Not especially these days. And its for reasons you've said yourself, that the politicians have sold us out. To line their own pockets and those of their friends and "special interest groups"... They don't tax foreign made products like they ought to and it does give Chinese/Mexican/Russian/Mongolian/Zimbabwean/Italian/Australian/Phillipine/Indian/Etc... an unfair advantage. In addition by the tax shelters and inexpensive wages and other reasons companies are moving or outsourcing to foreign countries and we continue to lose many skilled and good paying jobs here in the USA.
The first and foremost goal any politician that I will ever support should have is to make it his and his parties personal mission to pass any law, tax and fine necessary to bring manufacturing back to the USA. We've become a nation that is primarily supported by the entertainment business. Movies, TV, Music, Sports, and all the advertisements that followed behind. Our economy is currently built on meaningless and momentary entertainment while we should be based on solid tangible goods that will hold value and be valued by anyone who may need that product. Entertainment is not a "need" it is a "want" and our culture is a selfish one that I cannot respect right now.
I am not proud to be an American. But I want to be. I hope to be proud again but we are a long way off right now. Semper Fi!
This is still the best place to live and conduct business in, in the world today (IMO) and the 'American Dream' is very much alive and well despite what political hacks want you to believe. We still have a manufacturing base, though not as robust as it once was, it's still there and despite the economy is growing. I think that despite the hurdles placed on indusrty by the government in this country, it will continue to survive and grow because as Americans, we are resourceful.
I certainly agree that a service economy is a non-economy because to service the world economy means we have to lower ourselves to the lowest living standard of any country we service and I don't see that happening because people in this country aren't going to ride bicycles (instead of cars), eat rice (instead of steak) or be content with making a wage comensurate with the Chinese or any third world producer of hard goods.
When I look at imported from third world machines (like welders and plasma cutters) I see machines produced by a workforce making pennies a day and living in conditions that no gainfully employed American would even consider to be acceptable, and those machines, while selling for less than the domestic counterparts, actually cost
much less to produce. In conclusion, I see someone making a very large profit selling imported goods here. That brings me right around to the end game, actually imposing trade restrictions and tarriff's on imported goods and adopting a trade policy that puts imported goods on an equal footing with domestic counterparts.
I realize this forum, as a whole, is about small tractors, the majority of which are imported and again those units should also be trade regulated. However, Kubota and other import brands actually have a physical prescence here, with R&D, manufacturing and employment of Americans. I don't see that with the import welding and plasma machines other than maybe a desk, phone and FAX machine. That isn't employment of the American work force. All it is is fat cat brokering of cheap import goods and making a fat profit.
Until the citizens of this country get over the 'cheaper is better' philosophy, nothing will change, except the living standard here as we digress toward being in line with the very third world countries that sell us the crap in the first place.
So, no, when faced with a purchase, any purchase for that matter, I will buy domestic if at all possible or assembled here from parts sourced worldwide because we do live in a world economy and some items are no longer produced here. I will not buy an item based solely on price versus orign.
I buy items at Harbor Fright, I admit that. 99% of the time, the items I buy are either no longer produced here or if thay are, are priced out of what I consider to be fair, however, that don't mean I'll buy on the cheap for the sake of saving a buck. I certainly don't want or need a 12 dollar drill that goes up in smoke with the first use, thats not productive at all. Gimme a DeWalt or Miluakee any day.
