And it's all Bill Clinton's fault..yawn.

Evil capitalism…..snicker

A few short decades ago, 95% of the clothing in the US was made here…now it's 5%.

Transporting goods is a service. Exchanging money is a service. The crazy mechanisms on wall street and in insurance companies cannot be compared with shipping goods. They quite literally DO NOTHING and carve wealth out of companies and the future with what amount to gimics.

“…More interesting was opinion on middlemen and prices. Taken as a whole, opinion was hostile to the middleman. His function, and his hard work in bringing buyer and seller together, were ignored; profits were not regarded as a reward for labor, but as the result of sharp practices. Despite the fact that his very existence was proof to the contrary, the middleman was held to be redundant in view of the existence of an official Shop and the Exchange and Mart. Appreciation only came his way when he was willing to advance the price of a sugar ration, or to buy goods spot and carry them against a future sale. In these cases the element of risk was obvious to all, and the convenience of the service was felt to merit some reward. Particularly unpopular was the middleman with an element of monopoly, the man who contacted the ration wagon driver, or the man who utilized his knowledge of Urdu. And middlemen as a group were blamed for reducing prices. Opinion notwithstanding, most people dealt with a middleman, whether consciously or unconsciously, at some time or another.

“There was a strong feeling that everything had its “just price” in cigarettes. While the assessment of the just price, which incidentally varied between camps, was impossible of explanation, this price was nevertheless pretty closely known. It can best be defined as the price usually fetched by an article in good times when cigarettes were plentiful. The “just price” changed slowly; it was unaffected by short-term variations in supply, and while opinion might be resigned to departures from the “just price,” a strong feeling of resentment persisted. A more satisfactory definition of the “just price” is impossible. Everyone knew what it was, though no one could explain why it should be so.

“As soon as prices began to fall with a cigarette shortage, a clamor arose, particularly against those who held reserves and who bought at reduced prices. Sellers at cut prices were criticized and their activities referred to as the black market. In every period of dearth the explosive question of “should non-smokers receive a cigarette ration?” was discussed to profitless length. Unfortunately, it was the non-smoker, or the light smoker with his reserves, along with the hated middleman, who weathered the storm most easily.”

http://www.albany.edu/~mirer/eco110/pow.html