I thought I would share a few thoughts of mine about buying products made in America. I always try to support small businesses, local business and I try to buy the products made in America when I can afford it.

Buying products locally is a good practice in my book, I realize people go through periods when your bank account is in better condition than other periods. I manage a small business and I use to own one for 5 years before the phone quit ringing and I had to shut down. So I feel good knowing that when I can afford to buy local or buy American i do.

I just thought I would share these sites with you and there are more out there

MadeintheUSA.org
buyAmerican.com
howtobuyAmerican.com

The little things make a difference

 

I have owned many "made in America" things such as 13 GM cars the most recent being a signed and numbered 2000 Camaro SS and 2000 GTP. So I gave the whole "buy American" thing a good go but every car has been a royal piece of junk. The SS came from SLP's conversion factory and I later met Settlemeyer and got to ride around a track with him for a good bit. He touted the SS as his project and being a well known engineer his name carries some clout within GM so I know the defects were beyond his control, no doubt a product of the bean counters. Anyway, the point is that I am done with buying American, outside of a few guns and even then it's sketchy. I have a new Volvo, and BMW in addition to my Nissan and all three of them have had far less problems put together than the SS by itself... I'm happy with my 6.0 but I had a 6.7 for a few months and it spent more time in the shop than it did in my garage. I started pushing for lemon status and would have gotten it but traded it for the BMW instead because at that point I didn't want another 6.7. Maybe I just had a bad run of luck but 13 GM cars packed with problem along with everything else really points to as trend.

Thoughts?

 

My parents (both of whom I haven't been on speaking terms with for the last five years and counting, but that's a whole 'nother story ....) are both DIE HARD, "Honda and Toyota is the BEST and American is the WORST" kind of folk out there. My FIRST vehicle was a Nissan 200SX. Since then, I have owned NOTHING BUT Fords. 'Nuff said.

 

I'm with yah. Love my Ford F250 American muscle as well as my 04 Jeep Liberty and 05 VW TDI. Thinking of trading up to a CRD. As for the folks, bight the bullet and patch things up. I'd give anything to spend another day with my parents who both passed 10yrs ago.

 

To each their own I was nit talking so much vehicles as things in general. Point is when you buy American be it a tool or a car you are helping a family somewhere a little more than you would buying overseas. I was not trying to compare products. I have owned fords my whole life and I have had good luck.

 

Okay, I have bought/owned Ford vehicles and Snap-On tools. I can't think of anything else American off the top of my head. American women? Well, I guess THEY can't be bought, or can they?

 

It's getting pretty hard to buy something these days that's actually made in America.
When you read the fine print, it's from either China or some other foreign country.

 

You'd be surprised what money can do!!!

 

I'm with you Duke, if you don't spend the money here...pretty soon there won't be any money here to spend. The disposable stuff (heat shrench tubing, zip ties, fusees) it's near in possible to find stuff that isn't China crap. With that said, you'll never find Harbor Freight tools in my toolbox/truck.At one time in the not too distant past Craftsmen tools were made in the USA and everything except their power tools & torque wrenchs had a lifetime warrenty. Everytime I go into Sears, they've changed what is & isn't lifetime and what's carried by Sears (Craftsman speaking) and what's carried by other stores. Tape measures are a good case in point...

 

I took one of my dads OLD vices into sears he got it from my grandpa it was soooo old. This was after they changed their warranty to extend to only hand tools. The vice was so old and you could still make out craftsman on it that they honored the lifetime warranty on it and gave me a bran new vice. I thought that was pretty cool.

as far as it being hard to find things made in America I understand that but if you look around at all the thousands of businesses they are producing or supplying some kind of product of service. But there sure is allot of stuff imported I get that.

 

The Only thing Money wont Buy is POVERTY



I agree Zack

If you think about it this is Part of the Cause for the Ressesion in the economy. And things would recover faster if the Money was Kept here in the USA. I had heard awhile back that toyota was going to open some plants here dont know if there was any truth to that or not.

Im a Carpenter by trade and must have went thru 25-35 of those sears craftman tape measures that was the best deal going there for awile

But I have to admit that I have Boycot Sears since I took a car ther one time and all they really did was Change parts and put it back together wrong. I had to take it to another shop to get it put back together right. But I probably shouldnt Boycott Sears cuz of a Mechanic that didnt know what they was doing. After all I did recover most of my money after I gave them the other shops Bill and they changed the exact same parts but installed them right.

 

Toyota already has 6 assembly plants in the US.

 

Thanks for the websites Duke. I have always been into buying American.

Even my little girls (10 and 13) look at packaging and tags on everything before buying, in the event they can find an equivalent item with 'Made in USA' on it. A lot of items can be found that are manufactured here, keeping American workers employed.

 

HAHAHA Socal That is great reps to you tell your girls two thumbs up.

 

You've gotta realize that may things that are made in the USA are made from raw products produced elsewhere as well as the opposite, i.e. many things made in other countries (China/etc..) are made from U.S. sourced raw products and many times these products make several trips over various oceans gaining bits and pieces until their finally done. Like it or not, we're in a global economy now and it's nearly impossible to buy U.S. and have it actually be 100% U.S. An economics professor I had summed it up nicely for me once; it's not that the U.S. is getting weaker, it's that the rest of the world is getting stronger. We still have (by far) the highest GDP and if that is to change it wont be because we didn't buy American, it'll be because of political forces outside of Joe Blow's control.


Here's an example from one of the "buy U.S." sites posted above to show how stupid this is: http://buyamerican.com/single_box.php?id=838

Chocolate turtles made with chocolate from...? 'cus guess what... We don't grow Coco trees here in the U.S....

Here's a fishing reel from the same site: http://buyamerican.com/single_box.php?id=794

Most Al we use in manufacturing here in the states comes from.... China! and most of the steal we use for manufacturing here in the U.S. comes from China after we send them scrap that they process and ship back to us as raw stock.