As usual, the big US corporations have learned absolutely nothing from the disruption of the production and supply chains as a result of the coronavirus.
Large US companies operating in China don’t want to move production and supply chains from the country in the near future, even though the coronavirus may force them to adjust their business strategies, a recent survey found.
Around 70 percent of 25 firms with global revenue of over half a billion dollars have no relocation plans, despite the effect the coronavirus outbreak has had on their business, according to a joint poll conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China and the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. The results of the March survey, published on Friday, also show that around 40 percent of the respondents would rather keep their long-term supply chain strategy for China unchanged.
While more than half of the firms polled say it’s too early to make any decisions on relocation, only four percent of the companies are planning to shift all production outside China, while 12 percent of the respondents intend to move part of their facilities.
It’s time for President Trump to start imposing massive penalties on US firms manufacturing anything outside the USA, and for Congress to do the same. And any firm that lobbies against the penalties or opposes them in any way should be deemed ineligible for any bailout money or federal funding for its employees.
David Ricardo is dead. Free trade is the most expensive and destructive kind of trade. There is no comparative advantage. And this is why no nation that plans to survive can afford it.
Prestige Ameritech. The North Richland Hills company is America’s No. 1 maker of hospital surgical masks.
During this crisis, you’d think the company would be pushing forward on all cylinders, working 24/7 to manufacture the one commodity that Americans and the rest of the world want so badly.
Nope.
When there’s an outbreak — like last time, with Swine Flu — he gets orders. He ramps up to fill them.
Then the outbreak passes, and guess where the hospitals go? Back to China.
This leaves him with capital equipment leases and people. If he doesn’t lay them off he goes out of business. If he does lay them off he get’s hammered with much higher unemployment insurance premiums, the leases on the equipment he has no use for, and he goes out of business.
The last time he nearly did.
This time, he’s demanding long-term contracts. Good for him.
Guess how many he’s gotten?
I’ll bet you can figure that out.
Corporatism not only isn’t capitalism, it is pure and unadulterated short-term-preferenced evil.