[Alberta's Child]

You're missing a very important point: What's probably doing more to drive these jobs overseas isn't "coolie wages" at all. It's the customer base. For any major corporation that does business globally, most of their current and/or prospective customers are in Asia, not North America.

Here's a startling graphic for everyone:

Just think about that for a moment, folks: the number of people living inside that circle exceeds the populations of North and South America, Europe, Africa and Australia combined. Knowing that, how can anyone be surprised that more and more companies are orienting their supply chains to an Asian customer base?

[ex-snook]

Ok But the fact that a lot of the world has buyers does not explain why we are the buyer for about all the items we buy. The trade deficit means that we are buying from them and they are not buying from us.

[Alas Babylon!]

It’s funny how this didn’t used to be a problem to the USA in our early years. The Yankee Clippers sailing to China, the Far Eastern trade, Perry going to Japan, etc.

Asian customers should be a boon to us, not a deterrent. I don’t know how to make that happen (or I’d be a millionaire, not surfing Free Republic), but surely we should be encouraged to sell to them?