F. George McDuffee wrote:

One problem with this approach/attitude is that it ignores the
human costs. This is actually 1,600 well paying manufacturing
jobs affecting 1,500 or more families, and 14.8 million dollars
in local tax revenues.

A visit to Newton might provide some insights. Spending a bit of time
inside Maytag's headquarters, R&D facility, and manufacturing areas
might leave you wondering why it's taken so long for this to happen.

Second problem is that this gives the Chinese an opening wedge
into the U.S. major appliance market with an existing brand and
dealer network, directly threatening #1 Whirlpool with all the
jobs and local taxes revenue they represent.

The threat to Whirlpool is certainly /possible/; but not a given. It
will take a fair amount of time and a huge expenditure of resources to
bring Maytag to the point where it's again sufficiently robust to
threaten Whirlpool. It could happen, but only if Whirlpool management
allows it to happen.

Third problem will not be come apparent for a few years when
anguished messages are posted to these news groups lamenting that
blanking and forming die tool makers and press set-up men are
unavailable.

This seems like a logical conclusion - but it might be worth
investigating to find out how many of these people Maytag directly
employs and what their average age is...

If this were an event that affected only a few players, I would
be selling tickets. Unfortunately, this almost entirely affects
only the average person with roots in their community and many
years invested in learning a trade.

Hmm. I'm not sure how you've reached your conclusion; but my own
opinion (formed by direct observation) is that it's unlikely that the
Chinese will value the current Maytag employees less than the old
management. The major differences, I suspect, will be that outsourced
operations will be relocated from Germany and Mexico to the Pacific
Rim.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto