Moxxey – The majority of consumer electronics manufacturing these days takes place on mainland China not Taiwan. When Taiwan did have lower wages it did take place there. Nowadays Taiwan for the past 10-15 years has been mainly focused on high end electronics manufacturing. Such as: High end keyboards, high end scanners, etc... The wages in Taiwan as I mentioned are five times more than in mainland China. This is the reason why hardly anyone outsources to Taiwan (B&O being a prime example) anymore compared to China. Taiwan's quality is much higher than mainland China's and politics aside many consider it a different country (at least the Taiwanese do, and Taiwan used to be a member of the UN Security Council until China kicked them out when they decided they only needed one “Chinese” member).
How will we focus on our 1 million <25 year old unemployed? By supporting the companies that outsource? Companies that could employ those unemployed persons in manufacturing? And please don't give me the baloney that nobody in the UK or elsewhere in the developed world doesn't want to work in manufacturing because if even ¼ of them are willing then that's already a lot of people! If we as consumers all demand goods that are not outsourced, then companies will be forced to produce on their own land... Many hundreds of thousands of companies still do, just that it's become the reserve of mostly high class/high quality or professional goods.
Folkdeejay – Jokes aside, there is no way that Rochdale can be cheaper to manufacture than China. In fact China is one of the cheapest places to manufacture, there aren't many countries that are cheaper with the infrastructure in place that China has. Also B&O could sell its products for even cheaper that they produce in China and still make a profit. They don't want to sell too cheap in fear of their brand image dying, too bad that outsourcing and releasing a cheap Play line has already damaged their brand image...
Since you hate Thatcher so much, I am really surprised that you agree with her policies of outsourcing. Maybe you don't, but obviously you have been arguing for outsourcing and not against it for most of the post. You do realise that it was thanks to her neoliberal policies, to demolishing trade barriers, to stopping government support of many industries, that many companies were able or many would say forced to (due to competition) to outsource. It was the same thing with Reagan. They were both neoliberalists... Her rein coincided with that of China's own trade liberalization in 1979.
To top this off the reason why China managed to build up its factories and industries is exactly because of government funding and subsidization. Something that Thatcher and Reagan weren't too keen on. Even today many new factories in China are built thanks to the Chinese government subsidizing them. Perhaps if that was the case in the US/UK and much of Europe then many companies would not outsource. The government only subsidizes big industry such as steel and cotton in the US, and heritage such as Harris Tweed in the UK. In China the government will subsidize many different types of factories. There is a lot to be blamed on both the government for letting companies outsource, the companies for their greed (or survival as some of you put it, although it's more often the case of greed), and the consumers for accepting the status quo.
Soundproof – I couldn't agree more with you.
People who don't care where their money goes to when buying something are either ignorant or calous or both. We all have a choice, and we choose where we invest our money, not just in a particular product. A race to the bottom as many have mentioned has been happenning for a while now...
