A government that can and does imprison people for decades in labor camps for atrocities like holding church services in their home changes the dynamic.

That makes sense; it always seemed odd that simply removing tariffs would make it cheaper to assemble products in another country, then spend months shipping them across an ocean BACK to their intended markets, rather than simply assemble them IN those markets. In general, what it boils down to is that production cost, in supplies, labor and shipping, are lower in places like China because the playing field is severely tilted in their favor, "free trade," notwithstanding. In the case of pivotal federal subsidies to material suppliers, however, if China can do it in compliance with the WTO treaty, so can the US, and if its impact on outsourcing is as great as the article claims, the US certainly should. How to sell it to the public remains to be seen.

Part of what infuriates me about this whole phenomenon is that it amounts to US businesses insisting for years that minimal environmental, labor and consumer standards would destroy US industry, failing to convince the public, and retaliating by moving their businesses overseas to "prove" their arguments. It is a bit like a bank robber saying laws against stealing from banks should be repealed because they cause shootings, then unloading a clip into a teller when those laws are not promptly repealed. The difference is that 1) does not threaten the entire US economy and 2) is already illegal. It is odd that America can and does prosecute Americans for pedophilia in Thailand, but an American business can employ slave labor in China then dump their toxic waste in the local water supply with complete impunity.


According to the article, the managers of the plant said that not only never happened, but COULD not happen. Just like hundreds of workers going to its roof and threatening to jump off because of their appalling work conditions never happened, just like individual employees have not repeatedly gone up there and jumped to their deaths for that reason in the past. As the former Apple exec quoted in the article approvingly put it, "What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?" Of course, the South used to do it all the time, but since 1865 it has been illegal for a US business to do that--IN THE US....

We have 3000 engineers who could retool robots for that job. The problems are 1) that retooling is not a 40 hour/week job and 2) it only takes a handful of those engineers to retool robots for work formerly done by 3000 and 3) an engineer in China will still do it for far less money. Hence the former Apple engineer cited in the article wound up earning $12/hr at a call center in his old office, because someone in China was doing his former engineering job--and STILL earning a lot less money.