I just saw a post over on Manufacturer’s Blog and couldn’t help but question it. Go read it for yourself (Link) and then come back and read the comment I submitted here:

I’m curious. I saw similar comments on some news show a couple of years ago where a manager in India said he didn’t understand why Americans were concerned when his own office was filled with American equipment. The only problem was that the stuff he pointed to was American *branded* equipment (I know because I know the products); they were actually being manufactured in China.

I then checked a .gov website to confirm comments about the trade numbers being touted. But what I found were flat numbers for private industry and a booming export business for the U.S. government (I suspect the U.S. was selling mothballed military equipment, which – when I was in the Navy – I found to {be} relatively common and which would have coincided with the tensions between India and Pakistan around that time). But again, that was a couple of years ago.

In any case, based on that information I can’t help but be skeptical that “GE, and Whirlpool, and Westinghouse” are selling American-made products in India. The *companies* may be doing business, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s American workers at GE, Whirlpool and Westinghouse plants in the U.S. that are benefitting. More than likely, it’s shareholders who reap the benefits of this sort of arrangement.

Could you verify this to ensure that those companies are actually selling only American-made products to India? For my part, I’ll be looking into whether those large kitchen appliances being manufactured in the U.S. are making the long, expensive journey to India. Seems to me like they’re shipping a lot of air if that’s the case.

and a second comment

Sorry. Also wanted to ask how much of Texas Instruments’ overseas revenue is making its way back to the U.S. and into our economy? Or is all that money being re-invested in overseas research centers, overseas manufacturing sites and so on? I don’t see that there is necessarily a link between their overseas success and American workers other than more jobs are moving overseas to take advantage of lower wages, lower health care costs, lower government standards, greater government incentives and (tbh) reports of widespread corruption.

I wonder if blogger Pat Cleary will reply.