On March 2, 2020 Andrew Bland, an efficiency expert with US-based apparel firm, "Made In America," boarded a Cathay Pacific flight bound for China. The purpose of his trip was to visit the company's manufacturing division, located in the Guangxi province, to investigate a lag in production. After suffering the indignity of being forced to wear a mask upon landing and disembarking, and finding that everyone he encountered spoke English only as a second language, Bland was further disturbed to learn that, due to the especially high Coronavirus death toll in this disenfranchised region, operations at the factory had been temporarily halted. He immediately sent the following email to Made In America's CEO:
"It's bad. They've shut down the factory, completely. Something about 1/3 of the adults in the region having died from this ridiculous Chinese flu, and there not being enough healthy adults to supervise the children who work the looms. These kids have been doing this sort of work from the time they could stand up and walk, so I'm not sure what supervision could possibly be required. If you ask me, it's belly-aching from lazy people who don't want to work. I've crunched the numbers. We're obviously not paying anyone, which saves us $75-100 a day in wages and other operating expenses, but it also means not churning out the usual $6,000 - 7,000 in merchandise every day. My recommendation: raise the retail price of the hats by a 25 cents, and scout an even poorer region for labor. If we offer .75 on the dollar of what we usually pay, we'll be fully operational in a couple of days and our 2nd quarter profit margin should show an increase of 14%. Whatever you do: don't worry. I've got this. We'll get through this crisis."
On March 3rd, Made In America introduced the "Chinese Tax" on all their products.
On June 30th, Made In America's second quarter profits broke all previous records.
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