[kylactus]

The reason for the price hike is China’s emerging middle class, and the fact that, although China does have some near slave ( or in some cases actual slave ) labor most western countries won’t do business with those factories, most Chinese facilities are that make American goods maintain decent standards of safety and pay. No one wants to end up like Nike in the 90’s ( they had Cambodian slave kids sewing shoes in a sweat box, and when someone got seriously hurt or killed on the line they’d fire them or dump the body in a pit out back.) the plastic cost is a factor, but nearly as much so as tooling, that’s #1, and assembly, which is time consuming is #2.