| You're right about the labeling...companies play all kinds of games with them such as...Designed in the USA, Packaged in the USA, Package Printed in the USA ect ect ect...and product content is another issue as well...but there are clearly many quality items almost totally made in the USA such as California/Florida oranges vs South American fruits, Bud/California vs Becks/French, a Wahl vs a Norelco, a Harley Davidson vs a Suzuki, a Hamilton watch vs any other watch on the market, Dannon vs Evian, Hawaii coffee beans vs any others ect ect.... in some cases you can only get 1/2 way there such as in clothing/shoes and video media which is often manufactured in the USA from off-shore components...(Lands End does a good job of noting which products are imported and which are domestic)....using TV's as an example many Toshiba's, Sanyo's & some Panasonics are off-shore owned but manufactured here, that's fine with me as I see the Japanese as a strong ally to the US, ditto for many Japanese cars and Brother products that are made in the US....some items of course are just plain not made here, take scanners as an example, I'd probably look at a Cobra over many other brands because although scanners are made off-shore at least it's being marketed by an American company that provides many jobs up in the Chicago area and the profits seemingly stay here, to a degree...also I don't mind buying products from Canada, Mexico, the Brit's, Israel, Taiwan and other countries that I consider friendly to the USA if the American option isn't available...I go out of my way to avoid products made in China (which ain't always easy) and other countries I consider unfriendly to US/Human interests....anyway these are my opinions and one way I plan to go about helping the US economy until this situation settles out which may be a long long time....I've always 1/2 way shopped in this manner in the past out of habit since I am directly involved in American manufacturing in my career but I'm going try to push it all the way for the time being because I think American manufactures are going to need the help for the near term. I just hope when someone goes to Home Depot and has to decide between my companies products and our off shore competitors they give us the nod even if were a couple of cents higher, sometimes we are and sometimes were not depending on many factors...and I know for the near term our business, as will many others, WILL drop off to a degree soley based on this weeks attack, it's human nature not to buy big ticket in shaky times...we've already seen 2 layoffs at our facility this year, prior to that we had 1 layoff in the previous 10 years. |
