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Somehow it seems natural to assume that consumer goods are made almost exclusively in Asia by now. I was quite astounded when I bought a cheap plastic bucket for the kids to play with at the beach at a French resort recently and found a "Made in Italy" stamp at the bottom.
There seems to be a certain disdain for the "metal bashing" side of the business, particularly so in the US and in the UK. People ignore that Western nations are rapidly losing the know-how of advanced production technologies and even companies like Apple may find themselves at the mercy of a few select Asian production companies in the near future.
While companies like Apple and Amazon certainly earn a lot of money by selling their goods we shouldn't ignore the fact that they are also funneling billions and billions of $ from Western economies to Asian economies. This only works as long as Asian producers are willing to exchange goods for ink printed on paper.
The situation seems to be basically the same in all Western countries. Manufacturing is still held in good regard here in Germany and some companies have even repatriated their production from Asia to Germany (e.g. Sennheiser Audio). Demand from China has also kept the production lines of German luxury car manufacturers working at full capacity over the past year. China has replaced the US as the biggest market for Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7-Series by now. The Chinese are also buying plenty of high-end German machine tools, so the trade isn't entirely one sided.
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