It's a mistake to assume that the only reason manufacturing and jobs are fleeing overseas is simply due to lower wages. Here, the environmental psycho hose beasts are running the show, and stories like yours are repeated across the country.

My dad, before he retired, was the environmental guy at Pillsbury. The one in charge of making sure things were cleaned up to the bureaucrats' satisfaction. I could tell you stories all day long that I heard from him about the nuttiness of it all. I'm surprised he held out until retirement.

As for Europe:

Socialist bureaucracies attract the type of person who believes that everyone's nostrils be the same diameter, and expects to be able to enforce it at the point of a gun. The Europeans seem to have to learn about this the hard way over and over again. They have a LOT more psycho hose beasts in charge than we do, and that's saying something.

At this rate, there won't be a decent job left in any Western nation in a hundred years.