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Covid19 - Made In China

I think it was in the mid-60's when I first noticed Americans become willing to compromise - willing to accept lesser quality for lower prices.

It may have been K-Mart that brought the first assault on quality. Crappy merchandise, just enough employees to stock shelves and with zero knowledge to assist shoppers. The downtown department stores suffered, downsized or just closed forever.

And so it continued. Manufacturers responded to the market and many left the USA to foreign countries where the government policies produced workers willing to provide labor at a fraction of what they were used to paying. Even though their quality suffered, customers is the USA - the worlds largest consumer group, were still willing to accept crap for their hard earned money.

I have no axe to grind with the Chinese people - none. It's the Chinese Communist Party at fault. Just like any leftist government, the CCP controls everything. And, it's gotten worse as time passed. And now, the CCP has dropped covid19 on all of us. Killed hundreds of thousands of people and maybe just maybe the real target - destroyed world economies.

With that as the backdrop, my question is this - from this point forward, will you be more aware and less likely to buy ANYTHING Made In China? Will you opt to spend a little more for higher quality? And maybe most importantly, avoid helping to fund the CCP?
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DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
You are both correct and wrong.
Yes it was Kmart. I know this well because my father bought me a put together yourself motorcycle in a huge crate. The make and model was a CZ 180cc from the then called Czechoslovakia a Soviet block country then.

Notice that wasn't China. They had products from all over the world. Other Asian countries where often found say like India and even some Great Britain.

Perhaps you might even recall a now recently bankrupt company called Pier one imports? They had things from all over the world as well. They came around at just about the same time.

The problem isn't the importation of foreign products. American products at that time were exorbitantly overpriced. Hence why father had to go to Kmart. And then even put it together myself. I learned a lot from just doing that with the help of my brother.

The problem is letting other countries get a strangle hold on us. Foreign products do make the American companies far more competitive.

So what did a good majority of American manufacturers do? They subletted out the parts manufacturing to the Taiwanese! And then eventually the Japanese and Chinese.

This wasn't done by the government. This was done by the major manufacturers themselves in retaliation for cheaper products from other areas around the world like my motorcycle from Czechoslovakia. BTW It was a great motorcycle!

What we as a country should do is diversify even more. Push the companies that went only just Asia throughout the world and not just into one area. Why not use resources from Africa, South America, India, and yes even Europe and Australia.

Doing so will not allow any one country get a strangle hold on us.