Maybe I should adjust the quote in the header?
The Houston Chronicle confirms our suspicions with China replaces Mexico as land of cheap labor:

Edilia Perez, 42, can install circuit boards in television monitors as fast as she can, but she just can't compete against Chinese workers on the assembly line.

Chinese factory workers make about $1 worth of yuan each day, while Mexican maquiladora workers like Perez earn an average of $9 worth of pesos a day, according to a study by the Mexican Worker's University in Mexico City.

China's long list of business incentives -- including few to no taxes -- attracts investors. In contrast, Mexico's catalog of complex rules, labor laws and taxes discourage many companies from moving here.

The Pacific is no longer the trade barrier it once was. China is now a formidable competitor for attracting manufacturers.

The article then describes the decline of Mexico's industrialized border towns as manufacturing plants move to China and elsewhere.

So what, right? Well, think about our porous border:

Likewise, the loss shouldn't just worry Mexicans, he said. If Mexicans can't find jobs along the border, they go to the United States.

Such a deal!

"... a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker Chinese factory worker would consider to be prosperity ..." sounds about right.