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Construction of US manufacturing plants is undergoing an immense boom [1]

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Date: 2023-06-08

It hasn’t made much press, aside from a mention in Bloomberg and a handful of Twitter accounts, but what a lot of people — especially republicans — don’t know (or, don’t want to know) is, thanks in part to Biden's infrastructure bill as well as the CHIPS Act, there is an unprecedented construction boom going on in the US of manufacturing plants and expansions.

The Bloomberg article below is a good start. Be sure to check out the charts:

Factory Boom Sweeps US With Construction at Record $190 Billion

The US is in the grip of a factory-building boom as government incentives to spur domestic manufacturing, aimed at helping the economy compete with China, drive a wave of investment. Construction spending by manufacturers in the US has more than doubled in the past year, reaching an annual rate of almost $190 billion in April, according to data published Thursday by the Census Bureau. Manufacturing now accounts for about 13% of all non-government construction, the highest share on record in a data series stretching back to the early 1990s.

It’s too bad this data only goes back to the early 90’s so we could compare the current boom to past booms. But with a magnitude that big it’s certain to rival just about anything going back to WWII. Even adjusted for inflation the numbers are huge.

Many of these plants are not just big, they are gargantuan. We’re talking multi-billion dollar plants, often tens of billions of dollars. A few samples of microchip plants from the past couple years:

Micron to Build Mammoth $31B Semiconductor Chip Plant Near Syracuse, N.Y.

Intel is spending $20 billion to build two new chip plants in Arizona

GlobalFoundries spending $1 billion to expand operations in Upstate New York

Samsung plans to build a $17 billion chip plant near Austin, Texas

Intel to invest up to $100 billion in New Albany, Ohio chip plants

Kansas company will build $1.9B computer chip manufacturing facility

Texas Instruments brings $11 billion investment and jobs to Utah with new plant

Texas Instruments Chooses Sherman, Texas for New $30B Semiconductor Chip Site

Taiwan’s GlobalWafers to Build $5 Billion Chip Plant in Sherman, Texas

(Yes, that’s two chip-related plants in Sherman, Texas!)

Then there have been a ton of car-battery and electric car-related plants. There have been so many of them I can’t keep track of them all. In fact, there’s been so many I suspect some of them won’t end up getting built, but probably most will. A sample:

GM to invest historic $7 billion in 4 facilities across Michigan, creating 4,000 jobs

Panasonic to open $4B EV battery plant in Kansas

EV battery startup plans $1.6 billion gigafactory, 2,112 jobs in Wayne County

BMW Group Announces $1.7 Billion Investment to Build Electric Vehicles in South Carolina

Ford to invest $5.6 billion in Memphis-area Megasite to build electric vehicles and batteries

In addition to those more glamorous projects there are also lots of large plants being built for more mundane things. I note I don’t necessarily credit Biden and the democrats for these, because construction for things like these is actually fairly routine (I’ve been following this kind of thing for some 20 years), but nonetheless it does add to the volume of industrial construction currently in progress. A few samples:

This first one is almost amusing.

World’s largest manufacturer of mozzarella cheese to build $870 million facility in Lubbock

Yep, that’s $870 million and 600 jobs just to make mozzarella cheese!

Norwegian hydrogen company plans $400M, 500-job factory in Michigan

The LEGO Group to build $1 billion, carbon-neutral run factory in Virginia

Global packaging company to invest record-breaking $1 billion in Waco

And so on. If you want to get a sense of the scale of industrial construction being proposed and under construction in the US, peruse this Google search here.

The sad part about all this is, so many people don’t believe anything is made in the US anymore, and complain about everything made in China, and the democrats and globalists have shipped jobs offshore, and blah blah blah. But, especially lately, this is far from true.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/6/8/2173710/-Construction-of-US-manufacturing-plants-is-undergoing-an-immense-boom

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