Hmm. Dell has a new-ish plant in NC, but I don't know how much of the assembly is done there versus elsewhere. I missed my chance to tour the plant because I was very pregnant and decided I would rather stay home and take the day off to hang out with a friend visiting from CA. 
I do know that the computers we order at work that are "made" there tend to arrive within 24-48 hours, so clearly they're not waiting for something to ship from Asia before then doing other things with it in the US plant.
That, my friend, was an opportunity of a life time. And who knew that you should have taken your friend from California TO the Dell Plant so she could question them?
But seriously, if you see anything formal from Dell on how their computers are made, let me know. I would guess that not all of them are made here in the US.
From my understanding the computer companies essentially buy premade cases with motherboards, power supplies (battery for laptops), etc. and also buy fully pre-built computers.
Now, each location has a fully pre-assembled computer ready to ship (which most companies buy since they are cheaper and meet company needs) and computers partially assembled ready to be customized for anyone. The plants in the US tend to just be "plug and play" shops, much like fast food--read the parts and put them into the machine. This can be taught to anyone as it is a fairly simple process.
So--while some assembly takes place in the US, it is not a lot of assembly at all. And no doubt, the parts for every computer is built in Asia.
But here is a tougher question that I just learned about in the last week: Did you know that Google runs a censored version of their search engine for China? If you are in China and search Tienamen Square (sp?), you will see no photo of the man who stood in front of the tanks, only information about it as a tourist and public area. The government has relaxed economic restraints in the comm
The PBS show I saw showed this picture to college students in China who had no understanding of the importance, or of the actual event itself. Yahoo! and all the other search engines do this as well.
Yeah, corporations can't say no to the buck, so they are willing to do almost anything to have chinese business.
Commenting by HaloScan
