There has been lots of talk in recent months and years about outsourcing. You know.That's when a U.S.company decides it's cheaper to make stuff overseas.When U.S.companies do that, it costs U.S.jobs. That's unfortunate, but if you're a widget manufacturer, and you want to be competitive with other widget manufacturers, you might have to outsource. What if the other widget guy is outsourcing and his widgets are cheaper than yours? Nobody will buy yours.You'll go out of business.So I can see, on the one hand, why businesses are outsourcing.It's simple economics. But a larger question is why labor is so much cheaper in those other countries.See, if those other countries weren't paying their workers a dollar an hour, there'd be no incentive to outsource. But businesses in those other countries don't have things like environmental laws and worker protection laws and safety regulations to deal with.
GARY GERARD, Times-Union Managing Editor- | July 28, 2016