Some of it is China’s willingness to make big capital investments. My wife was shocked at the low price of beech mushrooms at Ren’s Market and I found out these are grown in a huge factory in China where they are very proud that they only have to handle the mushrooms with a forklift. Contrast that to those white button Agricus mushrooms each of which is cut out from the mycelium individually with a knife.
When you look at solar panels and lithium batteries their biggest advantage is that they invest in large scale heavily automated factories. For really labor intensive and low value things like those dog beds Chinese labor is already too expensive and production is going to places like Bangladesh.
We have plenty of capital here. Far more than China.
The problem is the capital cannot be put to good use here. Either because (1) there's too much uncertainty around project progress (think oil pipelines stuck for decades in permitting limbo), or (2) the ROI doesn't work when you pay insanely high bloated compliance costs of hiring US staff.
Even our sky high productivity cannot overcome the large lard deadweight each of us has to carry, on behalf of the elite class
I remember a time when every product sold around the world carried the "MADE IN USA" brand. It included random trinkets.
That would come back quickly, if we all decided we had enough of antiwork laws, enough with all the deadweight, and focused on building instead of regulating.
The good news is that they’re building one here
https://finc-sh.com/tag/new/
When you look at solar panels and lithium batteries their biggest advantage is that they invest in large scale heavily automated factories. For really labor intensive and low value things like those dog beds Chinese labor is already too expensive and production is going to places like Bangladesh.