the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

True.

However, it may be an issue of what can be manufactured in the US as much as anything else.

For example, certain types of chroming processes can't be done in the US do to environmental regulations. This is why the barrel of an AK-47 easily lasts for 10,000 rounds fired versus the barrel of an M-4 which is good for 5,000 rounds at most.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it isn't always exclusively a labor/production cost issue.

Ship the greenies to Shenzhen and force them to man the suicide nets for a while (although this phenomenon sorta ended 10 years ago). Maybe they'll get the picture. Or do they love river otters more than people? I think we know the answer.

What most people did not understand was/is that Apple's contractor, Foxconn, was one of the best places to work in Chinese manufacturing. The other shops didn't even bother to erect suicide nets to save lives.

The Guardian, May 2010
Foxconn offers pay rises and suicide nets as fears grow over wave of deaths

But even as suicide nets were being erected, newly arrived migrants from the countryside were queueing up outside the factory to apply for jobs.