You are looking at too small a slice of the pie. International trade is
here to stay, and a huge amount of the US economy benefits. If we walled
off out economy, and only allowed selling and buying of items with 100%
domestic content, the following crash would dwarf the great depression. So
get over it.
No doubt you will want to research this so you can move on from opinionated
to informed. A good starting point is:
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/di1.htm.
I used to assign my students, when they had to miss a lab and there was not
an opportunity for a make-up, to take a product they use, like shampoo, and
look at the list of ingredients and look them up to see what the real
chemical compound is, and what function it performs in the product. I don't
think anyone ever deliberately missed lab so they could do the product
lookup, but they enjoyed the task and almost always did a good job. You can
do the equivalent. Pick a product you use, preferably something complex,
like your audio system. Research what it is made of and how it is
distributed, sold and serviced. What would you have left if we withdrew
from international trade?
Have fun. Grading will be pass/fail.
Steve
"Clint" wrote in message
news:6vmlf.155654$yS6.120536@clgrps12...
While I appreciate your right to your opinion, I'm wondering what your
solution is. Would you rather raise the price of products to the point
you can no longer afford them, or would you rather lower your wage so you
can make things at a competitive price? Personally, I don't see many
people in the US (or Canada, for that matter) clamouring for the
$0.50/hour jobs manufacturing goods like you're describing. Up here in
this part of Canada, it's hard to find someone to work in a fast-food
store for $10/hour...
Anyway, none of that is probably relevent. But what the heck... Now that
I think about it, I'm really curious about how much of say, a $500 mitre
saw, goes to labour vs. material vs. profit (for all the different levels)
etc.
As far as your question regarding supporting the Chinese military, I'd say
that it would be obvious that any money that goes overseas is supporting
foreign military (as well as social) programs in the destination
countries, and probably any trade partners of those countries. At least,
for any country that taxes business and people. And if you look at the
trade partners of that country as well, it doesn't take too many degrees
of separation before you're supporting things you'd rather not support,
like terrorism.
Of course, unless you can guarantee that any money you spend stays
entirely within your country, you end up supporting all these nasty things
anyway. For example, lets say someone starts up a manufacturing shop in
your town that churns out hand planes. They employ entirely local labour,
so you feel happy buying from them. Of course, the people they pay can
only afford to shop at WalMart (since they're competing, wage wise, with
sweatshops in more undesireable countries). So these people end up
shelling out their paychecks to these other countries anyway. All you've
done is introduce one more level of middleman between you and the
undesireables.
Well, that's my lunchtime logic ramble for today! 
--
Clint
"evodawg" wrote in message
news
Bilf.5062$H84.2414@trnddc04...
After spending sometime shopping this weekend, (which I hate) I'm finding
out that nothing is made in the USA anymore. Most is made in China. With
all this money going overseas to china, is there a chance we could be
supporting the Chinease Military? Scary thought.
Also, spent some time checking out Rockler's Pre Christmas sale, I
noticed
most of what I was interested in was made in China. It also occurred to
me
that other woodworking retailers offer the same products but under their
name. Is most of this stuff manufactured in China and their name stamped
on
it? So you're really getting the samething only with different names?
Does Lee Valley or others as an example sell more made in the USA
products
than say Rockler? And does anyone know of a list, broken down by category
of made in the USA products? Example: Tools, Furniture, Building products
etc.
Just a little concerned about all this $$$$ going to China and our
politicians and retail manufactures promoting this idea. Is National
Security an issue? Not to mention all the jobs lost to this practice.
Rich
--
"you can lead them to LINUX
but you can't make them THINK"