Its amazing that so many Americans shop at the Wal-Marts of the world for, you guessed it. lower prices. If we all boycotted these products made in lower cost countries, then maybe we’d see return of many more jobs. Nothing better than the market (shoppers) reacting to products. Remember the recent lead-in-toys- thing?

“The bulk of goods made in China—clothing, toys, small appliances, and the like—probably won’t be coming back, because they require abundant cheap labor. If anything, their manufacture will go to other low-wage nations in Asia or Latin America.”

Back before WW2, my Dad, fresh out of Rockford Central HS at that time and a talented and skilled machinist for over 45 years, got his first job at Nylint, a local Rockford firm which was a producer of kitchen utensils.

Here’s a link to an article about the history of Nylint:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylint#Early_years

My point is that my Dad was being paid a competitive, living wage in a town that was a manufacturing powerhouse, to make things that, according to BusinessWeek, now “require abundant cheap labor.”

That cheap labor is not just underpaid. It is also routinely tortured with dangerous working conditions that shorten the lives and ruin the health of all those who are coerced, by economic forces beyond their control, to engage in it.

Prize-winning journalist Loretta Tofani detailed these workplace horrors in her award-winning series:
“American Imports, Chinese Deaths”.
http://extras.sltrib.com/china/

How did this happen and why did we allow it to occur?

Here’s my explanation: Americans have always needed slave labor of one kind or another. From the time of Jamestown (1608) until now, the idea of getting wealthy by cheating workers has been responsible for much of what America has become, for better and for worse.

Abraham Lincoln talked about that American addiction to slave labor in his Second Inaugural Address:

“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.”

Wringing wealth from the suffering of others is what the China trade is all about. Has anything changed since 1865?