Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

lighting we want installed by a local company. It will put more money
into the hands of our employees so they can live better and buy more US
made goods.

Except there *aren't* any US made goods to buy.

It's an ugly problem. I guess it doesn't really affect my business one way
or the other though. Seven years ago, I was slinging a lot of American
made stuff out the back of my truck. Waterbeds and case goods from out
west. Futons from Virginia and North Carolina. Nowadays I'm slinging a
lot of Chinese and Indoesian made stuff out the back of my truck. Futons
and case goods from China. Futons and case goods from Indoesia. Not much
waterbed stuff anymore.

My job has remained more or less unchanged, but it has sucked picking up so
many last loads from so many American companies that went under, watching
people I knew staring unemployment in the face. My company had to compete,
and it had to sell what would sell. If we hadn't picked up all this far
eastern stuff, then ten drivers and 40 warehouse/office people would all be
unemployed.

The hell of it is the imported stuff is *way* better than most of the
American stuff was. Good wood, good finish, good joinery, instead of stuff
that's stapled and screwed together to save time and money. I used to pick
up tons of returns every week. Broken slats, missing parts, staples that
missed the mark.

Now the other side of this is that the American stuff was made that way
because the wood was obscenely expensive, because we have strict controls
on logging and such, and because the employees were all earning a decent
living wage by American standards. To make something priced low enough to
have any hope of selling, they pretty much *had* to turn out a shoddy
product. The Asians have no such problems. Pay people 50 cents a day,
raze the forests like there's no tomorrow, pollute like crazy.

At the end of the day, what they're doing out there is just wrong. Nuke the
hell out of the environment, sell cheap, put everyone in the West out of
business. As long as there's a choice, people will always buy that $400
dresser though, and we don't care how many babies in Xinxao are born with
no brains because of all the toxic chemicals in the ground. (I made that
up. I was actually thinking of that place on the other side of the Rio
Grande, and I used some poetic license here. So sue me.)

The only way I see to stem the tide of imported goods is to resort to
protectionism. Everyone tells me protectionism is doomed to failure.

So **** on it. I guess it doesn't matter. No matter what people are
buying, as long as people are buying something, I'll have something to
sling out the back of my truck.

My wife will have something to sell at Wal-Mart too.

I guess we're OK. Too bad we have $40,000 of education between us though,
and nothing to do with it. There was nothing to do with it a decade ago,
and now it's completely pointless to even think about it.

I'm not going to send my kids to college.

I guess maybe I'll send them to India or China, so they can get jobs.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/