Oh BS. Unions are dead and regulations, while they suck, add a penny on the dollar at retail. Your last century anti American worker screed is not helping the Republican brand. Go away.
I’m open...what’s your answer?
So, what the heck industry did you do costing work in?
In the industry I was in (light manufacturing, 300+ employees), regs or new regs on our US parts vendors (metal, molded paper, plastic, impregnated cloth, etc.) commonly cost us several % of the total production cost, which was passed on to our customers: They then added pretty much a straight multiplier on their end, to determine retail "street price". That doesn't even include our own internal compliance costs: Compliance officer, equipment, added labor (production line, production engineering, sometimes design engineering), maybe a new (and invariably more expensive or process-intensive) adhesive needed. And so on. Final street price too high? Usually we then had to take something "out" of the design (performance, quality, US parts vendor(s)...) Or "just" redesign the whole product. Or watch the customer go to China or go out of business. Me: "Hey boss, I think I'm gonna need a new bottle of Tylenol." "What's that?" "Ok, I'll pick up two for you."
This is by no means to say that all regs are unnecessary. But, the way the gov't goes about it is, more often than not, insane.
FWIW, our margins were typically 10% or less: On a few occasions we basically manufactured certain items at cost just to keep good employees. But no business can function at zero margin forever for the majority of its production. Unless it is subsidized, of course...
"Anti-American worker screed" is YOUR screed.