Made in the USA

I heard that if millions of Americans would buy American, the national debt would be significantly lessened. That's why I like what Trump says, but I also hear that he's screwed a lot of people. Pretty much unelectable.
I fell into the trap myself, and I'm still ashamed; I bought a Taiwanese alternator for my Ranger. It makes a humming sound. It was the cheapest one I could find on Ebay. Rockauto had a Motorcraft that I could have got; my cheapness beat my patriotism easily. Just what they want, whoever they is. I did the same thing with the starter when it went. It just needed brushes. When I got the brushes, I was careless and one of the springs twanged off into my shop, lost. I got mad as Smitty and smashed the starter. A couple weeks later I found the spring That was after I did the same thing, found the cheapest starter I could. I had to search the box to find the tiny Made in China label. I could have gone to the junkyard and got American. I'll get another chance to buy American when these flimsy parts fail prematurely.

My Monticello was made in NYS in 1980, I wonder if it has American steel.

The problem with a rigid "Buy American" stance is the "protectionism" that everyone accuses guys like Ron Paul of.

If you buy my product for $100, and I pay you $100 to mow my lawn, money moves around, and there is an "economy" of sorts, but it's stagnant and eventually dies.

We need REAL "free trade" in order to get wealthy. And we don't have anything near that.

jpete wrote:The problem with a rigid "Buy American" stance is the "protectionism" that everyone accuses guys like Ron Paul of.

True. I felt bad about replacing my USA-made air filter with a Mexican-made. But then, the air filter was going into my Honda, and I don't feel bad about the Honda because if it was not for foreign competition, US-made cars would still be as junky as ever.

jpete wrote:The problem with a rigid "Buy American" stance is the "protectionism" that everyone accuses guys like Ron Paul of.

If you buy my product for $100, and I pay you $100 to mow my lawn, money moves around, and there is an "economy" of sorts, but it's stagnant and eventually dies.

We need REAL "free trade" in order to get wealthy. And we don't have anything near that.

Can you give a better example of this ???

EarthWindandFire wrote:I went as far as taking the Port Jefferson ferry with my truck and crossing Long Island Sound to purchase an American made washing machine.

The machine is made by Staber, but honestly I have not been very happy with it. Great design, great potential, but not as good as it could be. My next washing machine will be a German made Miele.

I try to go out of my way to buy USA made products, but sometimes it's necessary to purchase imported things. We were shopping for a new dishwasher this year and after looking over several brands bought a Miele. The dishwasher is FANTASTIC!

Stossel on buy American.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/11/03/t ... y-american

theo wrote:

jpete wrote:The problem with a rigid "Buy American" stance is the "protectionism" that everyone accuses guys like Ron Paul of.

If you buy my product for $100, and I pay you $100 to mow my lawn, money moves around, and there is an "economy" of sorts, but it's stagnant and eventually dies.

We need REAL "free trade" in order to get wealthy. And we don't have anything near that.

Can you give a better example of this ???

You can't have a thriving economy in a closed system. Money changes hands but that's about it. You need fresh money coming in to build the economy.

If we all simply bought American, the economy would eventually fail. Probably because one guy at the top had collected all the money like a JP Morgan or a Vanderbilt.

People get bent out of shape when I say that services don't create wealth. Only "things" create wealth. Yeah, I could become "wealthy" by fixing air conditioners(I hope so anyway), but I don't ADD anything to the economy. I'd only be taking money out of the system and recycling it back in.

Only people that MAKE something that didn't exist before they touched it "create" wealth. And if the only people that buy a product live here, where does the money come from? It gets sucked out of the rest of the economy. Unless I can sell to OTHER markets and bring fresh money in, it's just a downward spiral.

Just look at the trade imbalance between us and China. They make stuff and sell stuff and we buy stuff but don't make stuff. Who's doing better?

jpete wrote:You can't have a thriving economy in a closed system ...

Hmmmm. The fallacy in that argument is, even if we had total free trade across the entire world, the world economy is itself a closed system, and therefore could not thrive. I certainly agree that economically bigger CAN be better, but not that it NECESSARILY WILL be better. How big is big enough?

EDITED: for inappropriate retaliatory nastiness.

I have to agree with jpete. There is a distinct difference between having (or even fabricating) money and creating wealth. If I buy some lumber for $20 and apply labor and creativity to it and create a chair that ultimately sells for $200, then in so doing new wealth that has never before existed has been created. Applying labor to add value (I.E., to transform something of lesser value into something of greater value) is the only means whereby wealth that has never before existed is created.

lsayre wrote:I have to agree with jpete. There is a distinct difference between having (or even fabricating) money and creating wealth. If I buy some lumber for $20 and apply labor and creativity to it and create a chair that ultimately sells for $200, then in so doing new wealth that has never before existed has been created. Applying labor to add value (I.E., to transform something of lesser value into something of greater value) is the only means whereby wealth that has never before existed is created.

One entities finished product is another ones raw material.

Black_And_Blue wrote:

lsayre wrote:I have to agree with jpete. There is a distinct difference between having (or even fabricating) money and creating wealth. If I buy some lumber for $20 and apply labor and creativity to it and create a chair that ultimately sells for $200, then in so doing new wealth that has never before existed has been created. Applying labor to add value (I.E., to transform something of lesser value into something of greater value) is the only means whereby wealth that has never before existed is created.

One entities finished product is another ones raw material.

Quite true in many cases, and new value (wealth) is added with each transformation through applied labor of raw materials into more valuable goods and/or raw materials.

rberq wrote:

jpete wrote:You can't have a thriving economy in a closed system ...

Hmmmm. The fallacy in that argument is, even if we had total free trade across the entire world, the world economy is itself a closed system, and therefore could not thrive. I certainly agree that economically bigger CAN be better, but not that it NECESSARILY WILL be better. How big is big enough?

In that case, it proves my point that eventually, one entity ends up with all the marbles and right now, that's China.

Our challenge is to figure out how to get the biggest piece of that pie.

jpete wrote:

theo wrote:

jpete wrote:The problem with a rigid "Buy American" stance is the "protectionism" that everyone accuses guys like Ron Paul of.

If you buy my product for $100, and I pay you $100 to mow my lawn, money moves around, and there is an "economy" of sorts, but it's stagnant and eventually dies.

We need REAL "free trade" in order to get wealthy. And we don't have anything near that.

Can you give a better example of this ???

You can't have a thriving economy in a closed system. Money changes hands but that's about it. You need fresh money coming in to build the economy.

If we all simply bought American, the economy would eventually fail. Probably because one guy at the top had collected all the money like a JP Morgan or a Vanderbilt.

People get bent out of shape when I say that services don't create wealth. Only "things" create wealth. Yeah, I could become "wealthy" by fixing air conditioners(I hope so anyway), but I don't ADD anything to the economy. I'd only be taking money out of the system and recycling it back in.

Only people that MAKE something that didn't exist before they touched it "create" wealth. And if the only people that buy a product live here, where does the money come from? It gets sucked out of the rest of the economy. Unless I can sell to OTHER markets and bring fresh money in, it's just a downward spiral.

Just look at the trade imbalance between us and China. They make stuff and sell stuff and we buy stuff but don't make stuff. Who's doing better?

Thank You jpete,, i unterstand what you are saying but wouldnt it be best to take one step at a time? Everyone try to buy American as much as possible to get more people back to work,, We have to get job's back here and get people working first , then you can attack the other issue's one by one. This did not happen overnight and you cant fix it overnight, We have to take this in steps, i think the first step is to try and get the jobs back in the USA,,,, then go from there!!