You had a factory making Zenith TV Sets

To make these sets you needed another factory making valves, another making the wooden cabinet, another making the additional electronics and another making the wiring

That’s a manufacturing ecosystem

Works fine in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s

Slowly labor prices start rising

You make a valve for 17 cents in 1976 because you paid your laborers $ 3.50 an hour

In 1986, you pay them $ 7.50 an hour

So you have to sell your valve for 27 cents to keep the same profit margin

This is true of the electronics, the wiring, the cabinet and everything else

So the TV for which you once paid $ 349 and got a 18% profit now costs $ 519 and you get only a 12% profit

By 1990, the same TV costs $ 599 and you get a 6% profit

So you think you need to close down the business because your profits are low and getting lower all the time

Plus Televisions are becoming expensive despite new features

You try plastic cabinets, you try adding multiple channels, offer stereo functions but the economics doesn’t work

Then someone tells you

Look- You can go to Taiwan and they can make these Valves for 4 cents a piece instead of 30 cents and electronics for 37 Dollars a set instead of 160 dollars

You can pay them $0.80 an hour instead of $ 10

You can sell the same TV for $ 599 now and get a profit of 45%

6% Profit vs 45% Profit!!!

So the factory owner pays off his American workforce who cost him 10 bucks an hour and relocates to Taiwan and later when Taiwan becomes too expensive, to China and later to Vietnam or Mexico or India

Its Economics not Political