There's a few points to this argument that a lot of us don't want to own up to.....Dwight has touched on some of these:
1. As consumers - we ultimately dictate the financial realities of the products we purchase - which (now) often includes Asian manufacturing. Your decision to shop at Walmart (which happens to be the number one leading offender on the falling prices philosophy) means that all others retailers must follow suit or fail. This trend ripples through every product made in the USA or the UK.
2. Resistance to improve - I can't speak for the UK, but I have been in the manufacturing sector most of my working life and the resistance to change (improve) is truly staggering. We're finally starting to get it. Toyota's Manufacturing System is considered the worlds standard in Lean (since the 60's) - and we are just starting to embrace it.
Toyota and Honda can make money using US labor, but the big 3 can't?
I'm fighting like he!! to keep the 130 people employed in our little factory - 75% of our products are shipped to Mexico and China to be assembled for our US based customers. We are starting to get it though....we have reduced our core product costs by nearly half over the past two years through lean efforts.......
Anyways - you can't avoid buying foreign goods, but you can chose not to fuel the Walmart fire.........
I'm not happy about the Thailand connection and don't know how this will impact my next bike purchase - but keep in mind the little things you can do to insure that your kids will have jobs in the future....
