themachine 26 points 2 years ago

The title is not original to the article. Claiming she is "exploiting cheap labor" is rather misleading. To quote a section of the article:

The other option, the one Trump wants, is a pipe dream: manufacturing her products in the US. Benike would prefer to manufacture here, too. But a mountain of logistics, near impossibilities, stand in her way.

Food-grade silicone, which she uses for her products, is not available domestically. When she looked into the cost of importing the material when she first started, it was more expensive than importing a finished product, and the prices have gone up since then. Manufacturing facilities in the US with the compression mold machines she needed require much larger runs than she can commit to. The minimum requirements for factories here was 20,000 – in China, she could do a couple thousand at a time.

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Not_mikey 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah but the only reason those supplies and services aren't available in the US is because China has all the manufacturing scale. It's not as if China is the only country that can make silicone.

If trump keeps to these tarrifs and importing silicone becomes too expensive then someone will open a factory to produce it here. Same with small scale molding. If there is truly a demand for something the market will find a way to produce it.

It may be more expensive because of higher labor standards, wages and environmental standards, but that just means it's getting closer to the true cost of the product, instead of the one subsidized by environmental destruction and labor exploitation.

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themachine 7 points 2 years ago

Im by no means trying to defend our general reliance on Chinese manufacturing nor attempting to make a case rhat using their abused labor force is fine and good.

I am also very much not in the business of defending the ultra rich mega corpos legitimately exploiting anything and everything they can for profit.

I am only defending what appeaers to be an unfair and unnecessary attack of a persons character. It is true she is using Chinese manufacturing but if her words are to believed at her current scale bringing that to the US is impossible for her. I am not even remotely educated in any of these topics so i can do little more than read the article and respond but assuming her words are true then her actions are understandable.

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corsicanguppy 1 point 2 years ago

If trump keeps to these tarrifs and importing silicone becomes too expensive then someone will open a factory to produce it here.

You're talking about a 6-10 year project before it produces anything; but we can't get the Commander in Cheese to stick to his word for 6 days.

6 years is way more than 6 days. It's longer than his presidency should be, but we're not even sure of that.

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timewarp -13 points 2 years ago

So she admits that it would cost more to do it here in the US due to labor standards & you're sympathizing that she can avoid labor standards & do it for cheaper in China?

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deur 8 points 2 years ago

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partial_accumen 6 points 2 years ago

So she admits that it would cost more to do it here in the US due to labor standards & you’re sympathizing that she can avoid labor standards & do it for cheaper in China?

Not "do it cheaper in China" the other choice would be "not do it at all".

From the article:

“It’s financially impossible for me to manufacture here. But even if I had an angel that just dropped a million dollars in my lap, it doesn’t make sense as a business model for how much we would have to charge for the product and charge the consumer,” she said.

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tossawaygui 6 points 2 years ago

Well the way Florida is going you may get your wish. Cheap American child labor.

https://www.ft.com/...

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