Is the made in the US label becoming extinct?

jeez, I just joined this site and know, or think I know, a bit about international economics. But y'all are over the map. Are 200-word responses allowed? -rjb-

rjb, No limits on A2K. Try 2,000 words. And WELCOME! c.i.

realjohnnyboy- Welcome to A2K. Any length of answers are fine, as long as they are interesting!

You can process paperwork anywhere because it is simple data matching and entry. For $50 you can buy all the necessary details to start your own medical billing business. Medical billing is hardly a techincally intensive field. It is standard clerical work that requires a slight amount of training.

IC Chips aren't built everywhere in the world because they can't build a plant to do it. IC Chips aren't just "made". They are GROWN crystals and require extremely precise temperature and humidity controls as well as exeptionally clean facilities or you end up with a worthless wafer. The cost of building those plants and finding the people with the skills to keep them running keeps them out of the reach of 3rd world countries today and will for some years to come. As long as we continue to advance the techonology those chips are based on they'll continue to be made in this country.

If all of the high tech businesses could have been built in 3rd world countries they would have been and those companies would have been more profitable. Those who started each of those businesses in the US did it for a reason. The resources and the knowledge to build that industry doesn't exist everywhere else in the world. They do exist here.

Fishin
I worked in the military electronics industry for over forty years. One of my functions was to inspect and approve vendors. As such I visited manufacturing facilities throughout the US engaged in the manufacture of IC's, computer chips. microwave hybrids and and other manufacturing processes. I have seen many of what now are common place manufacturing processes in their struggling infancy. Let me assure you that once a process is firmed up and all the engineering and equipment problems are solved. A plant can be setup in almost any area.If the cost and profit margines justify it it will be done.

You miss my point au. I am neither unemployed nor underemployed. When jobs go away, whether for economic reasons, or foreign competition, you learn some new skills to sell. It is painful and it is expensive, but that's what you do. What you don't do is protect inefficiency with protective tariffs. It only works in the short term.

Now, when I graduated from community college I was unemployed. When I found work as night auditor in a motel, I was underemployed. And before you ask, I did not like it.

And the rape of America's manufacturing base continues.

City Feels Early Effects of Plant Closing in 2004

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

[]ALESBURG, Ill. — Throughout the 90's, this prairie town of 34,000 felt blessed because it managed to escape the scourge of factory closings that hit Peoria and Decatur and and other heartland communities.
But when Maytag announced this fall that it was closing the area's largest factory, a refrigerator plant with 1,600 employees, the news hit Galesburg like a bomb. Despite this city's gritty optimism, home prices are slipping, shop owners are complaining about flat Christmas sales, and Maytag workers do not know what to tell their children.



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/26/national/26MAYT.html?todaysheadlines

au, "Flat Christmas sales" is better than the whole country. Most retailers are showing huge decreases, and the discounts after Christamas sales are going to be gigantic - and we'll see 80 percent discount sales to reduce their inventories. c.i.