Buying American

[Diamondpilot]

I agree. To say Chinese stuff is junk is just plain ignorant. They can make and have made stuff just as good as we have. Take WWII for example. Japan had some pretty good airplanes and ships to battle us with and for a while were kicking our butts in the air to air stuff using the Mitsubishi Zero against our best fighters. It was not until the North American P-51 Mustang that we had something to one up them. Which brings up another subject. Boeing and other aircraft manufactures are having sub components such as tail sections, engines, and wings made over seas in countries such as China.

They can make stuff just as good as anyone else if the quality control is in place and expectations are set forth, not just the cheapest price.

Chris

 

[sparc]

I agree. To say Chinese stuff is junk is just plain ignorant. They can make and have made stuff just as good as we have. Take WWII for example. They had some pretty good airplanes and ships to battle us with and for a while were kicking our butts in the air to air stuff using the Mitsubishi Zero against our best fighters. It was not until the North American P-51 Mustang that we had something to one up them. Which brings up another subject. Boeing and other aircraft manufactures are having sub components such as tail sections, engines, and wings made over seas in countries such as China.

They can make stuff just as good as anyone else if the quality control is in place and expectations are set forth, not just the cheapest price.

Chris

Did you mean the Japanese?

As far as only Carpenter making stainless steel in this country; there are others who make various types of stainless, Allegheny-Ludlum being one of them. Their history in this country dates back to the mid 1800s. They supplied the stainless steel used on the Chrysler Building in NYC for example.

 

[Renze]

The problem is not the corporations, they are responding to consumer demand. Any company that ignores the reality of consumer demand will price themselves out of the market and the business will fail, as have many good American companies.

Having read this US based website with European eyes since 2003, i must say i havent read wise talk like this before, on this site... Perhaps the bank crisis promoted this view, but its spot on.

the free market economy is something like water, it seeks the path of least resistance. Any governmental interference disturbs it, which will lead to other unwanted effects, like the export of labour to countries which have very low standards with regards to environment, human rights, animal welfare, etcetera.


To get back to the original subject, when Americans would only buy American, the price of consumer goods would triple or quadruple, so our life standards would be a lot lower, in other words, we couldnt afford a lot of the luxury we have now, anymore.

Churchill has said "it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." and also: "…the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. "

If you change the word "democracy" for "free market economy" and the word "voter" for "consumer" both statements bear the same truth.

From thereoff, my reply to "buying american" would be: " the best argument against a free market economy is a five minute conversation with the average consumer."


After having said/quoted this, any more words i could say, would have been spilled.

 

[jonyyuma]

Jake, For me Buying American does include buy Canadian.. After all you are our brothers.Some of our 'american' brands are built there.I just don't speak french and I am sure many of you don't either? I have only been to Victoria, a beautiful city..>But I relish the day I can ride the Red Leaf express and visit with the locals?

 

[Diamondpilot]

Did you mean the Japanese?

As far as only Carpenter making stainless steel in this country; there are others who make various types of stainless, Allegheny-Ludlum being one of them. Their history in this country dates back to the mid 1800s. They supplied the stainless steel used on the Chrysler Building in NYC for example.

Yes I did when talking about the Zero. Sorry about that. But the fact still remains many many components of the modern day airliners are made in China and other countries.

Chris

 

[jonyyuma]

I understand the Jap Zero was copied from Hughes racing plane design{1938}. Which the japs were constantly taking photos of anything of war value, before the war? It was built of wood, and had no pilot armor, a plain tin gas tank, and a huge engine. This all gave it a weight advantage and tremendous climbing power..Some had 20mm cannons for fighting. our fighters had self-sealing gas tanks and some protective armor. A lot had .50 cal guns and " the whole nine yards " of ammo for each gun.Plus a camera for confirming kills with the guns? The Grumman gull-wing fighter did give them a very hard time and then later the p-38 "fork-tail devil" or Lightning did it again. Long before the P-51 arrived to the pacific.

 

[the6shooter]

Thank you for the link.



When are you going to sell your Japanese made Kubota's and buy an American brand of tractor?

I didn't buy a kubota, I bought Massey ferguson:laughing:

 

[CinderSchnauzer]

Interesting discussion. Here are a couple of paragraphs from an article by Brian Lee Crowley that may provide a perspective that some of us may not yet have considered:

Unfortunately when many people think about trade, they think of it in old-fashioned terms. Each country has its own self-contained economy. And in each economy, that country's workers make goods and services. Those finished products are then sold to other countries, which make different goods and services in their own little self-contained economy. Japan makes cars. France makes wine. They trade wine for cars.

That is emphatically not what happens for the most part in North America. What we have is not three countries and three economies trading finished products with each other. We have a single economy shared by two countries, Canada and the United States (and increasingly a third, Mexico). We have a single economy awkwardly cross-cut by inefficient and obstructive national borders.


The complete article may be found at:
It isn't about trade

 

[mjncad]

As for "taxing the windfall profits of the oil industry", that's pure lying hype. Yes, Exxon makes a lot of profit because they invest one heck of a lot of money. One exploratory well they drilled went down 27,973 feet and turned up dry. They drill sometimes as slowly as 3-5 feet per hour and average 50 feet per hour....and those rigs go for more than a quarter million dollars a day! 50 feet per hour, 27,897 feet deep, that's over 27 days at a over a quarter million dollars a day....for a dry hole.

The U.S. government makes ten times as much "profit" per gallon of gas than the oil companies make. What does the U.S. government contribute to finding and providing oil and gas? NOTHING. You want to attack "excess profits"? Work on the U.S. government, that's the real excess, not the oil companies who only make a couple of cents per gallon of profit.

Ken

Exactly!

To get back to the original subject, when Americans would only buy American, the price of consumer goods would triple or quadruple, so our life standards would be a lot lower, in other words, we couldnt afford a lot of the luxury we have now, anymore.

Churchill has said "it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." and also: "?he best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. "

If you change the word "democracy" for "free market economy" and the word "voter" for "consumer" both statements bear the same truth.

From thereoff, my reply to "buying american" would be: " the best argument against a free market economy is a five minute conversation with the average consumer."

Well put, and if we want to be economical with words, we could use "Capitalism" instead of "Free Market Economy."

The Occupy (fill in the blank) protesters are a prime example of what Renze is saying about the average voter/consumer. They piss and moan about Capitalism being bad and all corporations are evil; yet if it wasn't for Capitalism and corporations, they wouldn't have iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, modern tents, etc to organize and occupy the cities of their choice. They also fail to remember that Socialism under the guise of Communism was a miserable failure.

Interesting discussion. Here are a couple of paragraphs from an article by Brian Lee Crowley that may provide a perspective that some of us may not yet have considered:

Unfortunately when many people think about trade, they think of it in old-fashioned terms. Each country has its own self-contained economy. And in each economy, that country's workers make goods and services. Those finished products are then sold to other countries, which make different goods and services in their own little self-contained economy. Japan makes cars. France makes wine. They trade wine for cars.

That is emphatically not what happens for the most part in North America. What we have is not three countries and three economies trading finished products with each other. We have a single economy shared by two countries, Canada and the United States (and increasingly a third, Mexico). We have a single economy awkwardly cross-cut by inefficient and obstructive national borders.


The complete article may be found at:
It isn't about trade

Well put CinderSchnauzer. This is why trade wars don't work in the modern age as they did when economies were isolated entities. The trick is now to put the word "fair" into "free trade."

 

[the6shooter]

That IS where the problem lies, fair trade not free trade.