Pluggers by Rick McKee for March 05, 2019

and just how does Uncle Sam even make money on imports if his nieces/nephews prefer stuff made only by him?

Just take the label off and sew it on the new shirt.

As a teenager in the early sixties, my first job was at Electrohome, where we made anything electronic – radios, TVs, organs, humidifiers, stereos, etc. Even back then my boss told me, “This is all going overseas.”

Every day I ask myself why don’t we make more of what we use here in the USA. A lot of the old reasons for not producing here are now gone .

“. . .business is business!And business must grow- – - -I meant no harm. I most truly did not.But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got.I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads.I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads- – -I went right on biggering… selling more Thneeds.And I biggered my money, which everyone needs.”from “The Lorax.” To ‘bigger’ your money, you need to make more, make more cheaply, and sell more. So factories automate, because machines do a lot of things better and faster than people and they don’t require wages, safety protections, and retirement benefits. And, factories move to where labor is cheap and employees don’t require safety protections or retirement benefits. Using cheaper raw materials cuts costs further and makes profits bigger. To sell more, you expand your market through US trade agreements with other countries which results in those countries selling things here while your company sells things there. It’s all ‘business’.

It is hard to find clothes made in the USA, but it can be done. I stll buy made in the USA.

If you look for clothes made in the USA you can find them. I do my best to support our country first then the neighboring countries. The rest of the world follows them.

Sadly.. you can’t afford to purchase “made in the USA” unless.. perhaps you are part of the 1%. We expect $20 ~$40 ~ $120 an hour wages.. then complain when that product costs 5 times what a similar item made in Bangladesh costs.

Even rarer: the ILGWU label.

A real plugger would make the new shirt herself.

mine say made in Canada, la même chose

Sad but true. :-( Even LLBean that used to have everything made in America has succumbed to the better & cheaper made some somewhere else. Says a lot about American quality.

On holiday in Alaska, a few years back; most shops had signs telling people to buy goods made in the USA. All the labels said “Made in China”.

First it was moving the garment manufacturing from union NYC/New England to nonunion South in the 50/60s then to Honduras/Pakistan. Things were al lot more expensive in the American made 60s, a 19" Zenith b/w TV was $259 in 1960-$2,200 in 2019 $.

And yet THEY survive years and years after foreign-made clothes wear out.

And endorsed by Bob Hope.

Products Made in the USA Directory

https://americansworking.com/

With work, you can buy American made clothes. They seem to cost about 3x as much though.

cheaper price ok, inferior quality sometimes ok, item not fitting even though size says it should not ok. stopped buying ill fitting clothes and will just wear same old ones until they are ready to throw away.