1) I do try to buy made-in-USA… but ever try to do that? Especially in a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. It is HARD to find a USA-made version of things; virtually impossible in the case of some items. For example, our electronics industry got bomb-cratered in the 70’s and it is ALL Japan/Korea/China now.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I DO find a Made in USA item, and I happily buy it, even if my wallet winces a little. I notice such items tend to be better-built than their overseas counterparts, too. Something about not being made with Chinese slave labor, I guess.
I have to say I was quite impressed by the Ford Focus I rented a couple of years ago– solid little car, and got pretty darn good mileage. And I say that as a diehard riceburner-driver (Toyotas). The Ford is something I will keep in mind at such time as when I get in the market for a new car (but that’s not for a while yet). As you point out, the where-was-it-made factor will be more important than the home site of the nameplate. There are a buttload of Toyotas that are built in the USA nowadays, for example.
And I read somewhere recently that US-made steel is the “gourmet” steel of the world. If people want just any old crap they buy from China, but if they want the best steel they can get, they buy from the USA. There are survivors of the US’ Rust Belt crash, and they are doing all right.
2) We here in the USA are caught at the top of what I call a “gravitational wage slope”, aggravated not the least by our higher cost of living, especially housing. Sure, we can all afford to downsize some, there is a lot of ‘krap’ in Americans’ lives and households we don’t really need. But when we have to turn and face the fact that an engineer in India can live in a Temecula-style house for like $50,000 where it costs like $150,000 here, well… you can see our dilemma.
To Rt.66’s point, my coworker was telling me a year or two ago about a noted economist who made up a list of all American jobs and occupations that could reasonably be outsourced overseas. The economist discovered to his chagrin that one of these jobs was his own.
But, there is a phenomenon that when a country overseas industrializes, their wages go up. That is why the cheapy-imports countries have changed from being Japan (60’s) to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (70’s) to Korea (80’s) now to China and Malaysia and India.
And, cost of living in the middle of America is much less than on the coasts. I just saw somebody else comment about a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan that sold for $65,000. There is a grand swathe ranging from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, and down to Alabama to Texas, that has very low housing etc prices and costs compared to the coasts.
What I am driving at is, I wonder when middle American workers will become wage-competitive with the overseas ones, taking into account the costs to ship things across the Pacific, unseen costs due to language barriers, etc. I think that day is coming. To a small extent, it is already in process– tech support call centers are starting to relocate back into the US, including my own company, which is starting up two sites in New Mexico and another US state.
At that point we will see a wave of “insourcing” into Middle America, and then the renaissance begins.
