America, as a country, does not make much anymore. I guess this is a by-product of transitioning from an industrial and manufacturing economy to a service, information, knowledge, or whatever-else-we-are-calling-it economy. This change has brought about both winners and losers. The winners are those lifted to higher social and economic status in countries like India. The losers, who have been displaced by these winners, have often struggled to transition to something else.
The first industries to succumb to the outsourcing movement were those requiring intensive labor inputs. The textile mills of the South, the manufacturers of the Rust Belt, and the big three auto makers of Detroit, sought out lower labor costs that automation could not eliminate by relocating to areas across the globe that were overflowing with cheap labor and often lax laws. The reaction was usually empathy as reported by the nightly news. The repercussions were not acute since the epicenter of job loss was centered in "middle America" far away from the business centers of urbanites. Yet the march of outsourcing has continued with no signs of slowing down, because anything that can be digitized into ones and zeros is not constrained by time or geography.
A few print industry suppliers have already outsourced product development to places like Tel Aviv and Bangalore. Print outsourcing is in its infancy. The movement will probably increase and filter from suppliers to printers of all sizes in a top-down approach. After all what business, or even production, processes required for printing could not be eventually outsourced?
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