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The same thing has happened to Mexico. You can buy a very nice
embroidered mexican style shirt for $10 if made locally, but if it is
made in China, the same shirt is $5. Guess which one the Mexicans are
buying? Same thing with the dark heavy furniture popular in Mexico, it
is now being made in China at half the price. <br>
<br>
As Homer Simpson says, "Stupid poetic justice!" The maquiladoras at
the border just cannot compete by being the low cost labor source. Some
of them have shifted to being the quality producer, trying to stay
ahead of China by focus on customer service and total quality. <br>
<br>
In the long run, this will not persist. As free trade raised the
Mexican quality of life, and then made them less competitive by dint of
low wages alone, so also eventually (I predict) China will raise its
living standard, wages will rise, and a new equilibrium will be
established. I hope. <br>
Lynn Johnson<br>
<br>
Michael Christopher wrote:<br>
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<pre wrap="">Perhaps America will wake up and realize we have
</pre>
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<pre wrap=""><!---->been giving China the family jewels. What happens if
we pull out a lot of the manufacturing that we have
exported to them in recent years?<<
--What's odd to me is that despite growing
anti-immigration and anti-globalization sentiment in
the US, people are still content to shop at WalMart
and reap low priced goods in return for the exporting
of jobs. And, despite the widespread recognition that
the Saudi regime is corrupt and leaks money to Al
Qaeda and extremist schools of Islam, people are still
content to drive cars that eat a lot of gas.
At some level, personal decisions are not being
connected to the big picture. Once a person splits his
own actions from the effect on the whole, it becomes
very difficult to reconnect them. Guilt and cognitive
dissonance build up and result in defiant continuation
in habit. Thus, someone who uses more gasoline than
necessary can say "No treehugging environmentalist is
going to tell ME what to drive!" when he could just as
easily say "No Saudi royal is going to use MY gas
money to fund hateful Madrasas. I'm going to WALK!"
The question is, does a point come where defiant habit
becomes defiant reaction against habit? Will we
defiantly buy American to support American jobs, and
force WalMart to switch to American-made products? Or
will we just go for what's cheapest and most
convenient?
Michael
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