[quote=outtamojo][quote=CA renter][quote=jpinpb][quote=outtamojo]I don’t understand- are you saying it’s not good to overpay for something because it’s made in America?[/quote]
No. Sorry you don’t understand. I’m saying it’s not good to make real estate be the main source of your economy and have it turn into an investment speculative bubble. I’m sure I don’t need to begin to explain it all as there are endless threads about it on this site. Perhaps you can read through some of them.
And again — overpaying for quality is different than overpaying for MIC crap.
But I suspect that your post was just one of taunting me, so I’ll just stop.[/quote]
Let’s make things even clearer — you’re not overpaying for something if you’re getting something that lasts longer, and is of better quality than the less expensive version.
For example, if one person pays $100 for a vacuum cleaner that lasts for two years, and another person pays $700 for a vacuum cleaner that lasts 20 years, who is “overpaying”?
We won’t even go into the fact that this “cheap, disposable” model is far, far worse for our environment than the “more expensive, but durable” model.
But, of course, the “cheap, disposable” model is more profitable, so we should all celebrate the superiority of “capitalism” and the “right to profit,” no matter what damage is done to others or our environment.[/quote]
You don’t have to convince me to buy a $700 vacuum-I own a Sebo cause I got tired of buying a new vacuum every couple of years. I just don’t understand blanket statements like China makes only crap and that which is made/ or should be made in America will be of superior quality or “buy American, help your country” yada yada. As eavesdropper says also- be wary of that which claims to be made in America.Just cause it says made in America doesn’t mean it wasn’t made in some asian sweatshop in Orange county or the Bay Area – I know cause my mom use to work in one when I was little and she would show me stuff in stores that were stitched together in our very own home(rented, of course). I still haven’t decided if sweatshops were a good thing for us or a bad thing – I lean toward a good thing cause I don’t think a business run by caucasians would have hired my mom and allowed her to work from home back then. Did she take what might have been a higher paying job away from an established citizen? Maybe, but my feeling is, jeeze, if you been in America for a long time, what are you still doing with such a lowly skill set,living in a country with more opportunity than any in the world,competing for a job against someone who literally just got off a plane and doesn’t know the language.[/quote]
Believe it or not, that sweatshop job (or something similar) is the only job available in many parts of our country. Yes, we have upward mobility, but that’s more often seen in the more populated, coastal states. I don’t think the answer to our problems is emptying out the middle of our country (though that is happening to a large extent, unfortunately).
I don’t condone illegal immigration any more than I condone the off-shoring of our jobs. They are two sides of the same coin. That being said, **legal** immigrants (like my mother and, I’m guessing, your mother) are more than welcome to come here and take whatever jobs they can get. Even if they take low-paying jobs, and even if the quality isn’t far better than that made overseas, the products are still made here, and their wages are more likely to be spent right back into our economy.
Unlike others — who seem hell-bent on driving us all down to the lowest possible living standards in the name of “capitalism” and those almighty profits — I’d prefer to see a global labor movement, where everyone fights to bring all workers’ living standards UP to where ours are. I do not want to live in a world where a tiny minority of insatiable, profit-seeking capitalists own and control all the world’s resources, and the majority of the world’s population has to slave away in horrible conditions just to (barely) survive.
BTW, it’s not that I think ALL products made overseas are inferior. My vacuum cleaner is a Miele (love it!), which is made in Germany. But every item I’ve ever bought that was made in China has been of far worse quality than the same item that was once made in the USA. Can you think of something that is now made in China, that was once made here, that is of the same or better quality than the original, US-made product?
I also want to support countries that have labor and environmental standards that are similar to — or better than — ours.
