Wooden shoes work well to jam up the machinery...
lol, sabo-tage.
why does that make me think if Kim Cattrall?
French workers would through them in the machinery in the early 1800's.
Got a problem with Dutch work ethics?
LOL...
On a more serious track, Ksen has a valid point. Because of American and European environmental regulations, we've exported much of our manufacturing base to third-world countries with little if any environmental regulation. Beijing smog is beginning to look like Pittsburgh smoke a century ago.
The short-term result is that America is loosing its historic base of well-paying manufacturing jobs held by people who want to work hard but may not have the ability to do white-collar work. There's nothing wrong with blue-collar work, a functioning economy needs both, and hard workers in blue collar positions can and should reap the fruits of their labor. The result of what is happening now with exporting of blue-collar jobs to third-world countries is that we're becoming a bifurcated economy with jobs growing mostly on the upper-level and lower-level of the wage scale, not the middle.
The long-term consequences of losing our manufacturing base could be horrific for America, in ways much worse than economic problems.
Losing our manufacturing base makes us captive to nations like China. If China becomes a functioning democracy because of the lure of capitalism -- historically, economic freedom has led to political freedom -- the results may not be that bad. Unproductive companies and countries deserve to suffer the results of their foolish decisions.
The real problem is if China continues to grow economically, does not become politically free, and decides to stamp out freedom elsewhere as a threat to its own control of its own society. We're giving China the ability to do that by own own foolish decisions.