"The move to China is not coming from Wal-Mart, but from greedy manufacturing corporations that love cheap and controlled labor."
That, my friend, is what some people call a lie.
Wal-Mart does pressure corporations to send manufacturing offshore to lower-cost manufacturers by demanding from its suppliers, year after year, incrementally lower prices. Wal-Mart's customers don't demand that. Wal-Mart demands that. They demand it so they can dominate the market, drive competitors out of business, and line the already bulging pockets of the Walton clan.
The inevitable effect of Wal-Mart's demands on suppliers is to send American manufacturing jobs to China. Here is but one example:
"Take the L.R. Nelson lawn sprinklers, which used to be made in Peoria, Ill., before Wal-Mart pressured Nelson to make them in China instead. Before the move, one laid-off Peoria worker told the reporter, Chinese managers were "walking around the plant and videotaping us working. That was horrible, horrendous. Right in our faces. They are taking our jobs." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/12/AR2006041202186_4.html)
...all so Wal-Mart can offer a lawn sprinkler at a lower cost. Maybe I missed where consumers were picketing stores demanding cheaper lawn sprinklers, but I doubt it.
I'm a capitalist. I love to make a fair profit from my customers. But there are limits. I don't demand higher profits where it leads to injury or death. I don't demand higher profits where it leads to sweat shops and child labor. And I don't demand higher profits where it leads to the evisceration of the American manufacturing base, ultimately weakening this country.
Yes, they do. If they didn't want lower prices, they probably wouldn't be shopping at WalMart.
Maybe I missed where consumers were picketing stores demanding cheaper lawn sprinklers, but I doubt it.
If customers really don't care, you should be able to make a killing selling higher priced products made in the US, or at least not China. But customers by their actions indicate that they really do like cheaper lawn sprinklers.
And I don't demand higher profits where it leads to the evisceration of the American manufacturing base
US manufacturing output keeps rising, albeit with fewer workers due to large productivity increases.
Bump!