Everything is made in China

[mechanicx]

I basically agree, but i put all the blame on government policy with trade and industry. The buck stops there. I'm not sure that the average person or public asked for outsourcing or the trade deals, but even if they did it's not as if the government doesn't refuse to follow public opinion oftentimes anyway.

The way I see the whole matter is a few special interests pushed for this policy of "free trade" and they convinced part of the public to go along with their idealogy by using the media. Plenty of people were saying how it would eliminate jobs before it was instituted. The policy makers knew better or should've known better and they went along with the special interests to the determent of economy and the average person and the country in general.

The thing I dislike about so many things imported from China as opposed to any other low cost country besides the obvious loss of industry is that a communist, military power is the last country I would want to support.

 

[buster]

So many things to consider and really no silver bullet solution.

 

[Mr Nice]

Lets say that all stuff was now made in the USA, no more imported goods....

Would we be able to afford every day items we need to purchase ?

 

[Vikas]

China lending money to USA is like me lending money to local Mafia. I will hope that Mafia will give me my money back with interest but if they decided not to, there is not much that I can do.

What is China going to do to collect their debt? Bring their Navy or Airforce here??

Seriously, this US-China relationship is mutually beneficial to both and will go on indefinitely.

 

[Pablo]

How come no one is griping about Sweden?

IKEA

I just got done putting together my office re-do......took me hours to just put this killer file cabinet together...and they forgot to include the ENGLISH instructions for the combination lock!

 

[casperfun]

Originally Posted By: Pablo
How come no one is griping about Sweden?

IKEA

Because they are blond and blue-eyed!

With China there's more Xenophobia,

hence the bashing.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
Lets say that all stuff was now made in the USA, no more imported goods....

Would we be able to afford every day items we need to purchase ?



Of course we would, just like in the past. Prices meet what the market will bear. What we have now is a lot of common products outsourced to China that are priced about what they were when made here. Those prices need to come down with the way the market is going.

 

[expat]

"Of course we would, just like in the past. Prices meet what the market will bear."

I'm not so sure about that.
I'm old enough to remember when things were made in North America. Basic work Jeans for instance cost about as much today (imported) as the North American product cost 30 years ago.
OR
As a kid, a basic 10 speed bicycle would cost perhaps 2 days wages, now an import 21 speed with suspension etc. is advertises for just over $100.
Did we have deals on tools like we see at HF back in the old days? and NO, not everything made in NA was Top Quality either.
Sure we could 'get by' on NA only products, but we would drastically have to cut down on 'Stuff'

 

[mechanicx]

Inflation has been rising every year all the while products have been outsourced and imported from China and other low cost countries. Wages and benefits have been stagnate or dropping, unemployment rising, and job security is gone. There are a lot of hidden costs to the supposedly cheaper outsourced goods. Chinese products are generally low quality and the price is pretty much the same as the previous US made version.

 

[Blaze]

I noticed the Buck knife I got for X-mas was made in CHINA

I thought they were a USA made knife?

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: casperfun
Because they are blond and blue-eyed!

With China there's more Xenophobia,

hence the bashing.

Exactly

 

[LS2JSTS]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: casperfun
Because they are blond and blue-eyed!

With China there's more Xenophobia,

hence the bashing.

Exactly


LOL...Yeah, I notice "Made in Sweden" on a lot of the goods on the shelf at wally world...get real!

Those who lay this off or rationalize it to themselves as simple racism are kidding themselves, but no one else.

 

[mechanicx]

It's not for many of the other reasons given, outsourcing, currency manipulation, communism, lack of freedom and rights, pollution, quality issues, military threat etc, no it's all about ethnicity

. Most people who are oppossed to outsourcing are opposed to it from any 3rd world location. Playing the race card is really just a sign of ethnocentricism.

 

[Pablo]

Some of you guys are just wrong.

Bottom line: It's easier to do and start a business in China than the USA. Send a bunch of lawyers, ecoweenies, union leaders and people who don't understand how to build businesses to China. That will straighten them right up.

Racism? Get a clue.

 

[casperfun]

Until recently as 2005, Canada was actually the number one importer into the USA until a few years ago.

Have you ever heard anybody ever complain about Canada like they do with China?

WAAAAAA don't buy Canada, buy good ole American!....probably not.

Nobody implied racism. It is just a fact of life that people who are more different than us ( Funny thing is USA is considered a melting pot) we tend to blast at more.

Is it racism, profiling? or whatever term it is. Who knows.

But if these same people who say don't buy China....NEVER said Don't buy Canada or other countries too, than I understand.

So people should stop crying about China made products and keep shopping at Wal-mart and get their Mexico produced items and be happy!

 

[Vizzy]

It was the US gov't that created this problem at the behest of the corporate borg that controls it....

I wonder how many people here realize that when it came to EVERY one of the major illegal unconstitutional trade agreements the overwhelming majority of the US citizens were against them all...yet even so they were ALL passed through and made law...illegally of course. What does this tell you? If you have a clue at all you know what it means.

The bottom line is that the folks that call themselves congressmen and senators DO NOT in fact represent the people, but a small priviliged elite, there are the top 1% or so that hold the wealth in the USA....they are sentencing you to a slave wage future, just like that of the Chinese people and other slave wage nations.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: casperfun
Until recently as 2005, Canada was actually the number one importer into the USA until a few years ago.

Have you ever heard anybody ever complain about Canada like they do with China?

WAAAAAA don't buy Canada, buy good ole American!....probably not.

Nobody implied racism. It is just a fact of life that people who are more different than us ( Funny thing is USA is considered a melting pot) we tend to blast at more.

Is it racism, profiling? or whatever term it is. Who knows.

But if these same people who say don't buy China....NEVER said Don't buy Canada or other countries too, than I understand.

So people should stop crying about China made products and keep shopping at Wal-mart and get their Mexico produced items and be happy!

Like with the German example, Canada is a fully developed industrial nation with a similar cost issue as manufacturing things in other.... fully developed nations.

Our currency is similar to yours. The value of our currency is presently, very similar to yours.

We speak the same language primarily. We share a common border. We share a common heritage for the most part.

Canada is a logical trade partner, given our similar industrial status to your own. We have plenty of resources that you guys want and need. And you have plenty of things we want and need.

The relationship with China is not the same. Not from a currency perspective. Not from a trade perspective. Not from a political perspective, nor that of a cultural perspective. China is USED due to cost. And China's government, as well as US companies are essentially exploiting the Chinese people to their own financial benefit.

 

[Blaze]

A friend of mine has a small "three man" custom cabinet shop. Dues to his ever increasing health insurance costs for his own family he had no choice but to lay one person off and work longer hours to take up the slack.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: casperfun
But if these same people who say don't buy China....NEVER said Don't buy Canada or other countries too, than I understand.

Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
Those who lay this off or rationalize it to themselves as simple racism are kidding themselves, but no one else.


No body is accusing anyone of racism here. Don't over react. What some of us are implying is that there's a disproportional amount of blame laying on China when the trade imbalance came also from Japan, Korea, Middle East, Latin America, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Norway, etc.

How many of you have a cell phone that's not Motorola? and use non Verizon network? and have a car that's made in Mexico? and burn fuel that's not refined from crude pump from US? and use extra virgin olive oil from Italy? and watch LCD/Plasma TV at home? and buy non Micron RAM for your computer?

I've not seen "I'll stop buying stuff made in these non Chinese places" thread and people actually justify buying from these countries because, well, they're not China.

Sure, there're human right problem, corruption, job outsourced, non democracy, etc reason, but look at this vs the rest of the world's import and how many of the opinions on this board are disproportionally blaming China for this, you have to be lying about it not being single out for certain fear and hatred reason.

Just like Walmart bashing and not Target or Best Buy bashing, I haven't heard much bashing about other countries. I'm not saying or even hinting that it is a racism thing (it's not), I'm saying that someone is trying to get people rally up and blame every problem in the US on a common enemy.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
The relationship with China is not the same. Not from a currency perspective. Not from a trade perspective. Not from a political perspective, nor that of a cultural perspective. China is USED due to cost. And China's government, as well as US companies are essentially exploiting the Chinese people to their own financial benefit.


India? Mexico? Philippine? Korea? They all have very different culture and very horrible problems of their own that we turned a blind eye to when importing their products and services. Caste system that violate basic human equality, corrupted government that keep people in poverty, and government and people [Korea] that would not buy from anyone outside their own people in and out of their nation even if it is their own neighbors. How come we haven't have the same level of reactions?

How come I have a feeling that many here think that they are not threats because they are our virtual puppet colonies but China is not willing to budge, so we must listen to politicians' propaganda that China is to blame for all of our financial problems?