All of us have heard the old expression about one person claiming to be able to whip another person with one hand tied behind his back. Often with that attitude sooner or later the person who allows one hand to be tied behind him will get a good whipping himself. I believe that the same principal applies to governments and their trading partners. At one time, the United States was the undisputed manufacturing giant in world. We were the most productive, the most innovative group of people that the world had ever seen. While we have become complacent with our stature in the world, other countries have not been so complacent.

The citizens of this country have become accustomed to having good jobs, retirement, and a host of benefits. Sometimes it is easy to forget that all of these perks have to be paid for by someone. We consumers also want to buy the things we need at the lowest cost possible. The people who own businesses know that they have to be competitive with other countries if they are to stay in business. One way that they have been able to stay competitive is to relocate manufacturing plants in other countries. While many Americans complain about loosing American jobs overseas, we all need to look at some of the reasons this is happening.

They can hire workers at very low wages (such as 30 cents an hour in China), the companies don't have to pay any employee benefits, they don't have to comply with safety and environmental regulations, they don't have to pay foreign taxes when they export their products back to us

Even though the people in countries like China are poor, the nation of China as a whole is a powerhouse and growing in strength every day. Foreign stock markets, especially in Asia, are much healthier than those in the U.S. A Look at the first-quarter gross domestic product numbers should be a wake up call for all Americans. While the U.S. growth was 1.3%. China posted a gain of 11.1%, growing almost nine times faster than the U.S.! India expanded about 9%, seven times faster than the U.S.!