I dunno. Environment is important. You'd couldn't pay me enough to live in a city that looks like this:
We're outsourcing pollution to China. People want cheap junk but don't wan't rivers to look like this so we pay them to take "our" pollution.
Posted on 04/15/2008 5:03:25 AM PDT by Invisigoth
Not shopping at Wal-Mart is inconvenient and costly, but just as I was weaning myself off Sam’s Choice animal crackers, it turns out that avoiding the only place that will sell you The Breakfast Club for $5 is not enough. The liberal yuppie peer pressure has moved on to boycotting all products made in China.
Would you like me to stop breathing to not pollute the environment while I’m at it too? Actually, don’t answer that. The new pet project of the J.Crew-clad Inquisition has the right foundation – China’s record of human rights abuses in prisons and in the workplace is grounds for boycott. But the economic reality, and growing guilt most Americans are experiencing, makes the call for a boycott of the country’s biggest trade partner fall on deaf ears.
No large U.S. retailer is willing (read: stupid enough) to not carry Chinese products. In the year following their 2004 joining of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and consequent release from quotas, the volume of Chinese clothing exports increased over 500 percent, and prices dropped almost 50 percent. If that’s just numbers to you, do this experiment: Check the perimeter to see if your boss is out of the way, duck in your cubicle and start checking your tags. Even if the leather on your shoes comes from Italy, the sole is Chinese. Your shirt? Yes, Made in China. Your underpants? Ditto.
(Excerpt) Read more at northstarwriters.com ...
I believe that if our country had to face an invasion by foreign armies we would not be able to manufacture the tanks, troop transports, tires, gasoline, diesel, rifles, bullets, uniforms, backpacks, utility belts, shovels, military patches and flags. We, we might be able to make them, but not fast enough.
My parents used to say 'The Chinese and North Koreans are so numerous they could float over on rafts and stone us all to death.' That saying is more true today than it was in 1952.
Just a few EMP weapons would knock out our communications. [Gooogle it yourself] Such an attack might also disable most of our air defense capability. The Russians, Chinese and N. Koreans sill use 'obsolete' vacuum tubes. Our great high tech weapons are vulnerable to EMP. Something to think about, isn't it _____________?
All of us need to demand that websites put where the products are made before we buy from them. I was on overstock.com and couldn’t find where it lists the origin of various digital cameras. I would pay more for cameras not made in communist, environmentally and humanitarian wacked out China, and I wish I could sort by country of origin and then price.
I dunno. Environment is important. You'd couldn't pay me enough to live in a city that looks like this:
We're outsourcing pollution to China. People want cheap junk but don't wan't rivers to look like this so we pay them to take "our" pollution.
Isn’t the American economy wonderful these days?
Why would you say that?
Communist China loves the fact that the American and Western consumers continue expanding Red China’s military, a military which one day test & threaten us, as we have not been tested since December 7th 1941.
Bose blows, a marketing company, not a serious contender for high quality sound. There are many American made stereo companies that make the best equipment in the world. While expensive, American made audio is highly regarded all over the world. I fear the Chinese are going after this segment of audio now and we might see American made audio fade too.
Because everything is just bullishly ducky in the energy markets.
My friend got some Bose speakers as a wedding gift in the early 80s with a lifetime warranty. A speaker broke and Bose still had the warranty in their system. They shipped a modern replacement the same day for both speakers.
Much of Chinese production is no longer cheap, in either quality or price. Just look at outdoor gear from The North Face, REI, Cloudveil, Ex Officio, Merrell, and Keen. High quality and definitely not cheap, a lot of it made in China. They’re making higher quality cashmere sweaters as well. And Coach leather products, which was a long-time “made in USA” hold-out, now maufactures a majority of their stuff over there.
Slapshot can demand US-made products but the market for them is small. C. C. Filson of Seattle (www.filson.com) still makes a lot of stuff but it is very expensive when compared to non-US made product. Filson products last a very long time (my Mackinaw is 15 years old) but are people willing to spend $325.00 for a wool coat? Not likely; most see a garment as a fashion item.
What baffles a lot of folks is the price remains the same when they move overseas. That’s because a bigger chunk of the retail price is going to marketing. A Nike salesmen told me a while back that as much as 70% of the wholesale cost of a pair of shoes is for marketing (ads and MJ’s salary). So many companies save on labor to spend on advertising.
That’s good customer service to Bose’s credit. I was just criticizing their hype about their product’s sound quality, which is not state of the art.
I do as well. I don’t understand this author’s premise of “there’s no way to get away from Chinese-made goods, so don’t even try.” If everybody made a conscious effort to purchase non-Chinese goods, there would be a HUGE market shift. This article is like a Chinese toy - garbage.
I've done the math. The Chinese own less than $500 billion in Treasuries, the Japanese less than $600 billion.
….China alone reports to have over $1 trillion in US money in its coffers.
You have to understand the difference between "Chinese foreign reserves" and "Chinese dollar reserves".
LOL — Good one!!
There are alternatives to free-market capitalism: for example, a system in which the interests of a given nation or state are placed above profit. In such an economy, capitalists are free to do business as they wish so long as what they do does not harm the interest of their home nation. A government might for example enact laws preventing capitalists from going abroad to find cheap labor in order to prevent the nation's manufacturing base from being reduced in size, or to keep employment levels high, or to fight deflation. It might set high tariffs to keep foreign goods out in order to create markets for more expensive domestically-produced goods. It might choose to subsidize (via public ownership, tax exemptions, or direct subsidies) certain domestic industries (aircraft, shipyards, etc.) in order to ensure these industries continue to exist. Or it might choose to reimburse certain industries (railroads, power generation, etc.) against losses in order to maintain them at a "going concern" level for national security reasons.
All such forms of government regulation distort the operation of a free market, and thus the market's natural price-setting function. In short, citizens of a state with a regulated economy pay more for certain goods. However, in exchange for these higher prices they receive certain benefits that cannot be provided by the market: increased national security, higher employment (at inflated wages), and the psychological comfort of knowing that their homeland is still capable of producing physical wealth.
We as a nation have made our choice. We have chosen to elevate individual liberty over the interest of the nation. That is what Free Trade is. Therefore, when you hear that the American textile industry no longer exists, or that we as a nation have lost the capacity to produce our own ships, or that a foreign aircraft company has been awarded a contract to build military aircraft for our armed forces, do not complain. We wanted a free-market capitalist system, and now we must live with its consequences: a world where corporations are loyal to no one and nothing except their shareholders, and where human beings — once known as "personnel" — have become nothing more than commodified human resources.
You make a number of good points, but you completely disregard the Law of Unintended Consequences, which one of the only laws that government gets right time and time again. You want to see companies flee the United States? Then pass a law making it impossible for them to do so.
No one’s arguing for unrestricted capitalism, but socialism is not a good thing either.
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