FWIW, we are just as much to blame for this as anyone else.
We´ve all been supporting the change towards cheap, high volume, offshore manufacturing for decades by our consumption habits. In other words we´ve become greedy and solely concentrated on our own instant gratification. As a result, we´ve shoveled billions if not trillions of dollars into the collective poskets of the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese economies, completely oblivious to the fact that this is the reason that so many US companioes went belly up, laid off thosands of people, and continue to do so becasue our own consumption habits still force them to...
Now the direct results of that are slowly coming around to bite us all in the ass....
High unemployment = less money to be spent in our own economy.
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Lower prices in comparison = less money actually spent in our economy
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Decades of continued bashing of large, US based manufacturers (regardless of industry) as "Too expensive", "Not innovative enough" and instead buying the "oh so innovative" VCR /Lawsuit Guitar /Automobile that was nothing more than a ****
forgery designed to get a foot in the door = Brand value goes down, and with it what people are willing to pay for the product.
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continued support of the products that are NOW being developed thanks to us fricking ourselves over for 25 years and throwing money at "our enemies" = Not even giving ourselves a fighting chance at coming back.
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People buying more and more offshore products, because US Products "Aren´t a good value"
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Less uS products produced in general, and also a continued whittling away of the US workforce and by that the only real consumers we ever had in the first place.
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Less money for US companies to work with
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Less innovation and higher prices in the hopes of staying alive
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even more bashing
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criticism of the industry as a whole, usually with uninformed laymen making statements about trained craftsmen that have no footing in reality
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another 5 years that Bob doesn´t get a raise
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another 5 years that bob is forced to skimp on everything just to get by
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another 5 years that bob will be spending most of hin money on consumer products produced overseas.
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another 5 years where it´s not gonna get better
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5 years that Bob is gonna be pissed off about when he gets his pink slip on Monday after spending 20 years with the company.
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another unsatisfied, unemployed consumer
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repeat cycle from beginning until masses become intelligent (highly unlikely) or capitalist democracy implodes resulting in widespread chaos and anarchy (likely within the next 10 years).
Not to mention what this situation has done to the value of the dollar, which suddenly becomes real important when you realize that almost ALL of the raw materials in a guitar come from overseas, where US Dollars are currently just a step above toilet paper ... that alone is a 20% increase, but at least its not so bad becasue the reast of the world will pay double what we have to pay... IF they care more about the US economy than Americans do, which isn´t something I´d bet on, especially considering that US made products were already exhorbitantly expensive everywhere else before the recession got this big. US MSRP was usually LESS than Dealer cost for most products over here, for example. And If you´ll all think quick, MSRP is the superhigh price everyone´s always *****ing about that nobody ever actually pays...
These days almost anyone that purchases an american product is seen as a loon with too much money or a fanboy with too much money. Hmm, how did we get here? Didn´t we used to be the number 1 industrialized nation in the world, with R+D in most fields far surpassing most others? I guess times change, unfortunately people don´t
