What does buy American mean?
 

Heck I am the first to pick up a slightly more expensive American product over a foreign made one but am I really helping my own?

Isn't the line as to what is a US company blurred today?
Don't Jap cars get built in the US?
Who owns how much stock in any given company?

Walmart is a US company. Is it good for the US? Should we support it over a rival who is Jap based but sells American made stuff?

:confused:

My basic guideline is to look at a product for the magic words "Made in USA".

Even if the parent company might be foreign, it's employing Americans here at home. To me, that's the most important criteria overall.

OvenMaster: +1! I check that everytime I shop.

Thanks,
Erin

I not only check for that but I also can get obnoxiously loud when asking "Don't you stock American products, is the Chinese crap all you have?"

I too used to look for the made in American label but its not as simple as that anymore.

I flat out refuse to shop at Wally world as I feel strongly they are one of the main reasons for industry other then Auto leaving the US. Not to mention the way they strong arm their wholesalers while screwing their employee is just a travesty ! Its a case of Corporations leading this once great country in to the shitter all for personal gain.

What saddens me is the hundreds of millions who shop at the above mentioned store to save .42 all the while blindly putting themselves out of a job..

:eek: We really do agree on way more than one would expect.

You are starting to scare me :o

Wally-World (or Sam's Club) is kinda Family Entertainment down here...Dog days of summer, its ghastly HOT. You, Baby Mama & the rug rats are lookin' for something to do on another long, lazy summer Sunday..Load 'em up & take 'em to Wally World. Good 'n' cool in there, Southerners LOVE to visit w/each other, guaranteed you'll see quite a few friends & relatives there...

Lady stopped me in the parking lot of one of our malls and asked for directions to Wally-world. She looked absolutely shocked when I told her I had no idea whatsoever of where they were, nor did I wish to know.

Ya'll should get a kick out of this http://peopleofwalmart.com/

It is truely sad that workers in the USA don't take the time to think about the repercussions of buying imported items. Like someone said save .42 but lose the job. I work at a job where we are all union members, "enjoying" a union wage, yet half the folks I work with admit that they shop at Wallyworld to save money.
I personally never buy anything made in china (especially food products), and avoid any item not made in America if I can avoid it. Make shopping a whole lot harder sometimes. But damn aren't WE AMERICANS worth the effort?

My wife says shopping takes longer now because she has to check the labels on everything. Took back a jar of mushrooms because they were packed in China. Girls looked surprised when sho told them why she was returning them. Figure if they will poison their own babies for profit, Lord only knows what they would do to us.

Wally-World has screwed a LOT of things up, IMNO. Used to be, you had a hardware store or 2 to go to, to get wrenches, plumbing supplies, knick-knacks. Plus, you generally had a choice of several different items on lots of stuff you could choose-Cheap, better, or "Cadillac-ing it", as the old-timers would say. Now, if you're lucky to HAVE a hardware store left, the only choice you have are Cheap, or Cheap 'n' Nasty...The "Good" stuff is made in Chicomland, the "Cheap 'n' Nasty" is made in Lower Slobbovia....Amurrican stuff ? Fuggeddaboutit. I would much rather pay $35-40 bux for a toilet seat that the hinges actually didn't break the 2nd time I sat down on it, than buying the cheap version-which is all you can get anymore- that DOES.

amen:cool:

We did the same thing with some Hershey's cocoa. Made in Mexico?? No thankyew! Back it went, and the girl looked at me like I was nuts. As if I cared.

Mind you when you see the videos of the farms in California, acres and acres and not a Johnny-on-the-Spot in sight. What do the pickers do, use the irrigation ditches or the fields? No wonder there are E-coli outbreaks. We have given up on buying "fresh" vegetables except at the Farmer's Market up the road or the Good Earth down the road. In the supermarkets if you don't eat it on the way back to your car it may well be rotten by the time you get it home. Seriously we have gotten tired of buying produce that won't last two days in the fridge.

Well, to answer your question, having lived in the Salinas Valley in CA and in Citrus country in FL, the Johnny on the spots are either mounted on the back of the bus or on a trailer behind the buses they use to transport the workers to the work area.

E-coli is in most soils naturally, even your yard. Odds are it is even in your intestines, thus the whole where do they sh*t question. Proper handling, cleaning and prep is all that should be neccessary to protect yourself from the nasty little begger. E-coli is such a nasty little begger because both the bacteria and its' by products or wastes are toxic, in the right numbers.

Now please enjoy your meal!:D

Don't worry, Florence is fanatical when it comes to kitchen cleanliness. We don't use any pesticides in the garden, yet everything that comes in gets washed.

What does "Buy American" mean? Look at the US Dollar index. It is down to less that $.72 now.

Effectively what it means is that EVERY time you buy something that is made in a foreign country, you are attacking the value of your currency. It used to not be an issue, because America had a huge manufacturing base and exported so much that it more than compensated for the losses of currency do to imports. Now however, manufacturing is dying, the Bush government spent the last 8 years printing money it did not have (which Obama is also still doing. Not that he really has any choice in the matter.), so they have so greatly devalued the American dollar that it really isn't worth crap anymore. People I have talked to have predicted it could drop into the $.45 range, especially if China takes steps against it.

What we are really seeing here gentlemen, is the collapse of the US as THE world power, and the decline of the US standard of living FOREVER. All it took was 7 years....

A couple of numbers....

In July 2001, the US Dollar Index was at $1.17 and Gold cost $278 an ounce.

The economy was NOT in as good a shape then as some Clinton lovers would like you to believe, but I do think that with some good, conservative fiscal management, by today, the US economy would have been in pretty darn good shape. What we got instead was 7 years of the most totally reckless spending of money that the US has ever seen. Money was being printed as if it had some value. The time is coming now to pay the piper.

By financial standards, the Bush administration was NOT right wing. The money Obama is looking to spend now is nothing compared to what Bush did in his reckless 7 years. The truly sad part about the Bush administration was the fact that he bankrupted America (no, that is not an overstatement or an exaggeration. By any objective standard the US IS bankrupt.), and bought the US absolutely nothing with it.

The US citizenry has its own share of blame to shoulder due to it's every increasing appetite for the latest, Chinese made disposable gadget that it just has to have and it's demand to pay the absolute minimum for it. "Who cares if my neighbour is out of a job, if I can save $.25 by buying the same thing he makes, from China."

As I used to tell folks in Geneva when the asked if I was an American I would say yes. Then they asked what state did I live in and I would say Ontario. Simply put Canada is part of North America and has just as much right to claim such. So by saying Buy American I mean both countries, heck our two Chevvies were built in Oshawa. People do not realize that the U.S's biggest trading partner is the Province of Ontario, not just the whole country. The only advantage we have experienced from these financial shenanigans is that we have gotten a big raise in my pension as the Candian dollar went from $0.72 to $0.92 against the dollar here.

Yes, the US and Canadian economies are so integrated now that there really is no separating them. Which is why Canada is also going to suffer with the US collapse.

My 'domestic' Grand Marquis are built in Canada.

As someone with some minor involvement in cross border business I sure wish that integration extended to simple border crossing. I don't understand why it's so difficult.

Probably worried about all those Canadians sneaking in with the truckloads of hemp :)

Pete

Well at least thanks to CMHC there were no funny mortgages issued up there, spared the banks from derivatives, though I did see AIG repaying BofM for summat.

The real reason, I think, that its such a PITA on Canadian border crossings is that too many bureaucrats would lose their ability to be little demi-gods & get to boss sheeple around...Same w/airport "security"....Does anybody honestly believe that the 350 lb woman sitting there by the metal detector could thwart a terrorist ?!? Christamighty, she'll have trouble waddling to the crapper on the other side of the terminal...

Thanks I needed that!!!!
 

:D:D:D:D
http://www.americansworking.com/

The way it should be sung!
 

Aww, man ! Sittin' here sobbin' ! That was GREAT...And I have never been a particularly big fan of the National Anthem..It is notoriously hard to sing, has a somewhat weird tune, & is a bit too heavy on the militaristic.

This died early...
 

Just thought it's great hearing it sung by so many...including seeing the palship between Bush and Clinton. All is Not dead when it comes to coming together. :)

Going out this week to get new tires on Florence's car, you can be darn sure they will have been made here in NorAm. It took me 53 years to find her I am darn well not about to risk her life on Chinese tires.

Used to be the only tires I could get for the tractor trailer were Chinese from Home Depot, would not last a year, sidewalls would crack and split. Got a set of US built tires from Northern Tool, been on the trailer for five years now, good as new.

Wise decision. Talk is...the H1N1 virus vaccine will come from China. Sheesh!!! considering what happened to the baby formula...If it's true..:eek:

FDA would not let in drugs from Canada yet they let in a compound used in Heparin from China and people died. Any people who will poison thier own children for profit . . . Seems they forget just who thier friends are.

Hear, Hear!!! Couldn't have said it better myself. Way to go, Grump!

Dave

"Nothing just happens, David. A steel mill doen't just slip on a banana peel and go down the toilet. People make it happen. Workers and bosses that don't care, unions that don't know when enough is enough, and a government that doesn't give a damn anymore."

Sums it up pretty well.

My Dad told me that back in the 1980s when Ohios (My home state) steel industry took it's biggest fall. You'll see me quoting him a lot in this forum. He was the wisest man I've ever met.