"You have a better one? Please, enlighten us!!"
Depending on the data used in the discussion, the wage can be a few dollars per worker. Granted you don't have the wage levels you have here or the total compensation packages, but it ain't no "$0.30 an hour" in China.
Let me ask you this, is it more acceptable for me to automate a mfg. facility and eliminate jobs or is more acceptable to move jobs to lower cost regions of the world?
"Such as?" Pooling of resources by multiple generations or multiple workers or multiple families. Imaginations are sometimes able to find solutions to transportation problems.
"However, Forbes Magazine is not much more optimistic about GM's market position in the USA than I am."
There is a big difference between GM's market and the US total market. Which one do you want to discuss?
Correction
"Depending on the data used in the discussion, the wage can be a few dollars per worker."
Should read per hour.
It wasn't me you asked, but I'll answer.
Innovation is good economics. Slave labor and low cost labor stifle innovation, whether the cheaper labor is in the next state or in a foreign country.
However, there is a huge economic difference between moving a factory from one state to another, and moving a factory from the US economy to a foreign economy.
When a textile mill moved from a northern state (i.e. PA) to a lower-wage southern state (i.e. NC), the PA local economy suffered some readjustment, while the NC local economy improved, allowing more of NC consumers to purchase automobiles, washers, dryers, refrigerators, etc. that were being manufactured up north, which in turn provided additional jobs in PA manufacturing to re-employ the former PA textile workers.
This worked economically because, and only because, PA and NC belong to the same United States and play by the same rules. This does not work economically when factories are packed up and shipped to foreign low-wage countries, especially countries that impose punitive tariffs and quotas on imports from the US (such as China and India).