Global Competition

I read with interest the tale of two cities about how the American sock manufacturers are rapidly losing ground to the Chinese (April 10). The article did a good job illustrating the efficiencies of the Chinese “clustering” model. What I found even more interesting, though, was that the Americans were buying new equipment from Italy. Seems like the American manufacturers are losing to global competition both on the Asian front due to low wages, low cost and the European front due to higher education, design, engineering standards. It would be interesting to explore the Italian side a bit more. A “tale of three cities” perhaps?

Marino Pascal

Los Angeles