Obviously, the greater regulation and government interference in the US is a cost. But no one who wants to state that as the main reason for moving production to cheap labor nations ever quantifies that cost. Labor costs can be quantified, and the savings are immense.
Some are just so anti-government, or so unwilling to admit the role of cheap labor, that they choose to mention government regulations as if those are the main, or only reasons for the decisions to export US jobs.;
And do you really want the US to have the same environmental conditions as China? Did you see that they had to shut down plants for a few weeks prior to the Olympics so the air could clear somewhat? Did you see how they had thousands of workers filtering filth out of their rivers with small nets? Did you know that 2,000+ Chinese miners die each year in accidents? Do you really want the US to have the same environmental and work place conditions as China?
They are not really immense, once you account for them properly.
Suppose you, an American worker produce 10 gadgets and are paid $10/hour. A Chinese worker is paid $90c and produces 1 gadget per hour. The salary difference is immense: $10 vs. $0.9. But how much cheaper is the Chinese worker? By how much should your salary fall for the employer to break even? Well, the cost of one gadget is $1 vs. 90c. Thus, the Chinese worker in this example is only 10% cheaper.
That is not the whole story. In economics and finance, cash flows, profits and costs are evaluated not only on size but also risk (probability of obtaining them). Until very recently, risk abroad was considerably greater than in the U.S., due to political upheavals, crime, lack of well-functioning courts, etc. Thus, the risk-adjusted differences in labor costs are even smaller than the salaries suggest.
Presently, with our recent turn to socialism, the political instability of the U.S. is considered (by business people) to be quite high, favoring foreign investment. The productivity of our workers is poor due to the lack of proper education, especially in the technical areas. That favors foreigners as well. And, the indirect costs --- those of health-care, pensions, etc. has now skyrocketed here, making our workers even more expensive. The same is true with regard to operational costs as a result of over-regulation. All components of labor costs are thus increasing in this country, pricing our workers out of the market.
This is all our doing, not a natural disaster of some sort. But management is not to blame: they are doing the job that you yourself have hired it to do. The profits that the companies make are not kept in vaults but accrue to the American public (BP, for instance, has 40 million of America shareholders; similar numbers relate to all major corporations --- Goldman Sacks, GE, etc. It's a big secret, even among conservatives, that Wall Street is owned today by the Main Street).