Knowing that it destroys our economy why is it that Americans still but dominately from foriegn manufacturers?
451715
Because things bought from foreign manufacturer are actually american products manufactured in other countries by american companies.
108727
If Americans would only wise up to the inbalence of imports vs Exports we are importing way to much and from country's that buy little in return, what kinda global benifit business plan is that? one where USA comes out short! Boycott all products for China,Japan,Indoneasia,India Etc they must buy more from us then we from them to win the economic battle! It is that simple or you get your butt kicked look at Detroit!Hell ya we need to bring back manufactoring base here and pay workers wages that are prosperous. exterminate the nay sayers who want it all for their greedy old money asses!
496981
Well, this may come as a shock to you, but Americans DO own MOST of the world.  The entire world's economy is based on the US dollar. Technology and productivity, human rights, and quality of life have improved ALL OVER THE WORLD because of American innovative thought and ( YES!! ) compassion!\n\nWhy are we now embroiled in a situation where MANY ( NOT ALL!! ) non-American's hate us?..I think it is JEALOUSY!!\nYes, there are GREEDY and SELFISH American's...But I think you'll find those faults also in other cultures.\n\nBottom line: Americans only want the BEST for everyone!!..We don't want to conquer or impose our will on anyone.  But we will fight to preserve our way of life! And the world would be better off if other governments would simply recognize that fact, and let us HELP them.\n\nDon't under sell American resilience and resourcefullness!\nWe will be a powerful force to deal with for MANY more years.\n\nDon't tread on us!!
434924
There should be restrictions on trade. Many Americans are demanding to get more benifits. If we could take things slow and not demand so much from our employers, would that help. A bit maybe. However, look at the profit of businesses and the billionares that are today. These people are stealing from the U.S. workers. Sending our jobs out just so they can make a fast buck. Is that what Americans do? So angry about greed that is going to distroy us.
96596
China and India are paying their workers a few dollars a day.  These countries are not worth modeling our actions on.  China executes 3500 people a year for crimes as simple as shoplifting.\n\nAmerica is far from Bankrupt.  But we did take a HUGE hit when the dot com busted up the stock market a few years ago.  America not only lost several millions of tax revenue, but had to give millions more in tax rebates to individuals who lost investments.\n\nI think it is extreamly hypocritical to complain about American foreign policy while enjoying the rewards that policy provides.  Do you use oil?  Do you buy shoes, clothes, and other products made overseas?  Do you want your country that has been formed by millions of immigrants to stand idle when horrible things are taking place in their former countries?  Why do so many people complain about 2500 soldier deaths within the last 5 years when in that same time period more than a half million Americans have been murdered, died in alcohol related accidents, and lung cancer, just to name a few preventable deaths?\n\nMy question is why are Americans ruining their own lives while riding the media bandwagon telling us to blame our leaders.\n\nAmerica will survive and will do it helping (and hurting) many other countries along the way.  We will learn to judge our actions on a larger scale (think centuries instead of years).  And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better as we stretch and learn.  America is still one of the youngest countries on the planet.
203281
I love you! You would not believe how many people think that everything is just fine in america, not realizing everytime they go to wally mart and other communist drop off points to purchase the incredible cheap junk in stock that it represents and economical melt down, americans who once made that product can no longer afford it, and your pennies on the dollar are creating a communist super power, i wish everyone in america could see your blog, it's time to get the awarness ball rolling,  BUY AMERICAN
253909
This has been happening since the end of World War II.  Being in a capitalist society, which is the only society that gives hope to the poor man, you will have things such as outsourcing happen in the name of profits.  The fact is there are very few manufacturing jobs left in this country and of those that are here the majority use parts made in other countries.  We have become a nation of technology,  service, and agriculture as well as the health professions being where most of our jobs today and the future will be.  I wish that we would not have lost as many jobs as we have, however it did not just come sneaking up on us in the past couple of years.  To get reversal on this practice will take more than a couple of years as well.
237150
I wish I knew why myself. Our economy is in the crapper and the people that live here now cant even find jobs and now we have all these people from different countries wanting to come here and take what jobs we have. And half the time these people that come here do not like America or Americans and bad mouth us every chance they get but they have no problem taking our money. Then they either send the money back to people in their countries or once a year go back to their countries to spend their money there instead of here where they made it and help our economy. Thats why I try to stay away from foreign owned stores and such and try to buy only from Americans.And Im not talking race. As long as they are American I dont care what color they are.
108466
No. First off,this is america and americans need jobs so put some americans to work .Second,there is way too many foreigners taking what precious few jobs we do have.third, dont enough american companys outsource enough of our jobs outside of america? And most importently How can we trust our security to other countries? We Americans,and I do mean all us Americans, I dont care if you are black,white,brown  or green if you were born in the U.S.A then you are American I think we need to gather up and tell our leaders that enough is enough and that we are tired of selling our country to foreigners one piece at a time and that we want america to be owned by Americans once again!
373631
Because they manufacture by paying their workers less than $1.00 per day and US workers get considerably more... they can make a cheaper product making more profit for the company! It puts US workers in a bind and causes a lot of controversy similar to the WalMart issues!
447996
for one thing,americans are spoiled. it's true.  people come here from other countries and they work harder than most americans because we are complacent.
1055103
Walmart used to have a slogan on their paper sacks: "We buy American whenever we can."  I don't think they use it anymore, I'm not even sure they still use paper sacks.  Anyway from what I understand Walmart's practice in "buying American" was that they would squeeze all the profit out of the manufacturer and force them to sell low if they wanted to do business with Walmart.  Then as soon as a foriegn company showed up with the item at a lower price they would quit buying the American produced item leaving the American manufacturer to fail.  I have heard that American manufacturers know that the quickest way to get a foriegn company to start producing cheap knockoffs of your item is to stock it in Walmart stores.  So what drives all of this carnage?  WE DO!  The American public is frantic to save a few pennies.  If we weren't there wouldn't be all of the store ads in the newspapers and on television.  "We won't be beat on price", "Your value leader", and "Garuanteed lowest prices" are all slogans far more valuable in the marketplace than "American Made".  Your question is a little like asking people to stand on the beach and join hands to stop a hurricane.  We Americans are far better served by entrepenuers who acknowledge market trends and exploit them than by those who would cling to archaic systems based on protectionism.  Find a way to create jobs in your community.  If you want my advice look outside of manufacturing anything that can be made overseas and shipped for less than you can do it here.  Information, Service, Tourism are all good areas to look into, although now a lot of Information jobs are being done in India.  I appreciate your thought, but trust me you are wasting your time.  You seem intelligent so use your brain to deal with reality instead of fantasize about a revolution that will never come.  Faster, cheaper, better has always been the battlecry of the marketplace and we aint never going to change that.
546406
Outsourcing is the biggest thing killing our economy right now. (US economy that is). \n\nIt is not just a factor of cheap labor. It is the first step in losing all of our big companies. If all the workers are overseas what is the point in having managers here? If all the managers are overseas what is the point in having a board here? People are not just exporting other people's jobs they are exporting whole industries. \n\nA second aspect on this is that we really don't make anything here in the US any more. If all our ports were shut down for even a few months much of America would come to a screaching halt. We would have empty shelves and no replacement parts. So for the last 20 years we've traded on information and technical ability. Both of those are now in dire risk. The slashing of R&D budgets combined with oursourcing means we will literally be out of the information and technology business. Most of the major software in use today started from a programmer who was employed full time writing code for another company. Not by employees of companies like Microsoft who merely steal or buy the software. If these programmers cannot make a living writing code they do not sharpen their coding skills to write the next great inovations in software. The majority of Open source programmers are employed as programmers for companies, some even use some company time on open source projects. So this outsourcing threatens both our comercial and free software markets. If Western programmers are not hacking out code for a living it will be Indian, Chinese and Russian coders writing the next Oracle, the next great game, the next whatever is needed down the road. It is they who will have the expereince and expertise not us. \n\nIT and the net were saviours to our broken economy in the 80s. The 90s we flourished mostly because of an ineffectual series of presidents and the boom in IT. This boom triggered so many ripples in the US economy that many service industries are now coupled to IT and high tech. As the jobs flow overseas these jobs will dry up as well as the information workers creating even less demand for what we still produce here in the US. \n\nAs for tarrifs they have to be enacted now. If we wait another 5 years it will be too late. Too much of our knowledge base will be outside of our control and our talent will have been religated to the dust heap. This is a major ecnomic crisis which severe impacts for everyone in the nation. The tent cities so many have forgotten will return in the near future if we continue to outsource. \n\nIllegal imigrants are a major problem. Nowhere as big as outsourcing. What is happening is that when everybody went to information management it created openings for imigrants in trades and other semi-skilled jobs. So today a night stocker, a construction work are now working for wages dictated by what people can pay illegal imigrants. Our entire wage scale and standard of living is being decimated by the sheer numbers of illegals we have here and the entrenched structure they have built. Once a job falls into Illegal's hands is very difficult for American's to get on those crews. If they do an American cannot live on those wages without living in the poverty ridden life of an illegal. Many displaced information workers looking to return to previous proffesions are no blocked by illegals. The true unemployment rate, not the joke perpetrated by the Gov is rapidly rising. To aggravate this so many that have ducked into education over the last five years will be graduating to deep debt and no jobs. People with handicaps or strikes on their records will become long term unemployable as the compitition has risen so steeply for what jobs exist. Those that lose a job are often looking at 1-2 years of seeking to find a job that pays a fraction of their previous wages and they feel lucky if they find work in their same field. \n\nLegislation and environment are two factors that hurt employmen
645558
We are experiencing relatively high levels of inflation. That is why our dollars are losing value in comparison. But you should remember that this makes American goods more expensive, which will decrease net exports....this should make some conservatives happy (those who argue that we have a negative trade balance with countries like China). Anyway, this is not necessarily a bad situation, it just depends on how you view it on the political spectrum. Oh, P.S. I am a conservative also, I just read what I wrote and realized that it came across wrong. No offense
347294
Americans aren't concerned about other Americans, or sending $$$$ overseas if they can save a buck.  That communist china is using the $$$$ to build their military, people don't care. \n\nWalmart is a good example.   Another is the way the corporations are outsourcing thousands of jobs to third world countries like Mexico, Philippines and India.
771923
I guess Walmart has the same problem as concerned consumers who try to buy American made whenever possible.\n\nthere is a dwindling list of available products!  American companies are using cheap foreign labor to cut costs of production.  Even they won't make it in America!\n\nExample:  One brand I would buy at Walmart was Jerzees.  Made in America.  I bought a sweat shirt last week.  The label "Made in Mexico"  Walmart is not the only corporation selling out America. \n\nThe consumer doesn't have much choice anymore. American made is just too scarce.  Congress will figure out this is not good about 10 years from now and start trying to patch it up......but it will be too late.\n\nUntil then, Americans will support child labor, poor working conditions and substandard wages for everyone in the world EXCEPT us.....we want everyone to be middle class at the very least no matter what their work habits are, no matter what education level they achieve.
1090891
I don't think you're really posing this as a question, as much as a general gripe, and I can understand your frustration very well. \n\nOne response would simply be to note that the US economy has swung quite forcefully to a service employment base. It can be argued that it's not always necessary to manufacture the product, as long as enough people are employed in the fields that move, deliver, market and sell the product. \n\nEvery car in the world can be made in Outer Mongolia, but someone has to ship the vehicles to the countries where the buyers wait, someone has to program the computers to track the shipments, someone has to unload the vehicles when they reach the port, someone has to write the commercials that will sell the cars, someone has to film the commercials, someone has to serve as the product spokesperson that appears in the commercial, someone has to prepare the cars for sale at the dealership, someone has to sell the customer the car, someone has to arrange their financing, and someone has to change the oil every 3,000 miles. (and you know I've left out a lot of people in the chain).\n\nYes, the United States was once much more of a manufacturing country, but the undeniable fact is that our public policy choices about the environment, about worker safety, about "fair and reasonable" pay, about retirement plans, and on and on are not shared by other countries, inevitably making it "cheaper" to manufacture many products in other places around the world.\n\nDon't forget the underlying basic premise of capitalism - companies exist for the sole purpose of returning profits to the owner/investors. Under that premise, a company MUST produce its products at the cheapest possible cost. \n\nSo let's see - if you want to blame something for the fact that most manufacturing now occurs overseas, I guess you'd have to blame either:\n\na> Workers for expecting a safe workplace\nb> Workers for expecting a decent retirement\nc> Workers for expecting a decent standard of living\nd> Customers for selecting the cheapest of two equivalent products  or\ne> The economic system of capitalism upon which just about all the historical financial success of this country has been based.\n\nIt's easy to blame the companies for every lost job, but the companies do exactly what they're programmed to do - and exactly what they've done for years and years. Jobs would have moved to China, India, and the former Soviet republics 200 years ago if the infrastructure had existed to move the products to this country, track them on the way, and build modern factories in the middle of nowhere. Blame computers, airplanes and the modernization of technology.\n\nIt's not as simple as the people who say "*#(#$*# the companies for moving all our good old American jobs overseas just so they can squeeze another couple of bucks in profits" want you to believe...\n\nThough certain people would prefer that you understand it that way.