On one hand, outsourcing rapidly transferred several decades of manufacturing and design knowledge to GE's soon-to-be competitors. (I haven't seen a Haier fridge on sale in the US yet but it's a matter of years, not decades.) On the other, maybe it juiced executive bonuses for a few years and may have permanently removed organized labor from the US private sector.
I wonder to what extent insourcing represents surrender for US firms seeking access to the Chinese market. China's leaders don't seem keen on idea of letting foreign firms sell in China longer than it takes for Chinese firms to pick up knowledge. The licensed production of Russian Sukhoi-27 warplanes comes to mind - the Chinese agreed to pay for 200, assembled from kits with Russian assistance. After 100 had been built, the Chinese said "no more" - and started advertising an indigenous copy for international sale. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-11#J-11
"There are more bikes offered for sale in Brooklyn than Manhattan, but only 8.3% of them are fixies versus 9.5% in Manhattan."
This is key. Fixies as fraction of for-sale bike population <> prevalence of fixies on streets.
From a purely anecdotal angle (supported by BikeSnobNyc's recurring photographs of DIY fenders), there's a lot of cheap mountain bikes in Brooklyn. In contrast, a Manhattanite who commutes by chauffeur or all-Dura-Ace, not-for-sale-on-Craigslist Colnago isn't part of the sample.
Sleep-monitoring wristband data + "did I see a screen, a red-shifted screen, or no screen" would be really interesting to me.