I’m not buying much of these last couple of pages…
There are tons of low paying no skill jobs available in my area, folks screaming for labor with zero experience to just get on the job, get a little training and show up each day. Some of those start as temp placements, if they are worth a darn (1 in a 100) they get full time offers and begin to train/move through the company. Most don’t actually want to work, that shovel, broom or hammer that they are first handed is beneath them. They are too short sighted to realize that broom could turn into benefits and a 401k in just a couple years.
People make choices on whether they want to live in a sanctuary city with free tents and government handouts. It is pretty lucrative for some. Are there exceptions? Yes. A lot of mental health that is a completely separate issue.
US has lots of manufacturing. It is just different from what it was 50 years ago. I mean TI has invested $50B in chip fabs around here in just the past handful of years.
COVID we didn’t have enough masks (whatever good they did), there were N95 mask factories setup and operational in a matter of months.
We have the intelligence and capacity to spin up a lot of manufacturing should we be forced in very short order… some raw materials would be a problem if they aren’t in our soil and the conflict was bad enough.
A ton a manufacturing has left the US, largely because the US is an unfriendly place to do business. If corps want to stay alive, they make business decisions on how to remain profitable.
Keep cranking minimum wage, insurance requirements, union influence, sex change coverage, 3 month paternal paid leave, extended unemployment benefits, child tax credits, etc… to price out humans. Employees are crazy expensive. Those jobs that can will either be replaced with automation or outsourced, tough. This math isn’t difficult.
How much longer will mega farmers even have folks in the tractors? IMO the trend is for 50,000 acres to be run by a handful of mechanics and engineers owned by large corporations in the coming decades.