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Evergreen Park received a record 25,000 applications for 325 positions.
Kearny had 8,000 for 350 jobs.

Also, average wage for employees was about $10.50 an hour.

I expect those wages are competitive in the area. They may have even offered a bit on the high end for important position they needed to fill. That's the nature of the free market.

How many companies are moving manufacturing out of the country and why?

There are a number I know of personally. Many higher technology manufacturing jobs moved to China later in the dot com boom. China made doing so appealing in the short term, but also made agreements with those building manufacturing there to require the companies do more and more development and engineering in China as well over time.

China did a very good job of taking advantage of our technology boom to entice investment in their economy, and now that the boom has faded, and profit margins are low, many of those companies are relying on lower production costs in China, and having to train Chinese workers so that more development can be done in China because they can't afford to move their manufacturing elsewhere.

Where is Chevrolet now producing the Camaro?

I haven't heard where Chevrolet will build the Camaro, but it seems like if you want to buy a car that has most of it's parts made in the US and is assembled in the US, you're best off looking at cars from Japanese auto makers rather than traditional American brands.

I live in Ohio. Honda is building cars not too far from where I live, and they are paying fair wages and remaining profitable. They also run non-union shops, and the unions attempts to get the workers to unionize have failed.

Delphi and GM are having serious problems in this area. I worked at Delphi as an engineering co-op many years ago, and what I saw there left me with a very low opinion of the union there and a sizable portion of their workforce.

The issues with the union and management at Delphi seem to have gotten no better now and in ways they are worse.

The unions have failed their members and the management at Delphi have failed their stockholders.

They entered into agreements in the past that were insane, and the union and Delphi are stuck with trying to live up to past commitments, while still being viable in the future. Workers that have been there a while are still getting payed amazing amounts of money for what they do. Those who are new in many cases make less than half of what those who have been there longer doing identical jobs simply because those who were there longer were grandfathered in under the old agreements.

However, the old agreements were so unreasonable that Delphi simply can't afford to live up to them even for a portion of the workforce, and they can't pay competitively enough for new workers.

For new workers entering the workforce, a non-union job at a Honda plant is more stable, pays competitively, and they don't have to pay union wages.

Delphi and the union failed, yet the bankruptcy courts keep them from completely failing. However, the negotiations between Delphi and the Union are not even close to being done in good faith anymore.

They fight and bicker, and eventually come to an agreement that both should realize is something that will not allow Delphi to survive, but the union can not accept less after all their years of telling their members how Delphi has been attempting to underpay and exploit their members.

So they agree on a contract, and then a matter of months later they are back in bankruptcy court with Delphi saying that they need the court to void the contract if they are to survive.

This has gone on for too long. Delphi and the unions must be able to fail, or they will never do what is necessary to fix the problems. The bankruptcy courts must stop protecting these companies very soon and force them to fix things or have their assets sold off to pay their creditors.

Honda and other manufacturers have shown that it is possible to have profitable heavy manufacturing in the US. However, Delphi and their union counterpart have shown that they cannot do it, so they need to be allowed to fail so that it can be done by someone else.

The unions have strangled the goose that laid the golden eggs. Their power is fading quickly. They need to find a way to move into other markets to survive, which is why they are attacking Walmart so vehemently.

Otherwise they may soon face a company similar to Walmart buying Delphi plants or other plants in the auto industry and see themselves crushed to insignificance in just about every market except civil service.

Once again, how would rival stores react to increased prices and what effect would this ultimately have on the consumer?

Competitors would raise their own prices if Walmart raised theirs.

There's an equally important question. Would competitors increase their benefits if Walmart increased theirs?

If the labor market is flooded, they would not have to raise them a huge much, especially since health care benefits are not as apparent to many workers as is the size of their take home pay.

Their competitors would likely be able to spend significantly less per employee to attract workers simply by spending less on health care, but offering the same or slightly higher wages.

Walmart would be more appealing to people with health problems or dependents with health problems, which would make their workforce even more expensive compared to the workforce of their competitors.

This is pretty much a direct attack on capitalism and the government attacking one of the most efficient companies in the US to benefit a relatively small special interest group.

This effort needs to be crushed, and those pushing for this transparent attack need to be throughly investigated.

What is the ultimate effect on the consumer? They pay more. They pay more because our economy is made less efficient. We have to import more to keep inflation down which means less well paying jobs here.

It means that the rate at which inflation rises will increase faster than their compensation will increase, and even though they may get paid more, they will be able to afford a lesser standard of living rather than a greater one.