Made in America

Made in the USA means a lot to me. Look, I've got kids who will be entering the job market within a couple of years. And so do many of you! I hope there's more out there for them than flippin' burgers or makin' coffee.

I live in the Philly area. Here's a stat that may surprise some. Ten percent of ALL World War II war materiel was made in the Delaware Valley area: ships; steel; tanks; uniforms, etc, etc. Did you know that the USS New Jersey was built in the Philly shipyards??

During the 1950s and 1960s, Philly hosted every industry you can think of: steel; chemicals; heavy manufacturing, textiles, even insurance, banking and finance. You ever hear of Botany 500 -- that's Daroff & Co, Broad and Lehigh. Daroff employed hundreds if not thousands of people. Daroff is gone. Walk into any clothing store and check where most of our clothing is made.

In many ways, Archie Bunker was more Philadelphian than NYC. It's all gone. Tourism, restaurants, sh*t has taken its place. Philadelphia's population has shrunk from over 2 million in the 50s to less than 1.4 million. What's more important is that the population has radically changed. Instead of tax paying blue collar workers, we have more people living in poverty and welfare than you can imagine.

Anyone check out the news blip last week about the factory fire in Bangladesh -- hundreds of workers killed. Why?? Maybe because Bangladesh doesn't have OSHA, fire codes, EPA rules, health care insurance, social security, minimum wage protection. How can we compete against that? What does fair trade mean if our working citizens have to go back to 1900 sweat shop conditions. It took decades to turn those conditions around.

So my friends, I ask you. Are we really better off buying cheap sh*t made overseas by exploited workers, while our workforce get's dumber, less skilled, demoralized, less educated, and so forth.

Folks, I remember the old saw my Econ prof taught us back in the 70s. "Just think of it. With technology, importing cheap goods, look how our standard of living will improve. The hands of workers will be unshackled from the drear of mundane work, and the human mind will be free to create new jobs and opportunities for all." What a crock! Today . . . you'd better get your kids' butts into high tech, health care, or the like, or else they'll be flippin' burgers. What's worse, if they go to college, a useless degree and thousands in school loans.

So . . . damn straight. Buy American or at least Canadian;. Pay more if you have to, but support our economy or else our kids will have less than us and our country will become a second class world power.

And since I'm on a roll, one more point. Our elected officials are either nitwits or flat out liers. If they don't know what the underlying problem is and the long term solution, they're idiots. If they do and they're not telling us the truth and educating the polity, then they're liers. We're not in 16 trillion of debt for nothin.'

And by the way . . . I'm proud to say that all of my electronic gear is ARC, made in the USA. Turntable -- VPI, made in New Jersey. Cartridge -- Soundsmith Zephyr, made by Peter Ledermann in Peekskill, NY. Speakers --Paradigm S8s, made in Canada.

Mrtennis, I am not trying to be crosswise with you. Your post permits the inference that we should let the free market set the price and let the chips fall where they be. That's ok. I'm not a communist.

But if you're also saying that if one can get the same quality widget for less, then buy cheaper -- even if the competition is not on a level playing field. Then I must respectfully disagree.

Compete -- yes, of course. But not when the stuff we import is made under slave labor conditions or back door subsidies (e.g., direct grants or even indirect as through currency manipulation).

Here's an idea: the federal government has all those workers who like to regulate sh*t. Here's a job. They can start with strategically important industries. They ensure that (i) there is no foreign government subsidy of the products we import, (ii) the labor component reflects US standards of minimum wage, OSHA, EPA, and basic health insurance, and (iii) the currency is allowed to reflect free market supply and demand.

If the US dollar is weak because we're giving more US chits to foreigners than we're taking in -- then so be it. The cost of goods will go up and companies may be encouraged to build plants here here.

Did you hear that the US may be the world's largest energy producing country in the next 5 years or so, even more than Saudi. Do you why? In large part because the price of oil has risen to the point where it's economical to drill. Sh*t, half the territory of North Dakota has oil wells on it.

If the foreign country still wants to have their workers live in cardboard huts, no problem. The US can simply impose a countervailing duty that can be used to pay displaced US workers income replacement benefits.

Look our standard of living will decline because income will not keep up with the cost of goods and services -- but it WILL happen sooner or later anyway. How much longer can we import more widgets than we build for ourselves? How many more people will remain unemployed or underemployed before we realize that the US dollar over time will have to decline because foreign governments and investors will simply not want to take cheap dollars for their wares. Would you??

The world is not that complex. It's all about barter, using money as chits to trade. If someone is holding a lot of US chits, he can dump them or invest them in securities and demand high interest rates. I wish it were that the chits could return to be invested in US industry, but I suspect that the capital will fly out the US back door into foreign countries anyway.

There is an imbalance -- it will correct itself one way or the other. The correction could be catastrophic like 2008/9 or it can be managed so we can have a soft landing.

So when will our elected leaders stop the crap and tell us the truth and prepare the country for what's coming. They also need to stop the smoke and mirrors that it's just about taxes. It's about basic supply and demand and the cost of production. Taxes only affect the balance on the margin. IMHO

In the meantime, until the "inside the belt" bozos act like real leaders, buy American if at all possible. Where's Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan when we need them.

Excellent point Rja. I think, but am not entirely sure, that most if not all the innards of my ARC gear and my VPI Classic is American made. OTOH, I understand that the transport ARC uses in its CDPs is made by Phillips in Euro-land.

Marakanetz, as I recall, I read somewhere that ARC imports the Phillips Pro 2 transport from Holland. Regardless, it's ARC favorite CDP transport. ARC uses it on the REF CD-8 and the CD-5, and used it on the now discontinued Ref CD-7 and CD-3 MkII.