"Tom Gardner" wrote:

Most all of the products that were our bread and butter...and a nice portion
of jam, are made in China now so we had to develop niche products that are
too few or too difficult for the Chinese to make. Wal-Mart buys a
shoe-handle model wire scratch brush for 19 cents delivered, that they sell
for 99 cents. It costs me 25 cents to buy the wire in coils that have to be
cut yet. Hard to compete even though mine would out-last the China model by
ten to one. The consumer doesn't care.


We sold an Index G200 that was fully amortized though it had mainenance issues because the
parts it was making could be bought from Korea for less than the price of American raw
materials. Sucks for a hard working American to be told his or her job went away because
no matter how hard you work, you will still cost more.

Wes