Nationalism, Patriotism, Consumerism

[GGT]

No you don't get it.

Joblessness is not caused by "made in China".

And maybe you don't "get it", either. It's not only possible but pragmatic to start tackling unemployment from a local/community level. Not waiting for government stimulus or mega-corporations to lead the way, hoping it will trickle down. That hasn't worked very well.

For that bottom-up type of enterprise to work means consumers have to be smarter and choosier. Not just looking at a price tag at check-out, but also recognizing "hidden" costs and long term "prices" paid for the cheaper import.

[Illusions]

For that bottom-up type of enterprise to work means consumers have to be smarter and choosier. Not just looking at a price tag at check-out, but also recognizing "hidden" costs and long term "prices" paid for the cheaper import.

Because there exist a subset of people who merely see a product's category. For instance a Cup would be a product category. Whether the cup was made of glass, plastic, metal, etc. would be subsets of that category. You can then further refine by whether that glass cup is made of high quality glass, or some cheap glass, etc. Since they are viewing what they are buying as a category, and not what is in the product, or what went into its production, and just assume that they are buying top quality regardless of the actual price they are paying, they can then be surprised when they bought the cheapest item in that category, and discover it isn't up to their standards because it is cheaply made. This is mostly due to people not knowing the cost to produce something, both materials, labor, shipping, packaging, profit, etc. or how these differences are going to affect their usage/interaction with the product they are buying. What this results in, usually, is surprise when a really cheap product doesn't turn out how they expect it to. To give a simple breakdown: You have Product X. The cost to make it with high quality materials and labor, and the cost to ensure its shipped and shelved in top condition to ProductMart is $50. The cost to make it with low quality materials and labor, and just get it on the shelf is $5. If a person understood the first part, that it takes $50 to make top quality Product X, they would then not expect a $5 version to be made/produced the same way, or have the same qualities as the $50 version. The drive to make things cheaper, while also satisfying the desire for a top quality product, has resulted in us becoming very good at making cheap products that look like top quality ones (think making plastic look like chrome, steel, wood, etc.) but do not behave like them.

[Lebanese Dragon]

Beauty of the market, as consumers, we don't need to know how much they profit in order to make the optimal purchase for us. We just need total price and the qualities of the good we're buying. In theory, we should just buy the best quality/per dollar that suits our needs (without considering resale), then you may buy something better than what you need.