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Rex B wrote:Thanks for posting that. It's amazing how few people realize that we are still #1. We just don't make the inexpenive consumer goods, we make higher-end stuff mostly.

And we stopped making a lot of the cheap stuff DECADES ago. I remember as a kid in the '60s and '70s when all the cheap consumer goods and toys were made in Japan and Hong Kong, and my mom railed against the quality of imported clothing who didn't share the standards nor pay that she had when she worked in the local shirt factory as a young woman. My dad's mid-70s Chevy Caprice was made in Canada. I get a big chuckle from folks who think the moving of unskilled manufacturing jobs offshore is a recent process (or try to blame it on Obama).

Another thought: Some talked about Chinese companies buying American companies. Wrong emphasis, IMHO.

American stockholders sold their company to the Chinese. We have become shortsighted, not statesmen but politicians, not empire builders but second quarter earnings builders.

This is a great country, no doubt. No doubt we need less government not more. But we also need people of vision, looking not for the next quick profit, but for building a future.

For a little higher cost, would you purchase 'Made in America' items exclusively?




Same line of thinkin' on the local level


Truthfully, I very often "pay a little more" to buy items from mom n pop store down the street (if they have what I need) instead of in a different city a few miles away at Wal-Mart or National Hardware chain store.

The sales tax stays in my city, benefiting the citizens so property taxes can be less
Jobs maintained in our city
etc
same with the local burger hangout

I recall a small hardware store when I lived in Pasadena, been there forever, ALWAYS had what you needed, even when the BIG stores didn't
Then, Builders Square, Lowes, Sutherlands, Home Depot moved in up n down the street. mom n pop went away, building vacant, and no one had my size air conditioner filter anymore so ... I had to move.

RPB wrote:For a little higher cost, would you purchase 'Made in America' items exclusively?




Same line of thinkin' on the local level


Truthfully, I very often "pay a little more" to buy items from mom n pop store down the street (if they have what I need) instead of in a different city a few miles away at Wal-Mart or National Hardware chain store.

The sales tax stays in my city, benefiting the citizens so property taxes can be less
Jobs maintained in our city
etc
same with the local burger hangout

I recall a small hardware store when I lived in Pasadena, been there forever, ALWAYS had what you needed, even when the BIG stores didn't
Then, Builders Square, Lowes, Sutherlands, Home Depot moved in up n down the street. mom n pop went away, building vacant, and no one had my size air conditioner filter anymore so ... I had to move.

That wouldn't have been the one on Tater just a little south of 225 would it?

one on Fairmont and Pansy
but there were 3 I used to go to mostly
The Tatar one, the Pansy one and one on Spencer on the other side of the Beltway

I used to manage a Handy Dan back in the 70s .... then Homers, Home Depot, Builders Square, and other "big box" stores came... I started supporting mom n pop stores after seeing what happened in Baytown and other small towns where mom n pops disappeared after the malls showed up..

I was Asst Mgr in the early 70s of a smallish hardware store/lumber yard out on Main/Post Oak SW Houston ... that's where 5 armed guys came in that had beaten a Kroger employee the prior week ...