In this day of AI smart tools, it's easy to forget that we humans once relied on "dumb" hand tools like saws, drills, screwdrivers and wrenches.

For decades, a major maker of these trusty instruments has been a company in New Britain, Conn., appropriately named The Stanley Works.

Today, having taken over other big brands like Craftsman and Black & Decker, Stanley is a $15-billion-a-year conglomerate. Many former workers are asking, "Stanley works for whom?" That's because corporate top executives have quietly orchestrated a decades-long move of Stanley factories out of our country, abandoning the skilled machinists who literally made the brand successful.

The final blow comes this week, when Stanley will shut down the last of its redbrick factories in New Britain. An odd move, since workers there produced one of Stanley's most iconic products: The "PowerLock" tape measure. It is enormously popular— indeed, I have two of them. Yet, corporate bosses claim that cheaper, foreign-made tape measures now dominate the market, so— poof!— goodbye 300 American jobs.