[Paul T]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

If we are going to start including the competitive advantages enjoyed by offloading manufacturing to countries such as China, India, Korea, Taiwan, and (to some degree formerly) Japan, we cannot ignore their abject lack of environmental regulation, abject lack of child labor law, the tremendously long hours worked by unskilled adults for exceedingly meager compensation, and other such factors.

Essentially roll back all of the advances made on these fronts in Europe, the UK, the US, and other "first world" economies to 19th century standards.

Absolutely right….we never stood a chance to compete on labor costs. Crazy thing is, everyone could see this coming 40 yrs ago, but here we are. Now the consumer is addicted to cheap, replaceable goods and we will never go back. Everything is a commodity. It’s all a numbers game these days, the product hardly matters. There is no pride in “building” something, just make some quick $$ and get out.