once the country stood proudly as the largest exporter of manufactured products in the world , but now our national brain trust thought it better to export the manufacturing know-how to low wage countries and ship the usually inferior and much cheaper products back to us so our former manufacturing workers , now unemployed , or underemployed , can hopefully save enough money from their lawn cutting , burger flipping , or house painting jobs to purchase all those now imported refrigerators , televisions , and golf clubs from the discount big box stores along the highways that replaced the local retailers who went out of business because they couldnt compete against third world labor costs .