How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph.Page)
Quote #1
People were done manufacturing on American soil. How could he or anyone argue for spending five to ten times what it cost in Asia? And when Asian wages rose to untenable levels—$5 an hour, say—there was Africa. (II.62.14)
Alan finds himself in an awkward professional position: he either goes with the flow and does what his company wants (i.e. find cheap labor) or fights the power and loses his job (which won't change anything, anyway). It's literally a no-win situation.
Alan is the best at what he does—which includes offshoring jobs and making production more efficient—and finds himself kicked to the curb when his own job is no longer relevant. Eggers' story hits home for many Americans who were unable to make the transition from a manufacturing economy to one that's more technology-based.
Quote #2
Alan knew, and the retailer knew, and the family knew, that that bike had been made by hand a few hundred miles north, by a dizzying array of workers, most of them immigrants…and that that bike would last more or less forever. Why did this matter? Why did it matter that they had been made just up Highway 57? It was hard to say. (VI.59.50)
Alan—like many Americans—senses that it's both important and necessary to manufacture goods in the U.S., and to have them be truly solid and beautiful. But why? He's not able to put a value on this sensibility, which means that he can't sell his vision of manufacturing a U.S.-made bike to the bankers who might give him a loan. But even if he can't find the words or the price-point to make his case, Alan feels what it means to lose craftsmanship and pride in his work to a huge factory overseas.
Quote #3
The men behind Schwinn had tried to continue making bikes in the U.S. According to some, that was mistake No. 1. They hung on in Chicago till 1983…Do you know how hard it was to hold out even that long? To try to make bicycles, very complicated and labor-intensive machines, on the West Side of Chicago, in a hundred-year-old factory, until 1983? (VI.68.51)
Alan tries to work through just what exactly went wrong in both his own professional life and in the manufacturing life of the U.S. He's also trying hard to figure out where to place the blame for economic failure in his country—mostly because so many people are eager to blame him for his role in the offshoring of American manufacturing jobs to developing countries.
But the truth is more complex than that. Alan knows that he was just a cog in the machine, but his sense of guilt and fatigue make it hard for him to fully accept that.