Big Box Stores and Jobs

[Joseph]

Remember the Owner Operated Diners and restaurants? Trying to find Lunch without going to MD's. BK, Wendys or any other fast food garbage Outlet??? Not too many left. Travelling major highways, hospitals and malls, that's all you find.....

There's your hint - get off the main highways and above all stay away from malls! In my current town (Front Royal, VA) there are several little mom & pop joints: Winn's Restaurant, Fox Diner, the Fretwell Cafe to name but three. In my town-to-be (Excelsior Springs, MO, there's Ray's Lunch, the Mill Inn Restaurant, the Ventana Cafe and (best of the lot!), the Wabash BBQ.

One of the joys of teardropping (for me, anyway) is getting off the main highways and discovering great little places like these that have almost completely disappeared from the Interstates but still abound on Main Street USA.

One of my favorites that has survived on the Interstate is the I-84 Diner in Fishkill, NY. One of the best seafood platters I've ever had!

Joseph

[Ira]

and I don't buy chinese

Not even the food?

You DO have willpower!!!

[dwgriff1]

Joseph,

You are right. There are a good local places to buy and eat, and they need our support.

On that thread, I have been re-reading William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways.

He travels around the country, just on the back roads. He didn't take a tear, but he could!

dave

[apratt]

You guys that you think you are buying american cars you better think again. There are no cars made totaly in the US, they maybe put together in US, but a lot of the parts are made in several countries. Like Chevys and Ford, most of parts on them are made somewhere else.
Now when other countries sell us parts where do they get their materails from?? We sell a lot to them!

[Joseph]

Like Chevys and Ford, most of parts on them are made somewhere else.

I know. My Ford Ranger has a German engine and a Japanese transmission.

Joseph

[Joseph]

You are right. There are a good local places to buy and eat, and they need our support.

With that in mind, I'm going to go start another thread! Since it concerns travels in our T&TTs, I'm going to put it under General Discussion.

Joseph

[john]

Buying in house is bad for a nation.

Would we be better off if the horse and buggy whip manufactuers still had their american jobs? Or if the american washboard manufactuers still had their jobs?

I like the time my car gives me and I know my wife likes the time her washer gives her. These items allow my wife and I to do things we would rather do. More importantly, though, the car and washer are just downright more efficent in getting the job done.

I believe that if it is more efficent for a product to be made in one location over another it should be made in the more efficent location. China has low labor costs. China has people who CHOOSE to work for the compensation they are paid and are generally happier and better off in a factory than a rice field. Many seem to forget it is THEIR choice.

The choices that the chinese make in an effort to better their lives also better my life through cheeper products that I have the CHOICE to buy or not. On a national scale when the chinese choose to better their lives they also better the US by freeing us of haveing to producing things we don't produce efficently. The chinese allow us as a nation to focus on producing products that we are better at making than they are. This is good for us; it is good for them; it is good for the world.

It surprises me that environmentalists who profess to think globaly in all matters fail so miserably to do so in economic matters. They just can't seem to make the mental leap necessarry to get out of Detroit and look at our nation instead. If all the jobs lost to China was so bad for the US, would the US be sporting unemployment rates of 4 to 5 percent??? Clearly people are shuffling into new jobs. (On a personal note I have found that when I am forced out of a comfortable routine through job loss I painfully find myself better off with the next job.)

Also;

I believe in getting the most bang for the buck. This is what made our auto industry the envy of the world. (compitition/choice) It is also what is killing it now.(compition/choice) India and the USSR failed in producing cars and coincidently had no compition among makers and by the same token had no choice for the consumer. The people of the USSR and India did buy all their autos in house, though, very much like the buy American crowd buy in house.

It seems to me that buying American limits choice much like state mandated economic controlls limit choice. With limited choice manufactuers don't have to produce the best bang for the buck. If the products produced by a nation are not the best for the price then they do not comepete with the choices offered by the world. It is for this reason that that I feel buying American is bad for our nation.

just my take

[lanego]

I believe that if it is more efficent for a product to be made in one location over another it should be made in the more efficent location. China has low labor costs. China has people who CHOOSE to work for the compensation they are paid and are generally happier and better off in a factory than a rice field. Many seem to forget it is THEIR choice.

The choices that the chinese make in an effort to better their lives also better my life through cheeper products that I have the CHOICE to buy or not. On a national scale when the chinese choose to better their lives they also better the US by freeing us of haveing to producing things we don't produce efficently. The chinese allow us as a nation to focus on producing products that we are better at making than they are. This is good for us; it is good for them; it is good for the world.

Many Chinese have NO choice about working in these factories; many are children treated worse that you would treat a homeless dog. Same goes for India where child slave labor is rampant. And the adults are just as badly off. You are fooling yourself so you don't have to feel guilty about your cheap goods.
And what on earth gave you the idea Americans can't produce that stuff as efficiently? Americans (some under threat to lose their unemployment benefits upon layoff if they refused) had to go over there and train those people to do things the most efficient way. You are equating slave labor with efficiency. You are equating obeying state madates or starvation with choice. Some choice.
Now, go to any small town with one industry that was shipped over to China and tell the residents their frickin' pain has landed them in a better position.

[sdtripper2]

Ok... I understand all the comments about my seemingly negative outburst
on my previous post.

I too find it distressing that to buy American is a chase that is more and more
like a GPS (global positioning system) treasure hunt.

My point was that finding American products is an uP hill battle now. You guys
that tout buying American auto's wish you were buying American. The truth is
you are buying Cars that may be put together in the USA but the parts come
increasingly from over seas or Mexico and Canada. So you feel good cause
your buying American but if most of the parts of that tinker toy come from
cheap labor and countries elsewhere are you really buying American

It is a highly reported fact that the US Automakers are loosing market
share as fast as an older man looses hair while looking in the mirror and
seeing the new innovative guys on the world scene grow and take market
share at an alarming rate for we USA first want-a buy Americans. What
cars are Americans buying in numbers

Again I would point you to this list of companies that are off-shoring their
work and production. Don't fool yourself into complacency by seeing Ford,
GMC or Ethan Allen on a products name. Just look at this list of companies
that have used the laws of Nafta or what ever trade laws to not use
American workers or manufacturing.
I will even make your hunt easier by showing you the list of American
companies that have outsourced jobs and make products off shore. This
way you can narrow your search for your goal of one of the last remaining
companies that might make American here in the good old USA.
Click here for the long, long list of your American Companies that have sold your pipe dream out.
You will find it hard to find products you want that are made in the USA anymore

[Micro469]

Heck...... They don't even make Pink Flamingos in America anymore!!

[dwgriff1]

John,

I've wondered if the Chinese are making Pink Flamingos? Or, did the market just dry up completely?

dave

[john]

Do I like child labor?? No.
Do I feel quilt for another person's choices? No.

Not long ago we in the US used child labor, so did the rest of the world for a thousands of years....on farms. We also used children in factories in this country. I am glad we do not do so now, but it is our wealth as a nation that allows us the choice not to work our children. And I am sure in time as China's wealth grows they will choose as we have.

China and many other nations do not have the wealth to make that choice and I for one will not deny them the choice of working in a factory over starvation. China has a problem with too many people migrating to the cities in search of a better life in, I agree, a horrible factory. This is their individual choice and as such their labor can not be defined as slavery. To do so would lessen the grave reality of what slavery is. I applaud choice in China. It is a move in the right direction.

I understand it is easy to export our values to another nation while living in comparative luxury, but I refuse to hold their choices against them when my values are simply unafordable for them.

As for efficentcy I never intended to give the impression that the US was inefficent. It is anything but. As a whole it is the most efficent economy in the world. There are, though, instances where we are not as efficent. We simply can't provide labor as cheaply a China and in those areas of the economy that require high labor input the US has difficulty competing with China.

Also I never said loosing a job was painless and alway lands one in a better place than before. On average, though, we do land in a better place after the pain of looseing a job. As I said before if this wasn't the case our unemployment rate would be much higher. We are a fortunate country to have such a flexable economy that we can loose a job in one area of the economy and simply move to a growing area of the economy. Many countries in Europe don't have this flexability and people have to go without a job. Thus their higher european unenployment rates.

my thoughts only

[Ira]

John, the short, important quetion is:

What is good for America and what is NOT good for America?

Not just American consumers.

A nation has to be able to MANUFACTURE, and that's why we kicked ass armament-wise in every war we've ever fought.

A nation has to be able to create JOBS for its people, because a middle-class with decent-paying jobs supports 90% of the economy. (Yeah, I'm making that number up.)

I'm willing to admit that I enjoy the low cost Chinese products I can now buy, but to say that this counrty will have a future going on in this very same direction is wrong:

These policies are more dangerous to our security than any foreign war could POSSIBLY be. I'm just skeptical on how it will ever be fixed.

[Sonetpro]

John, the short, important quetion is:

What is good for America and what is NOT good for America.

Not just American consumers.

A nation has to be able to MANUFACTURE, and that's why we kicked ass armament-wise in every war we've ever fought.

A nation has to be able to create JOBS for its people, because a middle-class tax with decent-paying jobs supports 90% of the economy. (Yeah, I'm mkaing that number up.)

I'm willing to admit that I enjoy the low cost Chinese products I can now buy, but to say that this counrty will have a future going on in this very same direction is wrong:

These policies are more dangerous to our security than any foreign war could POSSIBLY be. I'm just skeptical on how it will ever be fixed.

My feelings exactly. What kind of country are we leaving our kid's. As we ship our money out of the country. And Pensions are almost a thing of the past. Is our greed now worth it?
I am suprised no one has even mentioned that China is a communist country. So it's not the people that are reaping the rewards.

[asianflava]

One of the foundries that we use gets help from their government. They always try to compare our production metrics to theirs It is an unfair comparison because they can dump all kinds of bad product and it won't show up. Their government will cover them for their losses.