@ms.rodriguez* wrote:
The problem is that labor is expensive here. Everyone wants inexpensive items. You can't get that if American made unfortunately. Anyway, these counterfeit stamps are all over Facebook too. I read an ad the other day and the next morning I had 3 more ads for the same fake stamps but from different companies. It's obvious if the stamps are way below price, they are fake. Both Ebay and Facebook do a very poor job monitoring this.
Spot on, it's lifestyle comes down to it. America more so than any nation is the shopping cart of the world and has been. When the lions of share of products bought by Americans were made in America the land used its $$$ influences all over the world whilst the USSR used its might and protective nature to divvy up the globe for the most part.
Cheap textiles for example used to be the business of Mexico towards US import after we decided making low end clothing couldn't run good profit given wages, insurance etc... Lifestyle. Along the paths we went from a production/manufacturing economy to that service and tech. We'll hear legislators yell and howl about unfair Chinese competition, incidentally same thing happened with Japan and cars, consumer electronics however Japan nor S. Korea for that matter are near as populate as China and both were somewhat still under the umbrella of America's post WW II & Korean War impacts.
Most American's don't understand China's history nor for that matter care acknowledge that a huge swath of Western USA was essentially robbed from Mexico under completely manufactured pretense. In the case of China more Chinese lost their lives in WW II than any other nation on the planet and that's what set them into a "Never Again" mode. Its estimated over 18 million Chinese Civilians were murdered in WW II, in comparison the Holocaust its estimated 6-10 million last I knew and those from all over Western/Eastern Europe not only Germany local.
Back to today yes, counterfeiting is a big problem perhaps less so than information technology theft but both are significant. A problem is Government here in the USA insists China compete on US Terms and you hear it spun. "Americans can compete with any countries workers in the world given a fair and level playing field..." That's 100% true but they don't complete the statement, "as long as we dictate that playing field."
I've heard Commander Biden now say on four occasions, "Buy American..." I've not heard that from any President since I was a teenager in the 70's. They just don't say it nor will American's heed the call because its all about maintaining or growing lifestyle.
Imagine government saying, "Look folks, 20% of everything you make is going away so as we can rebuild America's ability to compete in this new world." Political suicide and never fly. The reality is all the way back in the 1980's many a notable think tank stated the lifestyle is not sustainable in a world increasingly becoming competitive.
China has significant debt too, like 18 trillion across a population four times that of ours. US national debt is $32 Trillion, across four times less population. From the 80's forward under "Trickle Down Economics" which ***IS*** trickle down WEALTH and LIFESTYLE make no mistake we've built more Millionaires than any nation in the world who've ****FED**** off incestuous addiction of lifestyles. I've said this before, we've 750 billionaires who are the constant brunt of "they are bad people!" and they command 5.7 Trillion dollars. We've 22 MILLION millionaires who command 158 Trillion dollars. Anybody care LISTEN about WHICH is the POLITICAL FORCE its those 22 million by sheer number and influence, we've 321 million people in the USA, look at the percentile. Its WHY one side of our spectrum deemed "The country club" as THAT IS WHAT IT IS and the LAST thing they want is measure taken of it and the "Serfs" deciding "Well that's enough of that!"
Even under NOMINAL circumstances of Chinese labor and civil rights advancement the USA would STILL have huge problems competing against that nation. They emerged late into the global ecosphere of open trade and competition but in engineering that they looked hard and long at what works and doesnt. They centralized manufacturing & support area's whereby we never did. We freight things all over to make product, they do not as just one example.
Now back in the 1980's these think takes stated if Americans simply spent 15% of disposable income on American made products our economy boom. But American didn't and dont, they seek the most for their money so as they may obtain more, that's the recent 60 year history.
Who knows if there is a way out or whether America goes into the history as one of the shortest lived nations in global history.
