Yeah, there was a time when people who came here just wanted to be americans and enjoy the freedoms here without wanting everyone else to cater to them... those were the days I reckon.

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"For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised, He is to be feared above all gods" Ps. 96:4

I prefer buying American, but unfortunately not too much is "made" in the USA anymore. "Assembled" in USA (or any other country) is more accurate than made, since most components are out sourced and manufactured in other countries.

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"Do not mistake kindness for weakness."

Afterthought, there is a town in China named USA. So they can put a lil label on their goods that says "Made In USA" instead of the "Made In The USA" or "Proudly Made In The USA" that are more commonly seen used by the stateside businesses.

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"For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised, He is to be feared above all gods" Ps. 96:4

I buy whatever seems to be the best quality. Some stuff made in China is very good, and some stuff made in the USA is junk.

In a perfect world all those Chinese factory workers would have medical insurance, paid vacations and a safe working environment. It would drive up prices across the board, but even so, the living costs in China are still so much lower than in North America and Europe that companies would still make a profit.

It seems to me that companies ship out the work to where there are qualified people who are willing to actually work for a living. Unfortunately, too many Americans are more interested in sitting around discussing their retirement packages than actually doing any work. I spoke to a very nice lady on the phone earlier who was working at a call centre in India. Her English was impeccable, and I'm sure she was much more qualified to do the job than the idiot I spoke to the other week at the PayPal call centre.

Unfortunately, the capitalism that built the US is its own worst enemy. Sure, we could block all imports, send all immigrants back to whence they came, and do everything ourselves (uhh... wait... I'm an immigrant too... make that "yourselves"), but you'd end up with a bunch of overpriced merchandise made by someone who enjoys too many coffee breaks and spends their day thinking up new ways of getting more money out of their company without having to work for it.

NB. I'm not saying that all American workers are lazy... that's certainly not the case. It just always seems to me that the same folk who are whining about stuff that's made in China are trying to think of new ways to get paid for doing nothing.

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Shhhh! You got shot by a GIRL!
TEAM VEGAS FIRE SQUAD

No. Seriously Jen. How do you really feel? And don't hold anything back.

Sorry, that was too easy. Couldn't resist.

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I had a long day of listening to people talk about their retirement... what can I say?



FWIW, I would add a third category to the poll: Wherever I can get the best quality. I also choose to avoid buying from companies that treat their workers (both American and overseas) like poop.

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Shhhh! You got shot by a GIRL!
TEAM VEGAS FIRE SQUAD

I agree whole-heartedly with ya Gill. In general we as a country have become a whole lot lazier than we have been known to be in the past, I can't say that I'm proud of what I see our work habits as being on a day to day basis, the hardest working man I've ever seen works for himself, I think this may be the linch-pin in the why, alot of Americans don't see the dream anymore, it's just a paycheck... There are alot of motivated men and women everywhere in our country, but I think the ratio of hard workers to paycheck earners here in the USA has ...suffered... to put it nicely.

My Mom could work circles around most of the people I see when I'm out on a service call, but she had something to work for, she put food on the table and kept a roof over our heads by herself.

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"For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised, He is to be feared above all gods" Ps. 96:4

Interesting topic to say the least since I have actually felt the repercussions of jobs that were outsourced to foreign countries.

Back story:

I used to work for SBC Communications which is now known as AT&T in their DSL department. My job was to handle the calls that were transfered in due to the customer not being able to understand the representative they first were in contact with. Basically here is the flow: customer calls with tech problem with DSL internet, call is routed to India to a call center there, customer is on the phone with them for a period of time and unable to resolve call due to language, call is transferred to the call center I worked in. On an average day I would take about 40-60 calls with the average call lasting 20-30 minutes. Now here is the kicker, 100% of those calls were transfers from the call center in India. Customers were not in the nicest of moods once they got to me because of the inconvenience of having to go through that just to get an issue resolved.

Now I know that is somewhat of a different vein than the "would you buy A or would you buy B" scenario but all the same I think it shows what happens when a company is trying to save money buy having jobs outsourced to another country. People get ticked off, they leave for a competitor, jobs that cost the company more are cut to make up for the lost income. A horrible cycle if you ask me but hey "LOOK AT THAT BOTTOM LINE, WE MADE A TON OF MONEY. LETS GIVE OUR EXECUTIVES A HUGE BONUS FOR THEIR COST CUTTING INGENUITY!"

I buy domestic so long as I can - I owe that to my fellow working citizens.

The _only_ exception to that, that is - a time I choose to purchase foreign - is with cars. When it comes to mileage and safety, I'm forced to go with Japanese.

Personally, I blame Detroit for this - it's high time American auto manufactures got their crap together and started putting out quality again.

Just my $.02

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Don't forget that some Japanese makes/models are assembled in America.

The problem with Detroit is that the (former) Big 3 never planned for the future and are now playing "catch-up" with the competition.

When they were in their prime and the money was rolling in, they were giving the UAW just about everything they asked for but the kitchen sink, because they could. Guess what? Now it is biting them in their a**.

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"Do not mistake kindness for weakness."