I have an aunt and uncle that ran a small machine shop with 4 machinests in Washington state for many years. The majority of their business was government contracts(mostly Federal). Most of the items they built were already available on the market but the government had to have everything built to their exact specifications. These were all bid contracts and my aunt and uncle were fairly competitive because of their low overhead. A few years ago the US started letting China bid on these contracts. This put my aunt and uncle out of business in no time. It wasn't a hardship for them because they were ready to retire but it was a hardship for the 4 machinests and their families.
