The worlds manufacturing base is not in safe hands

Before I start this is not a ("I don't like that country issue so I will have a go at them") rant.
This affects the whole world and it will and can be any country in the future.

There has been a lot of media coverage recently about this and other countries manufacturing base disappearing abroad mainly to China, in fact there is a TV programme on this week (W/C 13/02/2010) about the USA's manufacturing vanishing east wards.

So why has it and why is it happening and will get worse, well you can bet your bottom dollar will.

Why? due to our greed of wanting everything we see, not just wanting it fast but wanting it cheap, electronics is a very good example of this. I have not long finished Lord Sugars Auto biography, fantastic almost a like a fictional novel at times, but it wasn't it was real and this gives a very big insight into the mass importing of cheap electronic goods, this is not in anyway detrimental to Lord Sugar he just filled a gap and gave us what we wanted "supply & demand" if it was not going to be Lord Sugar then it would have been somebody else.

This is not just an electronics issue, kitchen doors, acrylic worktops, appliances, pottery for bathrooms, and much much more.

Back in the industrial revolution in England & what is now known as Europe there were massive companies manufacturing everything and anything you could think of, we exported all over the world from famous ports like Liverpool. Nostalgia it may be history definitely but how did we manage to do it, the answer in short was cheap labour and very lax health and safety laws.

There are now emerging economies in parts of the world that once took weeks or even months to get their products to this country now it is several hours plane journey away.

These countries have millions of people wanting to work to earn money to feed their families and to feed their new 'Western' lifestyles, so they are cheap and expendable just like we where.

Our problems have arisen from unions and tight health and safety laws, I am not saying this is wrong far from it, we all deserve to be safe and be able to afford to live although some unions take it too far ( perks and the likes) but when companies are being screamed at to get the next latest thing out and get it cheap and quick, well we cannot do that anymore. It seems to me like the Disney Lion King movie "The Circle Of Life" only our part of the circle stopped revolving.

Russell