So are you all going to give up your coffee and tea, except that which is grown in the USA?
(Do we even grow any coffee or tea here?)
And if you buy USA grown products, do they have to be picked by Americans?
And what counts as an American company? Chrysler was bought by Daimler, the German auto company that also makes Mercedes-Benz. Recently I think it was sold to a USA based private equity group. Meanwhile, Japanese and German auto companies have built/are building mfg plants in USA. Toyota recently put in a plant nearby in San Antonio. But that's final assembly, I don't know where the parts come from. I believe Boeing uses some parts made in Japan and in China.
So, do we count where the headquarters of the company is? Where the workers are? Where the shareholders are? Where the parts come from?
When the Japanese automakers were first gaining market share and hurting Detroit, the US automakers lobbied congress for 'voluntary' import restrictions so they could be price competative with the Japanese. But as soon as that happened, the cost of the Japanese imports went up, and then Detroit immediately raised their prices, instead of keeping them the same to be 'competative.'
Detroit also blamed losing share to the Japanese on everything except lack of quality. They blamed it on the Japanese having lower interest rates, how the Japanese companies had better labor relations, and how the Japanese workers all got together and did calesthentics and sang the company song.
Deming was a statistical quality control consultant who was for a very long time ignored by US companies, including auto companies. The Japanese listened to him, and implemented his ideas. They created a very high quality product at a good price.
While US auto executives were continually carping on the 'unfair advantage' that the Japanese had in cars, and how it would never work here, and how they needed even more protection from the gov't... A Japanese company bought an auto mfg plant in Fremont CA from a USA auto company, that was one of the worst performing US auto plants. The Japanese company kept the existing workers, brought in Japanese management, and within 2-3 years, had turned it into one of the top performing plants for that Japanese company. (Read the book "The Machine that Changed the World" if you want a very good view of how the auto industry changed, and how the US, European, and Japanese companies responded.)
Seems to me that the problem in this case was USA executives. Should I have still bought their cars? Should I have stopped when plant got sold to a Japanese company?
Today, we have Chrysler recently being sold by the German Daimler to a private equity group. My guess is that they will use bankruptcy, or the threat of it, to wriggle out of all their post-retirement health care and pension benefits to their workers. Should I still buy their products, as long as the private equity group has a NY city office? Even though they run the ownership thru the Cayman Islands to legally avoid taxes?
Unfortunately, 'buy American made' has been used in the past to protect incompetent management, or avoid change, or as a marketing slogan (eg, Walmart of a decade ago) instead of an actual business practice. And as a practical matter, it's a lot harder to determine what it really means to be "American Made" for anything but the simplest of products.
I agree we're facing really hard times. Unfortunately, we've gotten into this mess because of decades of neglect, and short-term thinking, and greedy financial manipulation, and political sloganeering and soundbite analysis.
I'd love to believe that all our enemies are "over there" somewhere. Unfortunately, I believe quite a few of our problems are home grown. Plenty of good ol' USA companies in the mortgage brokering, subprime investment, real-estate agent, appraisal business. Guess I can trust them to tell me the truth and have my best interests at heart when they advise refinancing, or buying a house. And good ol' Enron, and WorldCom. Thank goodness these are patriotic American companies, so we can sleep at night without worry! :flame:
--sgl
