Okay....So, after reading the first 20 or so posts, I noticed that neither another DP member nor the author of the rubric article has contributed what strike me as key pieces of information that lend perspective to the matter as goes
Element Electronics.
Element is essentially a Chinese company that's got a distribution center -- Element's "factory" in SC -- in the U.S. Consistent with Chinese firms' "shady" business ethos, not only has Tsinghau TongFang Global basically emplaced Element to skirt U.S. regulations, but also it obtained over a billion dollars in state grant money, an unspecified quantity of state tax credits, and misrepresents its products as being "made in America" (MIM).
The MIM assertion got Element-TTFG into hot water with the FTC and the Alliance for American Manufacturing. (Click the links to read the details.)
First:
Politically speaking, Fairfield County, SC is part of the Columbia MSA, so the ~125 jobs lost likely won't have any real impact on electoral outcomes -- the gross impact is to make a "blue" region more "blue" -- unless it can be parlayed into greater voter turnout numbers in statewide races.
From the article:
Beleaguered Fairfield County is losing another 126 jobs after TV-maker Element Electronics said Monday it will close its Winnsboro plant in response to tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
My notion of what a TV manufacturer/maker is and Wilks' are quite different.
Unless Element has dramatically changed its operations from what they were in 2014, it's an assembler and packager of televisions, not a manufacturer, and just barely is it even an assembler. Element obtained nationwide attention when
the WSJ reported Element doesn’t do much assembly work at the plant. The article said assembly-line employees open boxes with TVs shipped from China, inspect the sets for damage, unscrew a plastic panel and insert a Chinese-made memory board, and conduct mechanical tests. Then the television is put back in its box and shipped to retailers.
Technically, that process involves just enough to make it be manufacturing; however, one'll notice that the nature of the manufacturing labor skill required to assemble the televisions is roughly comparable to what it takes to put a battery in a cell phone or a pizza in a pizza box and put the pizza/box inside an insulated bag so it can be delivered to a customer. So, yes, Element employs Americans, and in the absolute abstract, yes, that's a good thing. But the only thing good about such jobs is that they are presumably better only than having no job.
Aside:
The U.S. currently has at least one other assembler and, AFAIK, only one actual TV manufacturer:
[*=1]Seura, a privately held assembler in Green Bay, WI.
[*=1]SunBrite TV in Thousand Oaks, CA and also privately held. Sunbrite may actually be the only television manufacturer in the U.S., at least if the representations on its website are accurate: "All SunBriteTV models are designed, engineered, and assembled in our production facility in Thousand Oaks, CA --- making SunBriteTV the only consumer brand that actually manufactures televisions in the United States." SunBrite assembles waterproof outdoor sets and jumbo screens like those used at Disneyland and Dodger Stadium.
From the article:
The layoffs come a year after Cayce-based SCE&G and state-owned Santee Cooper canceled their decade long effort to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, putting 5,000 construction workers out of work and wiping away a promised economic boon to the poor, rural county.
Wait a minute...SC spent ten years worth of its resident's resources paying two firms to build/upgrade a power plant, and then the state's policy makers decided "Oh, 'eff' it. We don't want to do this any longer," thereby converting all that money into sunk costs that cannot ever long-run returns. What kinds of idiots live in, get elected in, and/or vote for candidates who espouse such courses in SC? Apparently really, really big ones. No wonder SC is "Trump Country."
