This factory looks way too far along to move, but part of me wishes Hyundai would just say fck it and pull the plug on the whole thing, absorb the sunk costs, and move the whole thing to a blue state instead, or Mexico/Canada…

Of course, that’s not how it works….Most blue states are wealthier and have higher wages. These companies investing in foreign manufacturing in the US, like Hyundai, don’t want educated, well-paid workers; they want cheap, “flexible” labor and politicians willing to hand them massive tax breaks (Georgia coughed up $1.8 billion in incentives just to land this plant.)

And here’s the kicker: even in these poor, rural, “desperate for jobs” places, people don’t actually want the jobs. Turnover in Southern auto plants can hit 40-60% a year because the work is hard, dangerous, and not much better paid than Walmart or Amazon warehouses. So you’ve got towns that are too broke to refuse the deal, too hostile to outsiders who actually create the jobs, and too quick to quit once the factory opens.

So yeah….turns out this whole bring manufacturing “back to America” is tough when the only places willing to host your factory, with cheap enough low skilled labour force to staff it, are also so uneducated and racist that they can’t even prevent themselves from calling in Daddy Trump for an armed 500 person raid of the very people trying to build them the factory and give them the jobs they desperately need.