The sad/sick part about it is, with our technology, we can't make it better and cheaper?
Sadly, no. I would like to say you can choose one, better or cheaper, but even that I hesitate to say.
I am from the tool and die world, and currently in the automation sector. Tool and die shops in this area, West MI, have been outsourcing the individual details of dies to China for several years now. These shops cannot make the details cheaper (or better...) than sources in China. My dad is the QC Manager at the die shop I worked at for 17 years, so he has the task of checking every detail that comes in the door for accuracy. They are spot on 99.8% of the time. And they look like industrial jewelry, ground surfaces all around, etc. When I consider these facts, and apply them to air filters (or whatever), yeah we in the US really do have a hard time competing cost-wise with over-seas.
And I know quality is going to get bantered about, so I will say this. Yes, quality of the materials is suspect. But when a company can buy a die from China, have an American based shop "fix" its short-comings, all for less $$ than having said US company do it all from the start... then unfortunately that's what is going to happen. I have "repaired" and worked on Chinese produced dies, and it's a crapshoot. Sometimes you assess it and go, "Damn, that's actually not bad." And sometimes you say, "What the ~insert six explicit words of your choice here~ where they thinking.
Sorry if this got off-topic. I am going to go watch the video now.
