Haven't checked the links, but here are some old quotes I had (on G1 probably) from Cliff:
Also, it's made in the USA. We've taken a stance against offshoring the production for now. It makes the product a bit more expensive but saves jobs in this country. We feel it also makes for a higher quality product.
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The DSP is made in Canada. The boards are assembled in Wilmington MA. Final assembly is done in NH. The chassis is made in MA as well. There is NO production whatsoever done in Asia. Some of the components, of course, are of Asian origin but that's inevitable.
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The only thing we're considering outsourcing is the sheet metal chassis. The manufacturing is still all done in the U.S. We can get the chassis for half the price offshore. Most of the other parts are made in China anyways, no control over that. But we stuff the boards and test and everything else right here in the U.S. /
The pricing after the waiting lists are gone is still TBD. It'll probably end up somewhere in-between. At the discounted price we're a bit under the required multiplier for the products. We're trying to shave costs by sourcing the chassis from China but we're still a bit high. FWIW, and this is totally my personal opinion, I've had a high-end competitor's unit for a couple weeks now. After evaluating that, I feel the Ultra, even at full MSRP, is a bargain.
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I believe that outsourcing is one of the reasons the economy is in the mess it is in now. The problem with outsourcing is that it basically makes labor a worldwide free market. So American laborers compete with the rest of the world. Now the rest of the world has, on average, a much lower standard of living and therefore the American laborer is forced to accept a lower wage, either directly or indirectly (his job goes away and he ends up flipping burgers). Outsourcing benefits a small group of individuals in the short-term, namely CEO's and large shareholders as the company is able to lower costs and therefore increase profits. However in the long-term this advantage goes away since competitors follow suit and a price war ensues so the profit increase is only temporary. Even worse, this leads to trade imbalance and a steady flow of money out of the country. Those American workers are now making less and therefore have less to spend which causes a vicious cycle. I fought outsourcing at my previous company and used the arguments above but lost the battle to short-sighted upper management. I even got into a argument with a Senator over it. I tried to explain the problem to him (Republican) but, in typical politician fashion, he didn't really listen and didn't give a straight answer to anything I asked. The very wealthy have benefited from outsourcing and become far more wealthy as a result. Unfortunately they've traded away our future for it. I've been preaching this for years but no one listens. The only other person that seems to understand this is, ironically, Warren Buffet.