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Starting up overseas is what I am really afraid of. Sounds like 2 of the big 3 are on a mission to do just that. No Unions, no environment programs, no real benefits and especially very weak Human Rights and so forth. The USA really has no industry it seems anymore.
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With the emergence of Communist China as a world manufacturing power and the ease of transporting goods made there to western consumers such as ourselves, we have essentially priced ourselves out of the world labor market. Those darn Chinese will work for a dollar an hour or less and do it seven days a week and 12 or more hours a day. If Chinese labor were to get uppity and start making demands (as American labor did decades ago) then the soldiers will be marched in to quash any discontent. Any pain-in-the-ass labor organizers will be arrested and imprisoned as enemies of the State (and perhaps killed) while hungry replacement workers outside the factory fence clamor to get in. You can bet that American corporations wish they could control their own production so efficiently. Yep, it's the wild, wild west over there and it's so cheap it hurts--that kind of cost control is the Holy Grail of every business school graduate. It's the race to the bottom and Chinese labor is basically the bottom at the moment. I've said it before: Communism was the scurge of the planet when we were kids but now American business has discovered the true value of the communist system and it is a completely captive, near-slave labor workforce.
Anyone think Hummers will be significantly cheaper when they're made in China? Probably not much, and the reduction in labor cost vs. American production will be pure profit for its Chinese owners. They'll be ramping-up GM production over there soon too. GM expansion in China is one of the factors in the bankruptcy reorganization.
If you are an American then look in the mirror and know this: You cost too much. That's what a majority of corporate cost control managers see when they look at you while you work.
Now I will step down off of my Saturday night soapbox.