EconomicsUSA: Outsourcing loses luster to American companies -- costs too much!

Analysis: 

Will Costs Drive Firms Home?

By JOHN BUSSEY

For years, the U.S. manufacturing sector seems to have been sliding into the Slough of Despond.

Companies have been eagerly outsourcing to lower-cost venues such as China, India and Mexico. And with the production go jobs. Occasionally a company might bring some manufacturing back to the U.S. But it's a trickle, and the exceptions seem to prove the rule.General Electric, Caterpillar, a handful of others—the list is short.

Now, that may be about to change.

A combination of forces—rapidly rising labor rates abroad, loftier materials and shipping costs, deep-discount tax incentives from U.S. states—are changing some of the calculations by which companies decide to move production abroad, or even keep what's there now.
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