Made in China

[Anon]

Why do we still import from China? Their products are soooo risky. Look at the toys recalled last year, look at their own people being sickened by formula and milk. They don't care about their products, just making money! We should not import from them at all.

[Guest Guest]

Why do we still import from China? Their products are soooo risky. Look at the toys recalled last year' date=' look at their own people being sickened by formula and milk. They don't care about their products, just making money! We should not import from them at all.[/quote']


I have been saying this for years. "Buy American". I think it might be 60/40 now. 60% is imported from other nations...and, 40% is made in the USA. Unless, these figures have fluctuated. :ideas:

[Anon]

Unfortunately "made in USA" is sometimes cheap and breakable too....somehow we need to figure out a way to do QUALITY made in the USA. I have definitely gotten to where I am willing to pay more if it means it won't be broken in three weeks, ya know?

[Guest Guest]

Unfortunately "made in USA" is sometimes cheap and breakable too....somehow we need to figure out a way to do QUALITY made in the USA. I have definitely gotten to where I am willing to pay more if it means it won't be broken in three weeks' date=' ya know?[/quote']


Oh...I believe in quality not quantity. Quantity in my opinion gets wasted..."waste not...want not" you know? I would love to go back to the good ole' days when things were made by hand. That seems like an impossible dream though.


BTW, who was the woman who started the "bandwagon" to make toys safe for all children in the USA? I can't recall her name. This would go back 3 or 4 years, maybe? She was really making progress. :thumb

[Anon]

Hmmm not sure about that.

I know, my mom had appliances that lasted three times longer than anything we buy today. I remember when she replaced her washer/dryer...when I was a teen! And we've already had to do that!!!! Same with smaller kitchen appliances. And cars....etc.

We have wasted SO MUCH MONEY in the name of "saving money". Goodness. Furniture, appliances...all stuff that ended up having to be replaced in several years instead of lasting 15-20 years like it really should. So now, we figure its cheaper to buy ONE expensive item than two or three cheap ones over a period of some years.

[Guest Guest]

My parents had a Kitchen Aide dishwasher when I was growing up. It was in the house when they bought it. I was 21 months old when we moved in...the house was already 7 years old. That thing lasted until I was 13. Then...my sis and I were the dishwasher...until they could afford to replace it. LOL.


The old Kirby vacuums were the best! They lasted for ages.


As far as furniture? We bought our furniture at Levin when we first got married, thinking it was better. It has not proven itself worthy. The Value City furniture store where we bought my son's bedroom set (his teen one) and a pull-out sofa bed has held up better. It is amazing! Sometimes these places that say that they are the best...are in fact, pretty costlly and the quality is not that good. I grew up thinking Value City was cheap furniture that wouldn't hold up. It has been better than the other furniture. Go figure?


I will think of that gals name later. It is escaping me. She went on a rampage when babies and children were getting poisoned by toys awhile back. :cool

[Anon]

We have a discount furniture store nearby and when we first moved here we got several things from them. The stuff seemed quality enough but we are finding its NOT. We have already had to throw out recliners we bought 5 years ago. We did buy our King bed from them this year and I hope it lasts...we find the pillowtop is not holding its shape real well but too bad, we paid too much for it to replace it for a LONG time!

So recently we bought sofas from a furniture store where a guy from our church manages...actually a brand name, "Franklin" and bought the extended warranty. Paid a whole lot, but then surely it will last throughout the rest of the time my kids are growing up. When you seperate the money up into months, the expensive furniture actually turns out cheaper, I think.

When the kids are older, will have to replace our cheap kitchen table and chairs too..the chairs are falling apart...got them new at the cheap furniture store. *sigh*

Oh that nicer furniture store is cool tho...every month at the end, it has a warehouse clearance for damaged or scratched furniture, and the prices are amazing. I got nice solid wood endtables there (one corner was broken off, I just put it at the wall behind a lamp, can't tell!) and one handle was missing (we just bought two handles at Lowe's and replaced them both) and now we have beautiful high quality endtables for really cheap. I'm going this Friday to try to find a corner cupboard now that my past-1 yo is growing out of having to have baby equipment every two feet in the living room. LOL.

[Colin Stolzer]

Why do we still import from China? Their products are soooo risky. Look at the toys recalled last year' date=' look at their own people being sickened by formula and milk. They don't care about their products, just making money! We should not import from them at all.[/quote']
The answer is simple, China holds about 75% of our national debt, if we suddenly decided we weren't going to allow them to import anymore, they would suddenly decide they want their money back, and guess what.........big shock here, we can't pay.

C

[bzmomo7]

:verymad: My husband and I were just discussing this issue!!! And to think how little they care for anything but the bottom line! Those poor babies! Our gov't needs to start working towards LESS imports from China and getting more quality stuff American made. Oh, and we Americans need to trim back our appetites for the junk China sells--half of it just gets thrown away anyway within a short amount of time anyway.

[deafnva77]

Unfortunately "made in USA" is sometimes cheap and breakable too....somehow we need to figure out a way to do QUALITY made in the USA. I have definitely gotten to where I am willing to pay more if it means it won't be broken in three weeks' date=' ya know?[/quote']

you can't even trust "made in the USA" , We have so many laws that make Americans lazy. And they have to hire immigrants (mostly legal) to get the job done. plus, just like enviromentists don't like drilling, they would not like more factories in America either.

And there are illegals too but I think they work in mostly farms especially easily bruised fruit farms.

[JerryNumbers]

Didn't years ago everything in Wal-Mart say, made in America? Probably Wal-Mart is number one importer of stuff made in China.

We have the same dresser in our bedroom we bought in 1969. Still looks great and all the drawers work perfectly.

We've got hutch that was my mothers that was bought in the mid 70's, its looks like new, and our wooden dinning room table was bought with the hutch.

Our couch, which is a sleeper, we bought it in the 80's and it still looks great.

Our TV is 16 years old.

Our washing machine is about 2 years old, our last one went out, gear box, when it was over 7 years old, we bought a new one.

I'm a firm believer that they don't make things as good as they use to.

But that said, now days some appliances are nearly cheaper to replace than repair, especially if they're 5 years or older. Many times the repair bill will be more than half of what it takes to buy a new one.

[Anon]

We are on our second tv in five years, first one broke after like 3 years. :roll Computers break easily, too. I did buy a very nice bedroom set from someone, dirt cheap, Thomasville brand, that was 25 years old at the time but still looks awesome.

[Guest Guest]

When we can afford it, my husband and I are probably going to buy some furniture from a guy in our church that can make it himself. He does a lot of excellent woodworking, and he could build us a dining room set (my husband got ours at a garage sale before we got married... it's seriously falling apart), a desk, and maybe some other furniture. It would be more expensive than just buying this stuff at Walmart... but it'll definitely last longer!! :smile

[John81]

Why do we still import from China? Their products are soooo risky. Look at the toys recalled last year' date=' look at their own people being sickened by formula and milk. They don't care about their products, just making money! We should not import from them at all.[/quote']

We still import from China because we virtually HAVE TO.

A large amount of what we import simply isn't even made in America anymore. Our manufacturing base has been allowed to wither. Most "American" companies these days call themselves "global" companies now and they have moved their factories to China (and elsewhere) in order to get cheap labor so they can reap higher profits.

America has trade deals with China and with China holding such a large amount of America's debt we can hardly risk insulting them. If China were to simply dump a fourth of the American debt they hold onto the market our economy would instantly dive into recession or depression.

Prior to WWII, America was a self-sustaining nation. This was still true for a couple decades afterwards but things were changing and now we are at the mercy of other nations to keep us going.

I believe it was during the Gulf War under Bush the First that it was revealed our missiles required certain key microchip components and none were made in America! It was worried that since we got all those components from Japan, and since Japan was opposed to the Gulf War, if they refused to send us those chips we could run out of the missiles being used at that time.

America is in a most horrible position. We carry a debt load that will eventually crush us. We are beholden to other nations for our very survival as we know it, and many of those nations are our enemies.

[Guest Guest]

Actually I believe that a lot of the problem with stuff falling apart is that we no longer take care of things like we used to. Our family was taught to take care of things because we couldn't afford to replace it. But I see wild kids who break everything, even stuff I thought wasn't breakable, because they have been taught that everything is replaceable so it doesn't matter if it breaks.