Buying USA?

[evodawg]

After spending sometime shopping this weekend, (which I hate) I'm finding out that nothing is made in the USA anymore. Most is made in China. With all this money going overseas to china, is there a chance we could be supporting the Chinease Military? Scary thought.

Also, spent some time checking out Rockler's Pre Christmas sale, I noticed most of what I was interested in was made in China. It also occurred to me that other woodworking retailers offer the same products but under their name. Is most of this stuff manufactured in China and their name stamped on it? So you're really getting the samething only with different names?

Does Lee Valley or others as an example sell more made in the USA products than say Rockler? And does anyone know of a list, broken down by category of made in the USA products? Example: Tools, Furniture, Building products etc.

Just a little concerned about all this $$$$ going to China and our politicians and retail manufactures promoting this idea. Is National Security an issue? Not to mention all the jobs lost to this practice.

Rich

[Never Enough Money]

Economic is kinda complicated but one factor that you neglect to mention is that American's have racheted up wages and benifits to the point where jobs should go overseas where it's cheaper. Plus, those folks incomes will rise and they'll start buying American products (one of these days), thereby supporting our military, etc.

evodawg wrote:

[Morris Dovey]

| Just a little concerned about all this $$$$ going to China and our | politicians and retail manufactures promoting this idea. Is National | Security an issue? Not to mention all the jobs lost to this | practice.

Not really a problem. At least some of the money will come back when the Chinese use it to buy Wal-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot, Target, K-Mart,...

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[evodawg]

And what products are you talking about? Living in the USA I'm having trouble finding made in USA products, can't imagine folks in other countries finding made in USA products.

[Robatoy]

I am trying to locate an article, which I read a couple of months ago, about the US having some navy vessels built in Chinese shipyards. I do recall that it was from a source like AP or Reuters....

[Cyrille de Brébisson]

Hello,

Ho, do not worry, they will be product made in USA, the day were they get paied $40 an hour and you get paid 20c ...

If you had been to china, you would know that chineese do not shop at big store (except for a small minority). They go to speciality shop and negotiate for hours.... a fun thing to watch...

cyrille

[Teamcasa]

What kind of car/truck do you own? Dave

[Brian Elfert]

Just because the Chinese don't shop at big box stores doesn't mean that they wouldn't eventually buy one of the big box chanins as an investment.

They do have Super Walmarts in China. I have seen pictures and they look almost identical to an American Super Walmart except the signs are in Chinese.

Brian Elfert

[evodawg]

1-F-250 pick up 3-F-350 Flatbeds 1-F-800 Telsta T-40 Bucket Truck 1 "69" Chevelle 1 05 Mustang

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Lee Valley marks some of their items if they are made in USA or Canada. Nice touch.

It will get worse. Pick up the current issue of Reader's Digest and read the article about engineering students. China is cranking out 6X the US, Japan

2X. You can be sure they will be a serious world power in a few years.

[Never Enough Money]

[B a r r y]

China just ordered a bunch of Cessna 172's.

[Teamcasa]

Well at least you own US Made trucks. I completely agree with you on doing all I can to avoid buying non-US made products. (As I type on my Sony Vaio Laptop). The reality and difficulty of this practice sets in when shopping for certain items. But when it comes to woodworking machine tools, all of the major mfg'rs have the tools made in China.

Dave

[Dave Hinz]

Does he? My dad's Ford, and my mom's Chevy, were both made in Canada. I'd rather that, if a car is foreign-made, that it's honest about it, instead of just looking like it's American.

[B a r r y]

Doesn't Ford make a lot of trucks in Windsor, ON?

I had a 1985 E350 hi-cube that was Canadian made. It had a pretty maple leaf decal proclaiming the place of manufacture on the windshield.

Barry

[Cyrille de Brébisson]

hello,

1978 MG Midget and 1980 Porsche 911, Why? but I am european :-)

cyrille

[evodawg]

I do know that most USA built cars/trucks have parts built in Mexico, Canada and even Japan. Most are at least assembled in the US, some in Canada. I know for a FACT my 69 Chevelle, parts and assembled in the US. I'm really proud of this car, if your interested in seeing it I will post a pic on alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking

[Doug Payne]

Um, Lee Valley is a Canadian company.

[Clint]

While I appreciate your right to your opinion, I'm wondering what your solution is. Would you rather raise the price of products to the point you can no longer afford them, or would you rather lower your wage so you can make things at a competitive price? Personally, I don't see many people in the US (or Canada, for that matter) clamouring for the $0.50/hour jobs manufacturing goods like you're describing. Up here in this part of Canada, it's hard to find someone to work in a fast-food store for $10/hour...

Anyway, none of that is probably relevent. But what the heck... Now that I think about it, I'm really curious about how much of say, a $500 mitre saw, goes to labour vs. material vs. profit (for all the different levels) etc.

As far as your question regarding supporting the Chinese military, I'd say that it would be obvious that any money that goes overseas is supporting foreign military (as well as social) programs in the destination countries, and probably any trade partners of those countries. At least, for any country that taxes business and people. And if you look at the trade partners of that country as well, it doesn't take too many degrees of separation before you're supporting things you'd rather not support, like terrorism.

Of course, unless you can guarantee that any money you spend stays entirely within your country, you end up supporting all these nasty things anyway. For example, lets say someone starts up a manufacturing shop in your town that churns out hand planes. They employ entirely local labour, so you feel happy buying from them. Of course, the people they pay can only afford to shop at WalMart (since they're competing, wage wise, with sweatshops in more undesireable countries). So these people end up shelling out their paychecks to these other countries anyway. All you've done is introduce one more level of middleman between you and the undesireables.

Well, that's my lunchtime logic ramble for today! :)

[Eugene Nine]

Your confusing built/made and assembled. Cars and trucks are very complex and the final assembly line simply bolts together a few sub assemblies that are shipped to that plant. That final assembly is only a very small part of the picture when you count the amount of people it takes to make such a complex product. Add in all the accounts, project manager, supplier managers, designers, engineers, technical writers, managers, QA testers, etc, etc, etc and you begin to realize that the home country of the maker is where the most of the wages are paid. So even though Ford and GM may assemble vehicles in other countries they are still doing more work in the US than any of the few that are assembling their cars in the us and claiming them as American made.