As Russell Hubbard reports in the Birmingham News, a "loophole" in U.S. trade law is helping imported sleeping bags overtake domestic producers. The Generalized System of Preferences, a program authorized by Congress in 2006, allows certain products  from developing nations to be imported free of tariffs.  Apparently sleeping bags don't qualify as a textile or related product, and so companies in Bangladesh are sending tariff-free sleeping bags into the U.S. The result: Exxel Outdoors, which says it operates the last U.S. factory producing mass-market sleeping bags, is losing market share.  Orders are dropping and plans to hire new workers have fallen by the wayside. Exxel has been manufacturing 2 million sleeping bags per year, and sales of those sleeping bags have been providing a good living for more than 10 years for about 65 workers in Winston County, Alabama, where unemployment has been hovering at about 15% recently. Now, however, the future is in doubt. Read more.