not outsource ALL manufacturing and agriculture if someone else can do it cheaper? Surely that wouldn't come back to bite us, right?
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1. myrmidon ◴[09 Apr 25 14:52 UTC] No.43632823[source]▶
Self sufficiency is just not a credible argument here.

This is about consumer footwear, not agriculture (nor all of manufacturing).

The US (and most other nations that can afford to) is perfectly used to throwing ~$20 billion at the sector to keep local agriculture operational.

We did not do this for literally every industry in the past because we had (and have) neither the idle workforce to do this, nor does the local population want to do the work (even for slightly uncompetitive wages), nor do consumers want to pay for the difference.

My personal prediction is that people will realize this pretty soon with the consequences of the Trump tariffs manifesting and the whole thing will be rolled back and scaled down, with pretty much nothing to show for it.

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2. dboreham ◴[09 Apr 25 16:18 UTC] No.43633804[source]▶
The shoes aren't even needed. Growing up in Scotland (not poor) in the 1970s I had one pair of shoes. When they wore out my mother would buy me a new pair. Today in the US I have so many pairs of shoes I don't really have space to store them and sometimes end up buying a new pair of shows I already own because I can't keep track of what's in the closet.

Btw the one thing that will be left to show is a wider realization that it's a bad idea to elect a crazy person.

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3. giardini ◴[09 Apr 25 16:28 UTC] No.43633967[source]▶
dborehamsays "Btw the one thing that will be left to show is a wider realization that it's a bad idea to elect a crazy person."

Regret to inform that all of them are crazy.

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4. krapp ◴[09 Apr 25 16:35 UTC] No.43634064{3}[source]▶
>Regret to inform that all of them are crazy.

I'm sure it's comforting to assume that all politicians are equally corrupt and equally insane and so your vote doesn't actually matter one way or the other but Kamala Harris wouldn't be acting like this, nor would Biden. Hell, not even other Republicans.