(i dont under stand how anyone in the US can buy a japennses or chinnse product
I would be surprised if the number of products on the market today which are 100% designed and manufactured (including raw materials) in the USA tops a few hundred.
As I said in my other reply, companies around the globe are in a race to squeeze as much cost out of production as possible. The reason for this is that people (i.e. you and me) won't pay the higher prices required to support union wages and pensions, healthcare for all, regulation of every last little aspect of everyone's life, etc. If companies can't charge more on the top end (purchase price), the only way to remain profitable (and in business) is to reduce the bottom end (input) costs, which often means reducing quality, too.
Product from emerging markets sells so well here because those markets have lower input costs (the biggest chunk being labor cost, followed by lesser regulation) and they can charge less. That's the model Wal*mart is built around, and apparently it's one that works pretty good, even if the product itself is of lower quality.
Michael Dell knows this firsthand. Dell was started based on the premise of building decent quality computers cheaper than everyone else. That worked pretty effectively until the emerging markets figured out how to build "good enough" computers at an even lower cost. Dell's hurting today (and their quality has really suffered) because their "bottom" isn't as low as their overseas competitors.
It would be great to go back to the idyllic days of the 50s and 60s (although they had their share of problems then, too), but it just ain't gonna happen. The global market is here to stay, and companies will either figure out how to play according to global market rules or go out of business, or alternately, become very focused niche players, staying far away from commodity product categories.
Nations that attempt to follow isolationism will quickly find they have no market for their goods and services. Individuals who ignore this harsh reality will eventually find themselves priced out of their job, with no skills to transfer to another job market - which means they will be moving down the economic class scale...
I would argue that there has to be out there a market for high-quality product and parts, built to 1950s standards, but the flip side of the coin is that the price will be many times the equivalent far east product or part. It will be a very difficult business model to make work...
es
