Hopefully that doesn’t say anything inappropriate

Speculation at Slate today on how you may end up having to pay more for cheap goods, including electronic gizmos, coming from China. No more $30 DVD players, knock-off iPhones and no-name portable media players. We’ll have to stretch our increasingly worthless dollar (well, compared the to Euro) even further, it looks like. Hooray.

There’s a couple reasons as to why we may have to say bye-bye to inexpensive Chinese-made electronics. The price of raw materials is “soaring,” oil is out of control (which raises transportation costs) and there’s a movement to increase Chinese wages. Higher wages wages there means higher prices here.

Slate also points out that there’s not much we can do about it. We can’t race toward the bottom and look for a cheaper manufacturer than China (none exists) and we can’t tell the Chinese to play “nice” much longer.

In short, we’re screwed. What a time to be alive.