Originally Posted by GrumpyOldMan (Post 2004572)

Well, my take is that we have prayed at the god of money for many decades. We raised our children to dream of getting rich and retiring early. EVERYTHING in this country is about making a fast buck. Bill Maher had a good "New Rules" last week pointing out how it is almost impossible to get any big projects done in this country because everyone wants to make some "under the table".

A lot of people blame outsourcing, but the fact is American's are addicted to cheap. Wall Street demands companies make quarterly goals that are set by money managers who have never worked for a living. Let a company miss money managers projections and the company's stock will tank. Not because the company did something wrong, BUt, because what they did right was not what the money manager wanted them to do.

Personally, I think most of our country's "issues" at this moment all have a root cause of making fast easy money no matter what the cost to our country.

Originally Posted by Topspinmo (Post 2004567)

Will you care when robots eliminates cashiers jobs? Well, not now right?

Originally Posted by Bay Kid (Post 2004145)

Do we make anything in America anymore? Seems like everything is made in other countries.

Originally Posted by Bay Kid (Post 2004145)

Do we make anything in America anymore? Seems like everything is made in other countries.

Originally Posted by Bay Kid (Post 2004145)

Do we make anything in America anymore? Seems like everything is made in other countries.

Originally Posted by tvbound (Post 2004249)

"Made in America" purchases will only come back in vogue, when people are willing to pay more (often a LOT more) for essentially the same products. It's simply common sense, that if you're paying employees more - then the cost of the goods or services will most likely be more. In essence, we have only ourselves to blame for the amount of foreign made services/goods, when we prioritize price. The ultimate irony being, that those foreign countries making so many of our products are simply trying to follow the old American model - of creating a burgeoning middle class/strong economy.

Originally Posted by rpcurt (Post 2004667)

COSTCO makes its Kirkland golf balls in China.

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby (Post 2004419)

I am anti-isolationist. So I don't really care which country makes a thing, or which country makes a part of a thing that was used to make a thing. I care if it's a) something I actually want, b) affordable compared to similar things, c) readily available, d) of a measure of quality that meets or exceeds minimum standards, which depends entirely on what the thing is.

If my plastic credit card was made with petroleum imported from Saudi Arabia, I'm not going to refuse to use the credit card. In fact, my "care-o-meter" level of the country of origin of that plastic is at 1, only because there is no 0 on the care-o-meter.

If your car was made completely 100% in the USA, but all the machinery in the manufacturer's shop that is used to make the car was made in another country, would you care? No, scratch that. DO you even know what country the screws on the paint machine were made in? No, no you don't. You have no idea where those drills and paint machines and tire-pressure-gauges and whatever else is used to make a car, came from. Nor do you care.

And have you been into a Tesla plant lately, to make sure that all the employees were "made in America?" How many of them were "imported" and are citizens here, but born somewhere else? Have you checked? Have you cared enough to even wonder? Of course you haven't.

So - your "care" of the country of origin is noted. And insignificant.

Originally Posted by Arctic Fox (Post 2004425)

The USA is the World's third largest exporter - a fact often missed when we concentrate just on foreign-produced stuff that we buy.

It is also a net exporter of food (importing less than 15% of what we consume).

Originally Posted by retiredguy123 (Post 2004243)

FYI, a lot of clothing is labeled as "Made in USA" in violation of the FTC rules. If the clothing fabric was imported, which most of it is, the clothing should be labeled "Made in USA with imported fabric".