I'm remaining anti apple until they bury 6' feet under. I never liked that company, thought there stuff was way over priced, product quality is mediocre, and they could careless about the citizen's of their own country by outsourcing. There was a good article on TV about Apple's questionable business practices with China.
Products will sell for whatever price they will bear. To you - and me, by the way - Apple products are overpriced. But, millions of others are willing to pay those prices. If enough people were unwilling to pay their asking prices, they would come down. Just remember that the competitors' products are manufactured in the same places, under the same conditions. I can't be bothered with Apple, because they are overpriced
for me and I just haven't drunk the Apple kool-aid and bought into the image that Apple tries to portray.
It's hard to say what's "right" and what's "wrong" about our current situation. The modern industrial economy has only been around for a couple of centuries, which is just the blink of an eye in the history of humanity. Prior to that, 90% of the world's population lived in abject poverty. That was the norm. Even today, when you discount OECD countries, living in poverty affects the majority of the world's population.
The only way to bring back manufacturing jobs to North America would be to increase productivity or to enact protectionism, which is generally blamed for making the Great Depression deeper and longer. It's kinda hard to lay the entire blame at the feet of the corporations. Well, maybe the
first ones to go offshore. They were just trying to maximize their profits. The subsequent moves by other companies could be seen as necessary to compete. When a company's no.1 obligation is profits for the shareholders, with no.2 (whatever that might be) being a distant second, it's difficult to judge.
In fact, if you have investments in mutual funds as part of your retirement savings, you probably own some of Apple.
The saving grace for Canada's economy right now is resources - oil, gas, minerals, etc. That's why BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland are booming, while Ontario's manufacturing economy is struggling. The problem with resource economies, is that they go boom to bust and back again. At least you can't shut down and transfer an oil well or mine...
