Yes, my computer is a Toshiba, Japanese company, but I'm pretty sure it was assembled in a place with cheaper labor than Japan. And my clothing is almost entirely from someplace with extremely low labor and material costs. I was amazed two weeks ago to look at the label of my recently purchased New Balance running shoes and see that they were produced in the U.S. I'd thought that New Balance had outsourced all of it's production lately. After doing a web search saw that they do manufacture a portion of their shoes in the Northeast still. Amazing.
I did not mean to imply too much that I'm a fire breathing protectionist, or a great union supporter. My car, I sheepishly admit, is an old BMW. An awesome car. Great reliability, good mileage, classy, and lots of fun to drive on the highway cross country. I think my Dad would probably approve but I'm not sure as he's no longer around. I guess he was, in today's terms, a fire breathing protectionist. He'd jumped out of airplanes in the 1950's with senior Army NCO's who'd fought the Japanese and Nazi's. (Sorry if I offend anybody there).
What I should have explained better in my previous post is my concern about some of the displayed animosity in the media and public lately toward the American worker who is/was fortunate to make a decent/secure living at basically a lifetime job. Almost every media report I've seen or read has referenced the inflated labor costs the Big Three have faced in the past versus their foreign competitors. Sure, it's true. I do agree that perhaps the labor unions have been mighty instrumental in their own troubles. The big three corporate leadership is obviously not without blame. Nor is Washington.
What I have a problem with is that very few of the media reports lately have made a connection to what I see as a great divide between the people in this country who are engaged in producing things, and those who work in more of a service type industry. Another poster on a different board who was even more hotheaded in his writing wrote about how someday soon we're all going to be running around serving lattes to each other, lattes paid for by our earnings at Wal-Mart.
I apologize for my temper. I do not harbor any long standing animosity at the Japanese or Germans or any of us who buy foreign products. I am just well read enough to know that their overseas workers under many different flags are facing the same troubles ours are.
I do however have problems with people who display resentment toward our manufacturing, working class people out there. Not only because I believe America is, on a good day, supposed to be pretty exempt from the class system, but because in the long run, it bodes ill for all of us.