The short answer is that corporations have decided to externalize production as much as possible into global supply chains. It's cheaper, it buys you flexibili

The short answer is that corporations have decided to externalize production as much as possible into global supply chains. It's cheaper, it buys you flexibility and it makes "re-tooling" for other product lines a matter of switching suppliers. There are many excuses that allow a company to end-up in a situation where they're little more than finance, product/sales/marketing management, and scm-specialists sitting in cubes with headsets on "hitting their numbers". I find it all very sad and unsustainable in the long term. If China eventually "eats our lunch" economically, we will have richly deserved it as a nation.