[durasell]

Those factories are probably never coming back. The price differential in terms of salary is too great. Unless American labor drops below a buck an hour, then it's more cost effective to manufacture offshore.

[meenie]

Bingo, you are making a prediction of the wage rate when the bottom settles out. Market forces will equalize the disparity that we now see.

[familyop]

"Unless American labor drops below a buck an hour, then it's more cost effective to manufacture offshore."

And then who will buy those offshore products here, especially with ocean freight costs going up even much more? Importers have been crying about those costs for months.

Where will products to be sold here be manufactured? ...not overseas, IMO. ...maybe places like Venezuela, Brazil and Argentine, if our investors and officers want to get that anti-American. ...and if such practice is not outlawed here for defense reasons.

[ARCADIA]

Unless American labor drops below a buck an hour, then it's more cost effective to manufacture offshore.

It is not just the labor rate. Such a dramatic crash would cause us enourmous political instability which is something that may make our competitors that much more advantageous.