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Not Made in America
"Here, look at this handsome L.L. Bean catalog and tell me what you want for Christmas," said a relative over Thanksgiving weekend. I started leafing through the 88 page cornucopia with hundreds of clothing and household products, garnished by free gift cards and guaranteed free shipping. I wasn't perusing it for any suggested gifts; instead, I was going through every offering to see whether they were made in the U.S.A. or in other countries.
This is what I found: over 97 percent of all the items pictured and priced were noted "imported" by L.L. Bean. The only ones manufactured in the U.S. were fireplace gloves, an L.L. Bean jean belt, a dress chino belt, quilted faux-shearling-lined L.L. Bean boots (made in Maine), a personalized web collar and leash (for your pet), and symbolically enough, the "made in Maine using American-made cotton canvas are the Original Boat and Tote Bags" to carry all those goodies coming in from China and elsewhere.
That was it for the products that were "Made in America." The former fountainhead of global manufacturing has been largely deflated by the flight of U.S. companies to fascist or communist regimes noted for holding down their repressed workers.
But there is much more to this story and the plight of millions of American workers and hundreds of their hollowed out communities that are the visible results of corporate free trade propaganda.
How many times have the politicians and their corporate paymasters told us that "free trade" with other nations is a "win-win" proposition? They win and we win. After all, isn't that what happened two hundred years ago when Portugal sold its wine to England in return for British textiles? Economists have won many prizes elaborating this theory of comparative advantage.
That is what Nobel laureate super-economist Paul Samuelson believed in the many years he wrote and updated his standard "Economics 101" textbook studied by millions of college students for nearly 50 years. For many of his colleagues, the theory of "free trade" had become an ideology bordering on a secular religion. Don't bother them with the facts.
Some of their students became reporters, such as Thomas Friedman of "The New York Times," taking this prejudgment of reality into their uncritical coverage of the very flawed NAFTA and World Trade Organization agreements under President Clinton in the 1990s.
But Samuelson increasingly became an empiricist, along with his academic contributions in mathematical economics. Before one of his book revisions in the '70s, he wrote me asking for whatever materials I thought would be useful regarding consumer protection and consumer fraud. He presaged the relatively new field of behavioral economics and their obvious findings that consumers do not always maximize their best interests, and can act "irrationally" in a fast-paced marketplace of clever or unscrupulous sellers.
Gradually, Professor Sameulson saw trade between nations move from "comparative advantage" to more and more "absolute advantage." That is, companies were using the swift mobility of capital, modern factory machinery and transport to locate all elements of production - labor, capital, raw materials, and advanced know-how in one place - now most notably in China.
Absolute advantages have been aided by the corporate-managed trade agreements of WTO and NAFTA. These treaties are also conveniently violated to facilitate large subsidies that are not supposed to be used to lure companies to move. This trade in giveaways has China winning over the U.S., most recently in pulling American solar factories to China.
If corporate "free trade" is a win-win proposition, adhered to by one president after another, including Barack Obama, how come our country has piled up bigger trade deficits every year since 1976? Big is really big. Over the past decade our country has bought from abroad more than it has sold an average of well over half a trillion dollars each year.
In 1980 the U.S. was the world leading creditor - they owed us - while now, the U.S. is by far the world's leading debtor - we owe them!
At what point do the "free traders" cry "uncle" and rethink their commercial catechism? So long as multinational corporations control our politicians, it will not happen. For these companies are looking for the most worker-controlled, environmentally-pollutable and bribable countries to locate their manufacturing bases. Global companies are just that, bereft of any allegiance or grateful patriotism to their country of birth, profit and bailout salvation.
Here are three questions you may wish to ask any self-styled "free traders":
What amount of evidence do you require to get rid of your dogma and, as a minimum, start thinking like Paul Samuelson?
How much of the savings from lower costs abroad are going for large profits and not being passed on to the consumer who also has to endure the reported hazards of unregulated imports?
And, at what point do you look at L.L. Bean-type catalogs and ask whether you are getting a price break that is worth the debilitating dependency on other nations that use exploitation, repression, violations and outright counterfeiting as unfair methods of competition against our stateside companies and workers?
131 Comments so far
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WRITE IN NADER
I'm "in" for Nader...and have been for many, many years!
Taking this just one step further is its identity marketing -Martha Stewart, Opra, etc... combine calendar (one of the most essential aspects of individual/societal interface), making one's life "easier"; codifying on a changing basis the ornamentation appropriate for being accepted (no non-material ornamentation such as wisdom need be applied).
"Gifts" - what a concept. At the very foundation, where the rubber meets the road, jump street, - is a gift economy - the economy of reciprocity, which is the nature of nature, tao, mother, father, child, family community - before the market gets to it. Yet it seems we do not think of this until it is our turn in the thumb screws.
From the tao te ching:
Don't exalt the worthy;
People will then not compete.
Don't prize rare goods;
People then will not steal.
Don't show what is covetable;
The people's hearts won't be upset.
Thus when sagacity guides
The heart is emptied
The belly filled
Ambition weakened
And bones strengthened...
Maybe Hong Kong should write "Rub this pipe and a Genie will grant you three wishes." Apparently you will believe anything.
This is the perfect time to bring up the issues of free trade and imported goods when so many people will be holiday shopping. If you must 'gift' others this year, why not make it something homemade or let it be a dual gift of a locally-made item where your purchase benefits both the recipient and the maker?
(Those who, perhaps tongue-in-cheek?, prefer attractive female purveyors of information clearly are not seeking information but personal titillation which is widely available already since tv and film seldom show large, older, or 'ugly' women who might -gasp- be wearing ordinary clothes, comfortable shoes, and little or no make-up. Superficiality and sexism are not that humorous, really.)
A good friend of mine works for a company that moved its manufacturing from the U.S. to China about 5 years ago, and they kept only about 5 people and he was one of the lucky ones. They fly him back and forth to Hong Kong periodically, so the last time he went to Hong Kong, I asked him to bring me back from China, something made in the U.S.A., even if it is a pencil.... and you guessed it: he said he could find nothing!
I'm sure he'd be able to find things made in Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Switzerland in China at the high-end stores that have been opening in the major cities there, though (btw, there's an interesting twist to some "made in Italy" labels, involving Chinese sweatshops in Italy: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/15/137107361/fast-fashion-italians-wary-of-chinese-on-their-turf). "Made in the U.S.A." is no longer synonymous with "quality," like it used to be. I'm not saying that we manufacture things of lesser quality Stateside (although our car industry isn't making cars they way they used to), but we don't market our goods as being of better quality, anymore. Marketing that targets the middle class, Stateside, is primarily not about selling goods of a certain quality, but about selling cheap goods, in part because cheaper goods break more often/faster and thus necessitate replacement more often - corporations can continue to sell the same item over and over again. There is no emphasis on low-maintenance that comes with better quality goods. There is no emphasis on building goods that last, and thus on goods that reduce unnecessary waste. This is where some European and Japanese companies have the edge - they take pride in manufacturing goods of a certain quality and emphasize it in their advertising.
Says it all doesn't it?
Should have had him look for tear gas, maybe?
Tear gas or bullets. I hear our bullet factories are doing well.
I am guessing he brought back a few dollars of his pay. Wouldn't that constitute something made in the USA? It may have been generated by goods made in China. But it remains true that dollar is soley US issue.
Yeah, I'm a little frustrated with the lack of goods available that are made in the U.S. How can we sustain the constant flow of money out of the country? It's impossible.
Thanks for the historical perspective, too, Ralph. Very eye-opening. I always thought my Econ professor was full of it, which was why I dropped his class. I remember that the first class assignment was to write a paper discussing supply and demand, and he didn't like my essay on manufactured demand (via heavy and insidious advertising methods) and supply "shortages" in the diamond industry (great article on the topic here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/4575/ ). I think he thought I was trying to be a "smart" with him, but I was being serious. Didn't wait for him to fail me for the class (I had excellent grades in my other classes - which were mostly upper-level science and math courses and some music and writing-intensive humanities classes - and I worked hard on that paper, so the awful grade he gave me on it was entirely due to his bias). That was the ONLY class I dropped in college.
You are right WonderWoman, the demand for diamonds is manufactured, some most any professor of economics should have at least heard about in casual converstion over the last 20 years.
Yeah - it's strange he didn't want to hear it. In fact, one could say that the entire fashion "industry" relies upon manufactured "demand." A new "trend" comes along, people are peer-pressured and brainwashed into desiring and purchasing absurd amounts of things, and then a new "trend" hits the scene, making what was just purchased outdated or "uncool." Same thing with most electronic gizmos (including video games) - people get peer-pressured into buying things (that are often cheaply produced overseas), only to find that v2.0 is coming out next month. It's throw-away culture on crack, pumped up by endless advertising. We have many a landfill testifying to this craziness.
As an aside, I used to make jewelry, as a hobby, and just by talking to folks, I learned just how much jewelry is made in sweatshops these days. The mark-up is exorbitant for "high end" jewelry, too, if you know the cost of materials. If the item is unique, then perhaps the mark-up is worth it, since it's essentially an art object. If it's not unique and it's mass-produced, no matter how "nice" the label, the mark-up is definitely not worth it. This goes for the rest of the fashion "industry," today, too: almost all of it is a scam meant to fleece the "consumer" out of their money.
Yeah, have to agree with you, too. That's why I like Nader so much. He's authentic and not "trendy." : )
If you're interested in how that practice began, read a bit of this book written more than a hundred years ago: http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/simons/
Here's a taste: "Principles are a distinct handicap to a political party . . . Hence they are avoided as much as possible. Personalities are emphasized. Trickery, cabals, bribery, and intrigue are used . . . to determine nominations. After the nominations are made, the majority are to be swayed by phrases, shibboleths, 'blessed words," appeals to party solidarity, and principally by infusing the multitude with a sort of hypnotic enthusiasm and the mob spirit."
Simons is talking about the beginning of political machines whose purpose did "not try to teach the voters. The more ignorant they were, the easier to manage."
This book reminds us that our problems are entrenched, deep-rooted, not something that began with Raegan.
WONDER: Well-stated. I tend to keep all my clothing as it recycles every 2nd or 3rd decade.. the skirts will go up and down, the boots that were considered passe, return to style, and so forth. When you compare the waste-based consumer society with the COSTS to Mother Earth, then this unnecessary embarrassment of riches and the price it extracts from necessary ecosystems is seen for the HORROR that it is.
If a person takes care of their body and holds themself with dignity, whatever they're wearing IS in style. Others may wish to emulate them, and they can start trends that Madison Avenue hasn't even considered.
When you think about the "fashion" of wearing ripped up jeans, or the way young men have their pants under their butt... I mean here we see the power of advertising deftly making use of human insecurity (along with the urge on the part of too many to conform) to yield a ridiculous NET result. And no discussions of the power of advertising is complete without mentioning the work of Edward Bernays and the You Tube series: Century of the Self. As some in the forum have noted, it's now used to market candidates as brand names. Note the greater the expense in terms of media exposure the emptier the candidate... our times represent "the triumph of packaging over substance."
Thanks, SR! Yes, I totally agree with you. I need to see that documentary on Edward Bernays! BTW, on an impulse I just searched the phrase "throw away culture," and found this interesting read: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1360444
It's funny - most of my handbags are from the 50's and early 60's (they're older than me) that I bought from vintage stores a while ago. More than a few of them are made in the U.S.A. and you'd be amazed at how well they've held up! NOTHING made today is made that well. Everything today is designed to fall apart, yet also made out of non-biodegradable materials. And, yes, real beauty is in the way that a person carries herself/himself and how she/he chooses to live her/his life.
You bring up an excellent point on how production used to mean putting quality over quantity. Earlier, I had mentioned in my response to this article about the fact that creativity has been rendered nearly dead for decades. Seeing how killing creativity led to "free" trade policies, I can see how it also had an impact on production such that emphasis would be put on quantity over quality.
"When you think about the "fashion" of wearing ripped up jeans..."
SR makes great points. When I think of distressed denim, I think of the horrors of silicosis:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15017790
But you can argue that many many industries relie on "manufactured" demand, not just electronic gizmos or fashion. And the thing with gizmos is that due to technological advancement a new product will be technologically more advanced than what came out say 2 years ago. Of course, you can argue that most people do not need those technological advancements. Anything that goes beyond providing people with basic nutirional, clothing, and accomodation requirements, anything that goes beyond basic survival, does in some sense rely on "manufactured" demand, even what food we might like or not like.
Out of curiousity what was the economics class you took? IE, micro / macro? Or some more specialised class, focusing on a particular aspect of economics?
All I can remember is that it was an intro class, Econ 101. I only took it because it was one of the required courses for my college curriculum. Luckily, I was able to find another class within the week that I decided to drop it and which fulfilled the same requirement. The other course was Anthro 101, and the great thing about THAT class was that the professor allowed criticism - she was incredibly open-minded. The Econ 101 class was full of Political Science and Economics majors and tended toward a more conservative discussion, if I remember correctly. I also remember being really disappointed, because I was looking forward to a more critical perspective in that class. I suppose the professor really "makes" the class.
Yes, I agree that many industries rely upon "manufactured demand." I was just citing those as examples. Interestingly, in the electronic industries, products are usually already outdated by the time they make it to market, but the industry continues to make and sell those outdated products anyway. There's some calculation made by manufacturers about when to release some products, how to time releases to maximize profit without turning off "consumers." Also, reading that article I mentioned yesterday, it has become apparent that a lot of goods are produced with only minor/superficial changes in subsequent versions. In other words, *qualitative* changes in technology are not as frequent as we think they are. Crazy stuff.
"All I can remember is that it was an intro class, Econ 101. I only took it because it was one of the required courses for my college curriculum. Luckily, I was able to find another class within the week that I decided to drop it and which fulfilled the same requirement. T"
That might be one reason your prof was not very receptive to your essay (of course, he probably was also a lazy asshole). The only value to intro (100 level) econ classes is that they provide you the basics to go onto intermediate classes (whose only value is that they provide you with the next level of basics to go onto 400 level classes). Econ classes only pretty much become worthwhile, beginning at 400 level 400/500 level type classes: that address real world issues, such as the manufactured demand, you bring up here, or issues such as monopolies, international trade, labour, non-free markets (which is terribly important since the economic ideal of the free market with perfectly rational actors, which is taught in intro level 100 classes, pretty much never ever exists in reality)
"Yes, I agree that many industries rely upon "manufactured demand." I was just citing those as examples. Interestingly, in the electronic industries, products are usually already outdated by the time they make it to market, but the industry continues to make and sell those outdated products anyway."
But "outdated" is a relative term. Most people do not need, nor even want to pay for, nor can they afford to pay for, the technological products at the bleeding edge.
"There's some calculation made by manufacturers about when to release some products, how to time releases to maximize profit without turning off "consumers." "
Yeah, this is true. Holiday periods are favourite target for product release.
"Also, reading that article I mentioned yesterday, it has become apparent that a lot of goods are produced with only minor/superficial changes in subsequent versions. In other words, *qualitative* changes in technology are not as frequent as we think they are. Crazy stuff."
This is the case sometimes. Manufacturers want to release a new version to cash in on every annual holiday period (Christmas). Sometimes the new versions are pretty pointless. But at the same time, a buyer does not need to buy the latest version. If s.he gets last year's version, shortly after the new version is released, s/he is likely to be able to get it at a bargain. Especially if s/he is willing to shop around, and get it used.
If you have access to JSTOR, you definitely need to read the article I cited earlier. It is extremely eye-opening. We are all living a wasteful lie. Here's the reference: "Toward a Throw-Away Culture. Consumerism, 'Style Obsolescence' and Cultural Theory in the 1950s and 1960s" by Prof. Nigel Whiteley. He gives excellent historical perspective.
Incidentally, you sound like a former Economics major. I realize that not every Economics major is the same, but where I went to college, being an Economics major usually signified conservative, with future aspirations for an MBA (and super-wealthy parents who could give them the connections they needed for success in business).
There are craftspeople who still make things in the US. We have to seek them out and employ them if possible, I think. Sometimes their prices will be higher than imported stuff. That may be something we have to get reconciled to. We can become craftspeople ourselves as well. Maybe on a part-time basis. It's not beyond our reach.
Check this out:
http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-11-28-re-occupy-main-street-entrepreneurs-breath-new-life-into-down-an
Totally agree with you.
WonderWoman
Your statement which points out:
"Yeah, I'm a little frustrated with the lack of goods available that are made in the U.S. How can we sustain the constant flow of money out of the country? It's impossible" which also coincides with Nader's penultimate paragraph here:
"How much of the savings from lower costs abroad are going for large profits and not being passed on to the consumer who also has to endure the reported hazards of unregulated."
Both your observation and Nader's ties in directly with what my wife just told me as she has discovered at work that one of the drugs that she is taking for the Parkinson's disease that she has will now go up from a 10 per cent co-pay over three months to a 50 per cent co-pay. This very well may be due to the fact that this particular drug that she is taking is being imported from Israel. My wife and I will be going to see her neurologist next week to see if it is possible that she can take a less expensive drug that can be just as effective as her current medication.
All this points out, I believe, the absurdity of what is supposed to be the richest country in the world is also the only advanced country on the planet that does not have universal health care.
Sorry to hear about your family's co-pay issue. I just want to expand on your issue, because some people reading here may not have had to deal with a chronic illness before and thus may not be familiar with exactly how awful having to switch medications can be. That's a hard choice to make: take a different drug, when one is already used to one medication, due to financial circumstances. Often, this entails having to go through the lengthy (and sometimes painful) routine of determining the correct dosage for ones' condition ALL OVER AGAIN, and then possibly having to deal with a new slew of side-effects. All this because the co-pay required by one's insurance company has changed.
YES, we absolutely need universal health care. It is the epitome of cruelty to ourselves and our neighbors that we have not implemented it in this country, yet.
"How many times have the politicians and their corporate paymasters told us that "free trade" with other nations is a "win-win" proposition?"
It's win-win for multi-national corporations and lose-lose for the rest of us.
Ralph, if you go back and study political economy - that's what economics used to be called when economics wasn't detached from the real world - ie. Marxist economics, you'll see that it is very clear that labour power is a commodity under the capitalist mode of production. The arrival of capitalism on the scene brought about "freedom". The worker was now allowed to sell his/her labour in the free market to the capitalists who owned the means of production. Like all other buying and selling within this system, competition is introduced into the sale of commodities. Capitalists have to compete with one another to sell their products and workers have to compete with one another to sell their labour.
Now we have reached a more advanced stage of capitalism that we Marxists call monopoly-capitalism. It continues to operate within a free market system, except for the fact that a few powerful corporations hardly compete any longer selling their goods, but rather collude with one another and divide up the market amongst themselves when they sell their commodities. Where the free market still exists is when labour sells it's labour power. Here competition remains fierce and the cheaper labour wins out most of the time.
Because capitalism is now globalized, workers will be forced to compete with each other across the globe. So the question that arises - how will it be possible to stop this global competition for jobs?
Obviously, it will take a complete rewrite of the operations of the global capitalist system. Free trade agreements will have to be discontinued. Multinational corporations will have to be reigned in. Legislation will have to be passed that prevents the export of capital from one nation state to another. Monopolies will have to be broken up. Capitalists will be forced to produce and sell only within their national economies.
Let's say there is the political will to do all this and all this happens and we arrive back at the older form of capitalism that existed prior to monopoly capitalism - back to the capitalism that existed around the early 19th Century.
OK, all is well and good, right? (We know how good 19th Century capitalism was for the working class. LOL.)
So what we're doing is trying to reverse a historical trend in the development of an economic system based on exploitation of labour.
All we're in for is a repeat of history. The competitive nature of capitalism will force the growth of new monopolies. New monopolies, in the search for new markets will HAVE TO expand globally. It can't go in any other logical direction. Regulations written to control capital will have to be removed or else capital will not be able to grow and if capital can't grow (at an annual compound growth rate of at least 3% per year), capitalism can't function. We simply end up back where we are now.
There is NO reforming capitalism to make it a system more equitable for labour because it is an exploitative system that depends upon the exploitation of labour to make profits for the capitalist class.
That is why Marxists know that no solutions for the working class can exist short of doing away with the capitalist mode of production. We also know that it will take a global revolution where workers of all countries unite against the capitalist class to change this system. It's time that you did some studying up on this, so that you abandon these silly ideas that reforming and regulating capitalism will offer any solution to the exploitation of labour.
Struggle, how do you feel about this I just got in the mail?
"Please recirculate to your lists!
Dear Friends of the American Monetary Institute,
Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Some Good Reasons for Americans to be Thankful:
First: There is a bill (HR 2990) introduced into our Congress by Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland,
and co-sponsored by John Conyers of Detroit, which when passed will accomplish the monetary reforms our country and people so desperately need to achieve monetary justice! It has all the monetary reforms of our American Monetary Act.
Its called the NEED act, (National emergency Employment Defense Act, HR 2990). It will serve as a model for the whole world.
HR 2990 does the following:
• It dismantles the Federal Reserve System, incorporating it into the US Treasury.
• Ends whats known as fractional reserve banking. Our money supply no longer consists of Bank debt!
• Congress creates & spends new US money into circulation for infrastructure, health care and education.
Those are the central features. In addition it:
• Limits interest rates to 8%
• Ends compound interest
• Lets the states control 25% of new money creation, with per capita federal grants to the states
• Provides for a tax free "end the depression" citizens dividend to every American
Sound too good to be true? History shows that each part of it has existed at some time in our nation, and each part works. The NEED act HR2990 brings them together to end the financial rape of our people by a sick and misdirected elite, once and for all.
Best,
Stephen Zarlenga
Director”
---------------
What would Marx say about this bill?
That's a great group of people there, sometimes called "the OTHER chicago school of economics" (SZ, AMI, DK, a 3rd guy with them, not mentioned, is Richard C. Cook; mr. "credit as a public utility"). They are a modern-day version of the social credit movement of the '20's (strike at the heart of the system; socialize the "money power". Compel IT to promote the general welfare/common good, and the means of producing for same, will follow).
"The NEED act HR2990 brings them together to end the financial rape of our people by a sick and misdirected elite, once and for all."
I suppose that if Marx read this crap he'd have to say something like this ...
The rape of the people comes about through the private appropriation of surplus value from the unpaid labour of the working class. Until this type of economic system is done away with, the rape will continue. Finance capital is there to help manage the crisis of the capitalist system which has always a tendency towards collapse due to the underlying exploitation of labour which brings forth both increasing human misery and a declining rate of profit for the capitalist class.
"with the development of the credit system, capitalist production constantly strives to overcome this metallic barrier, which is both a material and an imaginary barrier to wealth and its movement, while time and again breaking its head on it.” - Capital Vol 3.
OK, but If you are stuck with what you think Marx would say, where does that leave you in the real world like here as Nader seems to be the hero of Socialists yet he doesn’t even mention the word.
Did Marx ever need credit, or capital for himself?
What kind of monetary system did he talk about... what about the Banks behind the police and sell out "people's parties" he was suspicious of and talking about.
Maybe the problem is to get enough people to agree on what socialism would amount to in today’s interdependent mixed war economy and once they agree, if they ever can, how to go about changing the millions of laws that define the mixed systems of the world and how to give incentives to make a new system work for everyone.
So how do we start, with only what you think Marx would say when you can’t check to verify what he would really say after over a hundred years of social evolution and revolution.
The big difference between a simple idea and it's theory and reality could be why nobody gets into the how, who and why when this bill could be a start to a less exploitative monetary system.
I look at the process of change as a long evolutionary one, as Marx explained the change from Feudalism to Capitalism took hundreds of years and the changes were not all at once because someone was quoting a revolutionary who insisted you won’t have a life until you throw off the chains of the king.
Folks are still tryin to do that.
Now were still tryin to throw off the chains of the Banksters and their public servants.
I think Marx’s biggest contribution was his historical perspective on change because he knew it was all too big and awesome to just say “Ok, now lets have that new system because nothing can change until then.”
The writers of this bill sound like secret Marxists to me and getting back to the topic and some missing posts, "America still makes the best banjos and Ralph could use one".
SEAGLASS: We could get Ralph a flame-shooting bra for the debates....
Even the Pow-Wow I went to earlier this autumn had some stalls selling things made in China (and elsewhere): arrowheads and fetish necklaces made in sweatshops in China, frame drums made in Pakistan. It's not stated on the items - you'd have to ask the store owners if the items were Native made.
You're right about commercialized Powwows.... My friend complains of "Powwow culture" being distinct (and not very authentic) from real Native cultures. She also complains that by forcing everyone out West to live on reservations, the various tribes have lost a lot of their own unique cultural traditions (e.g. the Eastern tribes are now taking on "Western" traditions). But, there was a day when Powwows were a little more special. Even a few years ago, the same one was better. Less and less people want to sell/trade things they made because fewer people are willing to pay for the craftsmanship, even if it is superior to and more meaningful than the mass produced stuff.
Anyway, you are hilarious... and true. A lot of our comments here totally ignore the theft of land/culture/livelihoods that Native Americans experienced.
You will be glad to know that the US (State of Georgia in particular) is exporting chopsticks to China
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8677548/US-exports-millions-of-chopsticks-to-China.html
Odd that the last time I got chop sticks in our local Chinese restaurant had Made in China on the wrapper. Oh well I guess we can't even afford US made shop sticks anymore. Nader should have served two terms as Pres by now and we'd be so much better off. He didn't and we aren't.
The "free trade" agreements are the inbred offspring of the believers of "Free Market" Capitalism.
They are merely symptomatic of the diseased mentality which is The national religion of the United States and elsewhere.
Capitalism can only be beneficial for a society when it is constrained (Balanced) by social responsibility - Socialism.
There is no balance in the U.S. and less and less globally because of the aggressive actions of the U.S. and its diseased Allies. That the lack of balance is a source of pride for the vast majority of people in this nation and elsewhere is indicative of another symptom - delusion.
I suppose that with the advent of widespread cannibalism more people might begin to have doubts about the teachings of this Free Market church.
The war machine must be fed at the cost of good jobs, healthcare, and good schools.
Now wave your flag and be proud because unrestrained capitalism will lead to Heaven!
Or not.
Do you believe that socialism must balance capitalism on a global scale?
If you do, then you must not support the corporate parties - no matter what they say to lure you.
Capitalism and Socialism are mutually antagonistic. There is no possibility of "balance." Capitalism represents the interests of the few, at the expense of the many - always and at all times. Socialism represents the interests of those victimized by Capitalism, the many who are being preyed upon by the few.
"Balance" is an illusion.
"Two Americas"
Socialism is much more than what you say it is. It is about community.
Everyone will be "victimized" by capitalism unless they recognize they are merely a part of a community which includes the diversity of all of nature.
You are correct that capitalism and socialism are mutually antagonistic and that is exactly why/how they can create a balance.
Also, capitalism is not the same thing as (so-called) Free Market capitalism. Individuals must be allowed to be creative and make a personal profit from their creativity, but they must also be constrained by social responsibility to maintain a healthy environment and their good fortune (and I do not mean just money) must be used for the benefit of ALL.
There must be no "few" who would have control, even though some few may have advantages beyond the average.
Socialism alone is also untrustworthy because sometimes the majority is full of stupid notions.
We must have both. A balance of powers.
The greatest destroyer of the idea of democracy is the loss of a balance of power.
All three branches of the "government" of the United States of America are in collusion and are working for the same corrupt corporate agenda. They have destroyed the balance of social programs for their religion of "free markets" and its deification of greed.
Balance is the most important NECESSITY. Truly, it has been destroyed, but to call it an "illusion" is to dismiss the air you breathe as unnecessary.
Too many people are dismissing balance. Some out of fear, some out of arrogance, some out of weariness, some out of a feeling of hopelessness (I have been there).
The foxes and hens together in the hen house is not "community" it is "lunch" - for the foxes.
You are arguing the house slave position - calling for a "balance" between the desires of the master and the needs of the field slaves.
I agree with you that US "representative democracy" is really just for the house slaves and is their idea of "balance." The illusion about democracy serves those who are the mediators between the masters and the field slaves and try to "balance" the two. That is their job. That is how they earn their perks and privileges from master.
There can be no "democracy" while the foxes are in the hen house. There can be no justice, and so there can be no peace while the foxes are in the hen house.
I want to throw the foxes out of the hen house. That is Socialism. The foxes want to eat all of us chickens. That is Capitalism. What sort of "balance" do you want to see? That the foxes only eat half of the chickens? Is that a good "balance" between the desires of the foxes and the interests of the chickens?
There is liberalism for you - the idea that if we serve up half of the chickens to the foxes, they will be satisfied and not eat the rest of us.
"Balance" is just a nice sounding word for cognitive dissonance. The cognitive dissonance comes from trying to go two directions at once - work for the master's interests while claiming to be in solidarity with the field slaves.
Foxes get a bad rap. There is a place in the world for them. They do not subsist on a singular diet of chicken. They are very adept at capturing and eating small vermin. A task we should all applaud. It's only in environments where the small vermin have been eradicated that they turn to robbing farmers' hen houses. But a good dog and a buried fence can stymie much of that.
Problem is we poisoned the vermin, tore down the fence, fired the dog, and forgot to deal with the fox while still pretending we could raise chickens.
/ that's the idea of free trade, what's actually works as a better way to control domestic population than just with police
/ it comes handy as a supplement to private monetary system selling $1.00 for $1.20
\ it's one thing to complain about something and another, to understand something
\ marching against banks and wall street and not about capitalism is something else
This Fall, our hearts. In Spring, maybe our minds.
Well, then the answer is simple.
Make the US the most corrupt pollutable country on earth and we will bring back manufacturing!
lol
Here in the 4th Reich, both approaches are being vigorously pursued: 10yrs of war with no end in sight; EPA, Unions and workers rights under attack. Fortuneately
it won't be a 1000 yr Reich as Gaia will be uninhabitable in less than 1/10th of that.
Man has proven itself to be an evolutionary dead end, in my opinion. Christ, even a rodent knows better than to shit in it's own bed, but not Bozosapiens. The herd will be destroyed en masse, probably during an episode of Dancing with the Stars.
Mr. Nader,
Instead of saying, "The former fountainhead of global manufacturing has been largely deflated by the flight of U.S. companies to fascist or communist regimes noted for holding down their repressed workers."
Isn't the decision to leave the U.S. an act against U.S. workers. Corporations are exploiting U.S. workers through their ability to not only control mass discourse but also to control the laws of trade and commerce. Thus our economic system is designed to benefit the corporation.
I too, got that catalog in the mail and went through it looking for anything made in the U.S.A., with little luck. I buy jeans (Diamond Gusset) made in America from native cotton and labor. They seem expensive, $50+ a pair but are the best made jeans I've had in a long time. We can still make things in this country if people would understand that your neighbors job is as important as your own.
don't be silly, if everyone could be buying 'made in america' all chinese product would have american flag on it - watch the same products advertised on different markets - all about proud to be a subject