People always talk about paying double for something made in the good ol USA. But when I see record profits from a company like Apple, the first thing I think is “that is the difference between a living wage in the US and in China”.
They are in essence taking the labor savings and applying it directly to their margin.
I’m also amazed (ok, maybe not amazed, how about ashamed) that we’ve built into our mfg jobs a ton of overhead regarding labor rights and environmental issues and then failed to export those ethics along with the jobs.
And per the earlier, if given the choice, I buy the most local thing I can. If you care about a local economy, the worst thing you can do is buy it off the 'net, much worse than some national retail corp. Amazon is a effective company, but it will be our downfall.