Dave, I was just reciting historical facts. I'm in no way blaming anyone (other than those knowingly pushing lies).
I had a take that was likely different than most on the outsourcing issue. Do/did we in the US really want to keep producing big screen TVs? And if China were to start doing so more cheaply then the US businesses would fold and the US (investors etc.) would be out with nothing. I see lots as being a sale before things tanked. Of course, what we've now seen is that there are KEY manufacturing activities that really shouldn't be sold or offshore'd. NOTE: in NO way am I anti-worker (completely the opposite).
The US's main product is the USD. The financialization of the economy/country [again, US-centric] started once the USD was decoupled from gold; it then started gaining traction in the early 80s (big neoliberal push via Reagan and Thatcher).
China's cheap stuff is like junk mail. It helps subsidize transportation costs for higher value things. In the US road taxes from POVs does this for trucking (yes, trucking pays a lot in taxes, but w/o POVs it would be astronomically higher). We are, therefore, pretty much a junk economy (not to be confused with actual recyclable "junk," which has value)...
So we moved manufacturing offshore and the companies folded anyway. I don't care about the investors, but I'm all in on the etc. Those were the workers and the suppliers who made the company go. Once upon a time, a company was run by experts in the field. Shoe guys ran shoe companies, tire guys ran tire companies, and electronics guys ran electronics companies. Then Harvard invented a thing called an MBA, and taught their graduates that ethics, citizenship, and responsibility had no place in running a company. In most cases the American company was profitable, but if they offshored the manufacturing they could be
more profitable. As little as a 2% difference in the bottom line could spell the death of the American workforce.
Privately held corporations were prey to vulture capitalists. Take the example of Seely Mattresses, a tried and true, permanently profitable company that was bought out by vulture money. Then they borrowed against the company's future earnings to pay for the purchase price, and sold the company again, this time for a profit. The next vultures did it again, this time piling up debt that was impossible to service, but getting away with the money. Then they declared bankruptcy and sold off the machinery and trademarks to Mexico, where all Simmons mattresses are made today. BTW, the money went to the Caymans, where they could evade taxes on it.
In many, many cases, the destruction of the US manufacturing sector was intentional. Never trust a bean counter, because they won't let something like loyalty, tradition, or patriotism get between them and that extra nickel.
