Commentary by Steve Aranoff & Robert FitzPatrick, The EAGLE

Perhaps it's a good thing that more print isn't coming from China.  In every industry China has growing exports. For specific economic reasons, including the low price of the Dollar compared to the Yuan, Chinese print, if properly managed, is quite low in cost.  We have written about China's quality issues.  Now, with pet food, there are also safety issues. As more safety concerns crop up, who knows how many of China's current trading partners will cancel manufacturing contracts? From a print perspective, do we know, for example, whether the low cost paper manufactured in China is tainted?  Sure, Coffee Table books may not get eaten, but children's books do, and that must be an overriding concern to the buyer/distributor of Chinese printed materials.

And if quality issues don't threaten China's manufacturing business, the ambitions of other emerging industrial economies certainly will. Russia, Eastern Europe, South America, the Philippines, and Africa aren't blind. Their governments see China's success, and will pursue their share of the economic miracle that the outsourcing of manufacturing bestows. Much of our clothing no longer comes from China; it is too expensive there now. When that happens with industrial goods, China will still have a solid manufacturing presence, at least to handle its growing middle class population, something still significant given China's population.