Americans: do you care if it was made in America?

@Thomas,

I'm not assuming that child labor in third world countries is capitalist exploration, that was a gift of the Left.

If you choose to deny that your own ideological foundation screamed bloody murder over six year olds in Laos stitching together Air Jordens then feel very good about your common sense approach to this issue. A kid in central America dies ten years earlier than Western life expectancy because rather than playing Little League, he had to hit the assembly line for 10 hours a day....however it was all good because he slaved for local economy and the bastard Western Corp.

I appreciate consistency.

Liberals (and possibly you) are anything but consistent in the arguments they make. This is because their positions are driven and formed by emotion rather than reason. Emotion is rarely if ever, consistent.

Buy American or don't. Who the hell cares?

Please don't tell me that you choose to buy products manufactured outside of America because you care about children.

Cyclo's concern about the economics of slave and child labor is ( on it's face) neither supercilious nor sanctimonious.

That it puts a burr under your Liberal saddle is not unexpected.

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I think the Buy American is ridiculous. I think Buy Canadian is ridiculous too. I buy a product when or if it suits my needs and I do buy in my neighbourhood, or do business with local businesses. I do try and buy local however, I like fresh vegetables all year. It's cheaper to buy and ship from California than to build massive greenhouses here to grow our own food.
If, say, I want a bike. A local might make a great bike but chances are my choices will be limited. There will be a waiting list/period before I get the bike and it'll probably be out of my price range. However, if I buy a bike from a local shop, that brings in a variety of manufacturer's products, I'm probably getting a bike that has been made by specialists, who design, build and ship many styles, colours, weights etc in varying price ranges. There is room for both bike companies but it doesn't make sense for every city, province/state to have their own big bike manufactures.
What makes sense is products that are made in a few places that can build for the masses. Do we need cheap American t-shirts? or would you rather compete with Saville Row? Bangladesh, for example, has the advantage on cheap cloth, workers, rent... But, they don't have the leg up innovation. Why compete with the bottom dollar? Spend the cash where it matters, on products that Americans have the upper hand. Montreal used to be the cloth centre of Canada. That industry died when they couldn't compete or keep up with changing times. New York was in the same boat, but the industry changed from sweat shops to glamour runways.
Trade and balance. I buy my electronics made in Asia, my shoes from Italy, cars from the States...
What bothers me is the Canadian model. Where by we ship all our raw materials out for cheap and buy them back as finished products. For example IKEA. We have pine forests that make Norway's look like a tiny grove and we buy their stuff at a premium, but can't spur on a homegrown competitor. I buy my American stamped, wood panelling from the US but it was grown here? huh? Most of the canuck meat is butchered and packaged in plants in the US. Oil from Alberta is now being sent to Texas to be processed and we pay a premium at the pumps and so on while these same products are cheap in comparison down south. There are tariffs put on our products and the Canadian consumer pays for them both ways.
What I don't believe in is giving the Multi-Nationals tax breaks while taxing the local, or small business out of business. In other words, IKEA shouldn't get a tax break at the expense of the local initiative.
So yes, I buy Canadian. I also believe some products are better made in other places and I monetarily support the businesses I feel are worthy. On that note, I don't shop at Walmart either, but that's a whole 'nuther matter.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

If you choose to deny that your own ideological foundation screamed bloody murder over six year olds in Laos stitching together Air Jordens then feel very good about your common sense approach to this issue.

Then I don't think you know very much about my ideological foundation, that foundation being Utilitarianism.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Buy American or don't. Who the hell cares?

Boomerang does, I suppose. Why else would she have started this thread?

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Please don't tell me that you choose to buy products manufactured outside of America because you care about children.

I wasn't the one who started talking about children. Somebody else did, and used their alleged exploitation as an argument for buying American. That being the case, why shouldn't I point out that those children are better off being "exploited" in American sweatshops than they would be following every other alternative they have?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

I truly appreciate your desire to use "begging the question" as it was originally intended but, after all , you didn't.

How many times must it be pointed out that the meaning of words or phrases are what they are now in English. They are not what some idiot has read in another idiot's style manual.

If we took the words that Finn has used in his sentence and we compared them to how they were used centuries ago, would they be the same? The only reason Finn can speak and write is because he has a knowledge of what these words mean today.

From Robert's source;

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Modern usage

Many English speakers erroneously assume "begs the question" means "raises the question" and use it accordingly: for example, "this year's deficit is half a trillion dollars, which begs the question: how are we ever going to balance the budget?" With rare exception, experts deem such usage incorrect.[11]

11. Follett (1966), 228; Kilpatrick (1997); Martin (2002), 71; Safire (1998).

"experts"!?; for dog's sake look at their experts. Two of them, William Safire and I expect the other is James Kilpatrick, were idiots when it came to grammar. Given that the other two must have supported this same fatuous notion, that begs the question, how could they be considered experts?

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`matrk

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@Robert Gentel,

Interesting article.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
If Guatamala pollutes the air and water of the Gulf of Mexico, that can very well affect us in a negative manner.

Fair enough. But first of all, this wouldn't apply to India and China (or at least apply to a much lesser degree.) Second, this kind of argument would have to work both ways. When the US cleared those BP oil rigs that ended up polluting the Gulf of Mexico, did it wait for Guatemala's approval?

Setanta wrote:
Additionally, the economic inequalities mean that many of the undocumented workers in the United States come from Guatamala, as well as other Latin American nations.

More jobs in Guatemala means fewer illegal Guatemalan immigrants in the US. So what you're presenting here is an argument for expanding trade with Guatemala, not for limiting it.

The US should have thought about the gulf of Mexico ....thats just a tu quoque.

It is clear that environmental degradation affects everyone on this boat including the country allowing pollution within its boundaries in order to gain economically

I won't buy a lot of Chinese, for instance, foodstuffs because of the likely level of toxins

And I don't think that'll be bad for the Chinese in the long term if they have to lift their game in relation to toxins and pollution

Robert persuaded me of the benefits of globalisation some years ago, but I think you need to be pretty careful when considering environmental issues....and because the US stinks at that in lots of ways isn't an argument for stinking

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Robert persuaded me of the benefits of globalisation some years ago, but I think you need to be pretty careful when considering environmental issues....and because the US stinks at that in lots of ways isn't an argument for stinking

But it deflates the notion that buying American for environmental reasons is a sound idea. In particular, it deflates the notion that buying American rather than Guatemalan for reasons of protecting the Gulf of Mexico is a sound idea, as I think Setanta suggested earlier. America sucks at protecting the Gulf of Mexico. The BP oil spill did not happen under Guatemala's watch.

There may be good reasons for buying American, but this is not one of them.

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@Thomas,

So you suggest that because as individuals we may not be able to force our government to behave in an environmentally responsible manner, we as individuals should not take any steps to avoid supporting economies which are also not environmentally responsible? I'd say that deflates the value of your arguments.

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@Thomas,

I wasn't arguing for buying American. ...just commenting in a general way about what I thought was your argument.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

So you suggest that because as individuals we may not be able to force our government to behave in an environmentally responsible manner, we as individuals should not take any steps to avoid supporting economies which are also not environmentally responsible?

No, that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting---well, two things, really:

Buying products from country A rather than country B for environmental reasons only makes sense if country A actually does a better job on the environment than country B does. In the case where country A is America, country B is Guatemala, and the environment in question is the Gulf of Mexico, I find that hard to see.
If we want to help make the world a better place with our purchasing decisions, we ought to respect other countries judgement of what would make their part of the world a better place. If they decide to tolerate more pollution of their nature in order to put more food on their tables, we should be reluctant to override them. Bangladesh, for example, has too many people to feed with its own food. Without textile exports to pay for food imports, the country would suffer mass starvation. That is something you need to consider before boycotting T-Shirts from Bangladesh.

Granted, this argument doesn't work for pollutants that enter our own country---Chinese CO2 emissions being an example. But we don't have standing to tell other countries how much local pollution to tolerate as a tradeoff for their local economic growth.

Setanta wrote:

I'd say that deflates the value of your arguments.

Yes you would.

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@Thomas,

First, you switch between the particular and the general at the convenience of your argument, which is the more reprehensible as i made that distinction in my post. That i cannot influence my government to act in a more environemntally responsible manner is not a reason to voting with my purse either for the products of environmentally responsible nations, or against nations which are not environmentally responsible.

This same problem applies to your second argument here. I cannot tell China squat. But i can, once again, vote with my purse. I certainly don't have to respect the decisions of other nations, especially when the nation might by a Marxist gerontocracy, or a Latin American kleptocracy. I doubt that any other matter enters into the national policies decisions of a nation such as Guatemala other than what might benefit the members of the ruling clique. Which is a poor basis upon which to place any reliance in their alleged environmental policies. I don't for a moment believe these decisions are ever predicated upon putting food on the nation's tables.

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@Setanta,

I have no problem with your voting with your purse. But if you do, you have a responsibility to assure, on a case-by-case basis, that you're actually voting for the country that's friendlier to the environment you wish to protect. Because America is no better than Guatemala at protecting the Gulf of Mexico, the particular example you chose fails that test. If you find it reprehensible that I point that out, that's a matter of the uttermost indifference to me.

Setanta wrote:

But i can, once again, vote with my purse. I certainly don't have to respect the decisions of other nations, especially when the nation might by a Marxist gerontocracy, or a Latin American kleptocracy.

How about India, Bangladesh, and Mexico, which are all democracies? If voters there decide that they'd rather have economic development than environmental protection, would you respect that?

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

[*] If we want to help make the world a better place with our purchasing decisions,

since there doesn't seem to be a basic agreement on what would make the world a better place, I think it'd be awfully difficult to get agreement on how purchasing decisions would be a factor.

some people think universal application of their political view would make the world a better place. others think universal application of their religious view would make the world a better place. then there are people pushing for economic programs, environmental practices, social standards ...

your personal choice is to let other countries do as they wish - and you'd like universal application of that preference as it would help make the world a better place.

I think you understand that you're about as likely to get buy-in on that as any of the other wishers and dreamers.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

since there doesn't seem to be a basic agreement on what would make the world a better place, I think it'd be awfully difficult to get agreement on how purchasing decisions would be a factor.

Agreed.

ehBeth wrote:

your personal choice is to let other countries do as they wish - and you'd like universal application of that preference as it would help make the world a better place.

Not really. It's more like a matter of evidence. If other countries make a decision for themselves that seems wrong to me on its face, that's evidence---though not proof!---that they're right and I'm wrong. After all, they have a stronger incentive to get the decision right than I do, and they have better information to make it than I do.

But I am not categorically committed to always respect their decisions. For example, if I had reliable evidence that a particular line of T-shirts is made by the slave labor of political prisoners in China, I would not buy it. But before I make a decision like that, I would have to be satisfied that my evidence about the welfare of the Chinese involved is good enough for me to override the Chinese government's decision.

ehBeth wrote:

I think you understand that you're about as likely to get buy-in on that as any of the other wishers and dreamers.

I'm not interested in buy-in. I'm interested in discussing why I make the decisions I make---which is the purpose of Boomerang's thread as I understand it.

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Interesting article.

It is interesting, isn't it? I'll just plonk in the the URL, perhaps more people will read it.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html

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@Thomas,

You continue to leap from the general to the particular. If i choose not to buy from Guatemala because of their environmental policies, that doesn't mean that i choose to buy American while ignoring their policies--you are attributing to me behavior you don't know that i enact, and you are equating my purchasing decisions to the policy decisions of the United States. What i find reprehensible is that you ignored my reference to a distinction between the particular and the general, and i futher find it reprehensible that you willfully misrepresent what i has said i found reprehensible.

Guatemala is, ostensibly, a democracy. I wouldn't have a problem with buying from India or Bangladesh, and with some reservations, i would purchase Mexican products (my Jeep was very likely assembled in Mexico, and many of the parts may have been manufactured there). In the particular case of Mexico, unwise decisions about their economic policies are not the same as irresponsible decisions. I'd say that a typical kleptocracy like Guatemala doesn't make unwise policy decisions, they don't make any policy decisions at all. For the right price, they can be convinced to adopt whatever policy the corrupter wishes them to adopt. Mexico's problem (and to a much lesser extent it is a problem for the United States and Canada, too) is having signed up for NAFTA. They then embarked on a series of economic initiatives most of which were torpedoed by unintended consequences. Finally, with regard to Mexico, corruption, particularly in the police, is a major problem which makes the lives of their people miserable. I heard an interview of a former Mexican Justice Minister who deplored American trainng for the Mexican police because, according to him, they are all corrupt, and he'd rather see them corrupt and inefficient than corrupt and highly efficient.

Each decision really needs to be made on a case by case basis, and that is the particular. Objecting that the policies of the United States are irresponsible is jumping to the general, and to generalities which i cannot affect. I can affect my purchasing decisions--i cannot affect the environmental policies of the United States.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

You continue to leap from the general to the particular. If i choose not to buy from Guatemala because of their environmental policies, that doesn't mean that i choose to buy American while ignoring their policies

You're right. I assumed that buying American is the implied baseline, given that the title of this thread is: "Americans: Do you care if it was made in America?" My bad if that's not, indeed, the baseline.

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@Thomas,

There are further complications which you ignore, also. The United States has strong environmental protection laws, and strong labor safety laws. If a particular corporation chooses to flout those laws, it doesn't make the government irresponsible--at most, it makes them inept, or lays them open to a charge of having failed to enforce the laws. Furthermore (and this is more of a problem for Mexico than either the United States or Canada), NAFTA has built into it a pernicious provision which refers all claims against corporations investing under the NAFTA embrella to a panel of members appointed from among executive branch employees and corporate designees, from whose decisions there is no appeal. So, for example, a Mexican municipality brought suit against an American corporation for polluting their town's water supply, and the appointed NAFTA panel dismissed the complaint. Neither the American government nor the Mexican government could interfer because of provisions of the NAFTA treaty.

I don't for a moment believe that the corporate military of Guatemala have any interest in maintaining responsible environmental or labor safety laws.

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@Thomas,

If i recall correctly, my only objection to foreign made products was that it is difficult for me to find reliable sizing in foreign made garments and shoes.

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Americans: do you care if it was made in America?

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