Another soap box.

The last few years I been trying to do a better job of buying locally and especially buying American. But lately, and I think it has a lot to do with Joe Morrow's aim ads singing the praises of his chinese factories, it has just really bugged me.

Now before you start blaming politicians and political parties for the current economic state think about this.

There are 293 million people living in the United States. If each one would shift $20 a month in spending from foreign made products to American made products, that would create 5 million new jobs.

So I've been doing some research and here are some sites to help. Most of them are hard to navigate and find stuff but it's better than nothing.

I am all 4 buying american and always try to but I am in sales and get tired of hearing people complain about losing jobs to people over seas when the first ones to complain are always the first ones to want a cheaper price or always trying to get something for nothing if americans would not always want there cars for less and there campers for less or their jeans for less then the manufacturers wouldn't need to pay some damn china man 1.50 an hour so they could sell it for less if they went to the car lot and store and just paid what the sticker or the tag said then they would have a job and they would be able to get a good wage but it's kind of hard to pay someone top dollar to make something and then turn around and sell it for next to nothing so the way I see it americans have got what they asked for by being so damn cheap BUT THAT'S JUST MY 2 DAMN CENT'S SO GO HEAD AND START RAGGING ME

Not gonna rag. People need to shop by value not price. There is a big difference. If a $100 item will out last 5 $30 items then which one is actually cheaper. The internet is to blame for a lot of this. People go on here and are willing to sell out a local store for a 1% lower price. And then complain when they can't find what they need locally. There does need to be an attitude change. I'm starting it with me.

That's only partially true.

Say Hanes sells a pair of boxer shorts for $3.00, retail. If they make them in the US, it may cost them $2.00 per pair. But if they can get it done overseas for $1.25, do you really think they are going to pass the savings on to you? Hell no! They're going to pocket the extra $0.75.

However, to make the same $1.75 profit on domestic skivvies, they would have to sell their shorts for $3.75 - that's where we come in. Most Folks pass over the US-made brands every time to save a few bucks. Manufacturers know this, so they outsource their labor to keep costs down and profits up.

It's a two-way street.

I buy US-made goods when and if I can.

About 75% of the time, though, you either buy imported goods or you do without.

May be too late to return the US to a manufacturing-based economy. Consumer spending has largely been the driving force behind our economy for probably twenty-five years or more.

And if we could, would we? The parents of my generation (I'm 44) pushed their kids to go to college so they wouldn't have to work low-paying menial production-line jobs.

These parents thought they were doing the right thing because they didn't want their kids cold busting their asses working the line at Maytag or Chevrolet or the local sock mill.

Nowadays I'd wager that if you offered unemployed college grads $18 an hour to work on a production line, or $9 an hour to sit in an office and do entry-level IT work, they'd take the office job every time because hardly anybody wants to work anymore.

In all likelyhood, creating more production jobs in the US now will only result in more jobs for illegal immigrant workers.

That's were the government will have to step in.

But yes kids these days don't want to have to do physical labor, but if that is where the jobs are. And these factories need to build in middle America where we aren't afraid of a little work.

i'm not american i'm european but like to buy american heres how it goes :
hello im this and that from the netherlands and i'm interested in this and that you have for sale .............wait for about 2 months and still nuttin
when they do answer and we have a deal i come over to pick everything up i allready payed for and missing half of it .
after waiting another 3 months trying to get in touch with the person regulairy and hearing all sorts of bullshit i get my stuff still miss sumting i payed for and recieve the other half hacked up .

yeah i realy like dealing with american suplyers thank god they build better cars


ok calmed down a bit now , we have the same problems in holland a lot of factories move shop to the ex soviet countries .
the problem is we get payed too mush and get to little done we have rules comming out our ears concerning the envirement health in general and union stuff factories have to compete with the cheaper stuff but don't want to lower the qualitie the other options are lower pay (hiring realy young unexperienced staff and fire it as soon as they want a raise ) or move the place , the last option is go bust and there few bosses optioning for that .

we could learn sumtin of those foreighn countries in aftersales and service , its a lot harder to get a customer than it is to keep one happy and order more .
you can have work comming out youre ears today but if you neglect youre current customers or deliver shoddy work and you be eating dry slices of bread the next month trying to atract new customers by use of expensive advertisements .
happy customers advertize by word of mouth and bring in new customers better than pamela anderson giving free eeeh bj's for every purchase

When you buy stuff online you probably are going to have lots of problems. A lot of these guys don't stock anything, they drop ship it from their supplier. It's one guy running a computer trying to undercut everyone. Has no overhead so he can beat everyone on price but you see the kind of problems you get.

i've bought the stuff long distance but came to the states to pick it up and ship it .
the person in question had the last of my cash for 3 months before i came to collect and ensured me everything was there , it was only after i was there counting the boxes i started missing stuff and he whent like oh yeah eeeh .

if he let me know if sumtin was missing before i whent there i might've saved me some cash .

he just spend my cash sold some stuff that was intended for me and used some of my other stuff for mockup and ruined it by taking a grinder too it , afraid to admit his misstake and tell me straight wat happened .
he first tried wiggled away from it , then let me wait for half a year (and have me pay import twice because the goods where on the shipping list the first time allready without being in the crate because he promised me to send it to my shipper 2 days later so it could've been put intoo the box before it shipped ) and send me the damaged goods in the hope i never come back to the states .

he will see me again maybe even with the 1500 dollar in goods that are damaged to get a refund or at least to tell him in person wat i think of his way of doing busness .

he's not the only person who i dealth with in this way , and there all get about the same respons : i never do busness with them again .
i spend 750 dollars a week on stuff from the states thats my job i buy on order and sell this stuff in the netherlands so i know customerservice and if i need to get to a customer teling him time and time again his stuff isnt there even when prommising it will be there or find out the part is damaged i loose busness and cash as whell .

chase (dragnasty) is one person i would do busness with , everything he said he would do he did and more .
porterbuild streetrods is another
suicidedoors is a good company too

There's a pretty common name missing from that list that I know you did business with before.

Scandalous!