Originally posted by Richard Cranium
These businessmen who are so richly rewarded for "enhancing shareholder value" are the same people who couldn't trouble themselves to look into the results of their actions on the "little people" who used to make their products.
It isn't always that easy, Richard. Often, the choice is to send the work overseas or go out of business. More often, it starts out slow like a bad addiction. A company starts buying parts overseas which then get assembled at the home factory. Then, it is sub-assemblies. Next thing you know, the decision is made to have the whole thing made overseas.
That is what happened to Schwinn. They started buying Shimano parts - wow, what a deal! Good AND cheap. Then, in the mid-late 1970's, they had some bikes like the Le Tour made completely in Japan. It was an excellent bike at an excellent cost.
Japanese made costs got too high, but Schwinn had the "build it overseas" fever and went to Taiwan. Of course, by that time, Schwinn was losing a lot of business to cheap imports and felt desperate to find a way to stop the hemorrage.
Copy that example and paste it to your choice of other USA manufacturers. The story is the same. Only the faces of the unemployed change.