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To: Dr. Eckleburg
Actually, you can't even trust the products that say "Made in America" any more.

A lot of "Made in America" clothing is made in places like Samoa and the American Marianas, which are allowed to use the "Made in America" label and to come to mainland America without import quotas or tariffs and bear a "Made in America" label. Garment factories in Saipan, for example, make clothes for dozens of American brands like Gap, Dayton Hudson and The Limited. The garment workers in Saipan are largely women recruited from China. Essentially, they're sweatshops, but the workers are glad to come (and even to pay fees to recruiters) because conditions, while bad, are still better than they are in mainland China.

Bills to bring the Northern Marianas under mainland minimum wage or immigration laws have extensive support in Congress but have been blocked, largely due to the influence of Tom DeLay, the congressman from Texas.

Frankly, as long as such practices continue -- and as long as we continue to have almost free trade with China and other countries with substandard labor practices, there is little we can do about American companies going elsewhere to manufacture their goods. If you were running a company, wouldn't you go where the costs are cheaper -- where the wages were lower and you didn't have to spend money to avoid polluting the air & streams? Even the maquiladoras in Mexico along the Tex-Mex border are now losing out to China and other places, because the costs are less than even in the maquiladoras.

7 posted on 10/01/2003 5:47:45 PM PDT by EdJay
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To: EdJay
soo its moving.....i wonder if any americans have worked there in ages
8 posted on 10/01/2003 5:48:57 PM PDT by Kewlhand`tek
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