A judge has recommended that the Xbox 360 be banned in the US.

[Breetai]

Just about every console from the Atari VCS on has been manufactured outside of the US. Yeah, the Sunnyvale version of the VCS was manufactured in California, but the console was later manufactured outside of the US.

The original X-Box was manufactured in Canada for a few years, which was definitely a step in the right direction. Then M$ got cheap and moved production back to cheap-labour-land (Mexico and SE Asia).

$10 an hour vs 10 cents a day in labor costs, it really isn't much of a decision for U.S. companies to have other countries to the work for them.

It's not 10 cents a day anywhere. It's $10-20/hour plus benefits vs. $1-5/hour and few/no benefits.

[EclecticGroove]

how can you copyright a decoding method lol, there's only so many ways it can be done)

What's next, is someone gonna try copyrighting the screw or door knob?

Err... what?

There is pretty much an infinite variation of ways you can encode or decode something. It's only constrained by the processing power and memory currently available. At a minimum, using only a very basic slice of it, every audio and video file type out there has it's own encoder and decoder (codec, as most simply refer to them as).

And yes, some people have had, and most likely still do have, patents and copyrights on certain types of screws (patent 2046343 for instance) and door knobs (D384568 as 1 example)... as there's several ways to make those as well.

[EclecticGroove]

The original X-Box was manufactured in Canada for a few years, which was definitely a step in the right direction. Then M$ got cheap and moved production back to cheap-labour-land (Mexico and SE Asia).



It's not 10 cents a day anywhere. It's $10-20/hour plus benefits vs. $1-5/hour and few/no benefits.

That certainly depends. Most large companies have moved away from areas that essentially employ slave labor... but I'm sure there are still several lesser known products and/or components that are manufactured in places that have no qualms about such things.

And the differences are far more profound than what you post, depending upon exactly what market and products.

USA corp taxes, wages, real estate, benefits, potentially dealing with unions, safety and health inspections... all of that adds up to quite a bit of money, and much of it is not a 1 time cost, but an annual cost that they can never escape.

Vs overseas where they (the actual company selling the product) may not even have any direct costs involved with most of the above items, and the lump sum cost per item/component dropping to dirt cheap... especially as there are still many places that regularly show a disregard for any worker safety or health concerns in order to get things made cheaper and faster... and if a worker dies, they often have several waiting to replace them.

It's getting better due to more exposure to the problem, but I doubt large scale manufacturing in the USA will ever become profitable or appealing again. Assembly is a different story however, that's gotten quite popular as it often skirts hefty tariffs and import taxes.

[Iron Lizard]

So then why is California usually rated as the 8th or 9th largest economy in the world?

LOL, you tell me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California

Having more than a tenth of the population of the richest country on earth can't hurt either. Also wasn't I talking about manufacturing here?

[JCU]

USA corp taxes, wages, real estate, benefits, potentially dealing with unions, safety and health inspections... all of that adds up to quite a bit of money, and much of it is not a 1 time cost, but an annual cost that they can never escape.

With all that said though, where is my guarantee the "Made In America" product will be better then something made overseas? Apple, for example, could assemble and produce all of their iPods and iPads and iPhones here which would be reflected at an increased price but would I be getting a better product?

I believe you get what you pay for but it doesn't make much sense for throwaway items to be produced here when the hoops you need to jump through are numerous and those hoops translate to increased cost.

[EclecticGroove]

With all that said though, where is my guarantee the "Made In America" product will be better then something made overseas? Apple, for example, could assemble and produce all of their iPods and iPads and iPhones here which would be reflected at an increased price but would I be getting a better product?

I believe you get what you pay for but it doesn't make much sense for throwaway items to be produced here when the hoops you need to jump through are numerous and those hoops translate to increased cost.

As things stand? They would simply get as much as they could made overseas, the rest made here, assemble it here, slap in the Made in USA sticker, then sell it for a premium.

There is no guarantee of quality other than quality itself. As the adage goes, cheap, fast, good, pick any two... where it's made really isn't a factor in it.

[Da_Shocker]

The worst of this shit has to be the patent wars with Apple, Samsung and now HTC has been hit. As for this I mean does it really matter sicne MS will finally released a new system next year?

[j_factor]

Cheap labor is only one factor in why few products are produced in the US any more. The US now has the highest corporate tax in the world. Most companies would rather not pay that.

Most companies don't pay that. The US has the highest corporate tax rate, but that rate is somewhat illusory because we also have the most complex tax code. Some of the largest corporations are paying zero or nearly zero.