August 2008
Dear Watchers
Letterbox
Sweet Are the Uses of Adversity (Shakespeare)
Dear Watchers:
The high price of crude oil affects more than gasoline for cars and diesel for trucks. Steam engines fired by coal disappeared more than a half-century ago. Now, all trains and ocean freighters are powered by huge diesel engines.
A front page headline in a recent Wall Street Journal said this: “Stung by Soaring Transports Costs, Factories Bring Jobs Home Again.”
This movement of factories to far away countries with low paid workers, especially China, took a lot of jobs away from Americans. Now the high cost of shipping is bringing some factories and jobs back. For example the Journal says that the cost of shipping a standard 40-foot container from Asia to our east coast has already tripled since year 2000 and will double again.
Even the movement of factories and jobs from Asia to Mexico would have some merit. Illegal immigrants from Mexico come here for jobs. More jobs in Mexico could ease our illegal immigrant problem a bit.
Al Hanners
Bellingham
