Very good thoughts here and I totally agree and try to do the same as you guys. The problem was showcased on an hour long NatGeo or maybe Discovery show last year about Briggs and Stratton the small engine makers for all kinds of small power equipment. It was about moving their primary engine plant to China and how the owners agonized about it for several years but finally felt they had no choice but to do it.

It was all about cost of manufacturing.

They got a brand new state of the art factory in one of the huge Chinese industrial parks that they've been building in the best locations for shipping for the last 10 years or so with our money. About two thirds of the show was following the few high execs that went to China to set it up. Everything was ultra modern, fully computerized and robotic. What makes it so unfair is the Chinese can just take whatever land they want and move the people already there wherever they want to and there's no class action lawsuits about emminent domain. They don't have all the safety regs we do, the insurance regs, all the benefits for the workers none of that stuff. On top of that the Chinese are building a large coal fired power plant every week. They say they're building them with the same level of emission controls we use but nobody believes that least of all me.

We all see thousands of containers on trains and trucks all over this country with COSCO on them. How many of you reading this knows that's not the COSTCO we're familiar with, the membership shopping warehouse company. No, it means Chinese Ocean Shipping Company and it's very easy to not notice the missing T. The next time any of you see a big fleet of trucks or a 110 car freight train with double decker containers saying COSCO think about that. It's huge.

The problem with trying to bring those manufacturing jobs back here is all the investment already made by hundreds of American companies in China now. Those plants will last 50 years or more. Not only that our regulatory and labor laws just won't cut it in the international (read Third World) marketplace.

The only possible thing that would help is for enough of us to completely boycott Chinese made products even if they have some of the biggest and most revered American names on them. By enough of us I probably mean at least 25-30% and it would have to last for years. All I can say is good luck with that. But if we could do it long enough for the companies to realize there is a market here for higher priced US made goods it's possible I guess but I seriously doubt it could ever happen.

The worldwide economy is here to stay and what it's doing is lowering our standard of living to allow theirs to rise.

Bob

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