FifthGear
Member
The government sold us out years ago with unfair import/export taxes. In the 70's when Japan was shipping over bikes by the hundreds of thousands they had no heavy tax import penalty on their bikes. Japan's biggest bikes sold for less than half of a big Harley here. But, in Japan a Harley sold for $50,000 because of the import tax Japan placed on them. Needless to say the fairness was one sided. So, Harley Motor company was forced to sue in court. The end result was that since Harley made big road bikes that anything imported over 700 CC would have a higher import tax. It amounted to about $300. But, Japan skipped by it for a while by building 699 CC motorcycles. As the demand for bigger and bigger bikes took effect Japan skated past the tax by shipping the bikes over in parts and did the assembly here in the USA.
We lost just about all of our industries here years ago. Not 100% but close. We lost the major steel industry, textile, electronics, lumber, now we are losing automobile, chemical industries, and high tech services.
A friend from the north came down south looking for a job. He had ran boilers for a lumber mill but the mill shut down because the Japanese were buying the timber and taking it out on big ships and processing it into lumber and plywood and selling it to us cheaper than our mills could sell it.
What president from the past said he envisioned the USA heading towards a high tech service nature? Let the other countries have the labor jobs. Well, as you can see anytime you call for tech support you usually get a broken English voice from India.
We are losing our chemical industry jobs to over sea locations. But it's not the CEO's fault. He has to answer to stock holders and if the billions of pounds can be produced for 40 cents a pound cheaper on foreign soil the only right decision for him is to go with it. It's the government's fault that the right decision is building overseas. If they taxed the crap out of that decision the right decision would be to build and thrive here like in the 70's and 80's instead of giving the jobs to third world countries who don't have the environmental rules and safety policies which we do here which makes it hard to compete.
I could rave on for a long time but I'll stop. All I can say is that if you think you can be patriotic and only buy USA made and produced goods/materials you will find it very hard to do. And it will come at a price. It's hard to explain to the family that you can't have any electronics in your house because NONE are produced here and have to wear potato sacks because few clothes are made here and the ones that say they are are usually made with imported cloth.
There is no easy answers from where we got ourselves now thanks to our government. But I guess buying from a company where the profit from the finished product goes to a USA company is better than every dollar going over seas even if we buy some of the material and hardware from foreign soil. These days buying American is simply saying the profit from the end product goes to an American (USA) company. That's about as patriotic as you can be these days.
We lost just about all of our industries here years ago. Not 100% but close. We lost the major steel industry, textile, electronics, lumber, now we are losing automobile, chemical industries, and high tech services.
A friend from the north came down south looking for a job. He had ran boilers for a lumber mill but the mill shut down because the Japanese were buying the timber and taking it out on big ships and processing it into lumber and plywood and selling it to us cheaper than our mills could sell it.
What president from the past said he envisioned the USA heading towards a high tech service nature? Let the other countries have the labor jobs. Well, as you can see anytime you call for tech support you usually get a broken English voice from India.
We are losing our chemical industry jobs to over sea locations. But it's not the CEO's fault. He has to answer to stock holders and if the billions of pounds can be produced for 40 cents a pound cheaper on foreign soil the only right decision for him is to go with it. It's the government's fault that the right decision is building overseas. If they taxed the crap out of that decision the right decision would be to build and thrive here like in the 70's and 80's instead of giving the jobs to third world countries who don't have the environmental rules and safety policies which we do here which makes it hard to compete.
I could rave on for a long time but I'll stop. All I can say is that if you think you can be patriotic and only buy USA made and produced goods/materials you will find it very hard to do. And it will come at a price. It's hard to explain to the family that you can't have any electronics in your house because NONE are produced here and have to wear potato sacks because few clothes are made here and the ones that say they are are usually made with imported cloth.
There is no easy answers from where we got ourselves now thanks to our government. But I guess buying from a company where the profit from the finished product goes to a USA company is better than every dollar going over seas even if we buy some of the material and hardware from foreign soil. These days buying American is simply saying the profit from the end product goes to an American (USA) company. That's about as patriotic as you can be these days.
