I disagree. Yes it is a problem..I agree. A woman was on Colbert whose company made marbles. I know this is a simple explanation but it accurately portrays the problem.
She said China can make AND SHIP to the US marbles for 21 cents per lb. Her electrical cost alone is 21 cents per lb.
What we have here is way beyond unions or gov't regulation but the problem is dealing with countries who cost of production is a 1/10 of ours.
We could get rid of most all gov't regulation and we could not compete with China or other low wage countries.
How much of that electrical cost is from government regulation?From mining, gas extraction, emissions controls, safety requirements, to the EIS studies on powerline rights of way, it all adds up and comes out as 'electrical cost'.
Much of the price of regulation is wrapped up and hidden in some other cost, just as 'hidden' taxes are, and it all comes out in the cost to the consumer.
Totally true, and it's totally disingenuous of some to constantly act like the only problem is excessive regulation and the corporate tax rate.
Cheap labor, often is little as 5% of the US rate, is and always has been the biggest lure for the export of US plants and jobs to cheap labor nations, and for the outsourcing of skilled work.
And the impetus for most of the move of US jobs to cheap labor nations has been the opening of the US market to goods produced in cheap labor nations, starting with Japan in the 1950s when it was a cheap labor nation. US firms gradually begin to seek cheaper labor to remain competitive in the US consumer market. And this trend started almost twenty years before Nixon succeeded in starting the EPA.
The first big move of US jobs to Mexico was not as a result of NAFTA, but of the maquiladora program started in the 1960s to locate US plants in northern Mexico. That was a program to give US companies access to more cheap labor, with some hope of stemming illegal immigration.
People have various motives for denying that cheap labor has been the biggest factor in the loss of US manufacturing (it's just sounds unseemly), but it is and has been since the 1950s. Other factors are significant, but cheap labor is #1 by far.