what's the word for...

[Op_Cit]

One who is too terrified to let Americans know that the product he/it manufactures is made of--are you sitting down?-- foreign materials?

Reading the back of a Proctor and Gamble Shampoo bottle, I was fortunate enough to learn, and you all will be pleased to know, that it was: "Made in the USA of mainly US ingredients".

(Thank god, I'd been using that stuff in my hair!)

The really funny thing is, I thought to myself, "hmmmmm, mainly US ingredients... that must mean those with the greatest volume... and that would have to be..." Quickly I scan back up to the list of ingredients to confirm, Yes! The primary ingredient is in fact: "water".

Ha!

Or should I say, "goddamned canadian dimethicone! Do they realize how many american mule drivers they're putting out of work... and what of the sodium chloride producers!" Why are we spending our time in Iraq when we should be making it safe to enter our bathrooms again!

 

[Liar]

One who is too terrified to let Americans know that the product he/it manufactures is made of--are you sitting down?-- foreign materials?

Xenophobiaphobic?

 

[SummerMorning]

Xenophobiaphobic?

Phobophobiac?

 

[Black Tulip]

ROFLMAO

 

[Guest]

Moronic?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Funny

Hmmm. Let me throw this one out though, because I've been mulling over it for a while and I am trying to find the hole in it.

Some months ago I read a theory that can be summarized roughly thus:

"It's better to buy American not merely for patriotic reasons (keeping jobs in America, reducing trade deficit, reducing dependence on foreign goods), but for ethical and social reasons. When one buys US, one knows that the workers were paid minimum wage and were not exploited child laborers."

Setting aside - not through disinterest, but only as something too obvious to be laboriously proven - the issue of migrant workers on farms and other currently "sweated" industries, what are the flaws in this argument? The best I could come up with was that in many countries, US dollars go farther and that three dollars a day is bad, but not what it is here ... that and that for those people, it's three dollars or no dollars, and they need money while we hope that their economy and government will gradually improve to help them be less open to exploitation. I felt weak on that one, though. It seems to be saying that it's OK to exploit workers if it keeps them alive, which is true on a practical level I suppose, but wrong morally.

Thoughts?

 

[Guest]

Funny

Thoughts?

I think I'll stick with moronic.

 

[Black Tulip]

How about buying foreign products that you know have been produced in an acceptable way?

We have coffee, tea, cane sugar and things like that from Fair Trade shops.
The products are manufactured by farmers in third world countries without the "services" of intermediaries who harvest the profits.
Buying those goods is a direct support and investment.

More information you can find at their website. I would post the link but I'm not sure that would be acceptable.
Google for Fair Trade and you'll find their Federation site.

 

[Op_Cit]

Setting aside - not through disinterest, but only as something too obvious to be laboriously proven - the issue of migrant workers on farms and other currently "sweated" industries, what are the flaws in this argument?

I really am an idiot, and many "too obvious to be laboriously proven things" escape me...

I have come to understand, though, that you have to consider a large number of factors in the cause and effect of it all, but here's a few of the biggest factors:

American wages are out of synch with the rest of the world because of the great american ponzi scheme, lead primarily by the greatest scam of all time, the federal reserve system. (And no, this is no hairbrained conspiracy theory: ask a real economist or even a banker. And The Fed is in fact a documented true blue conspiracy.)

Anyway the inflated system leads to all the gadgets/gizmos/waste/etc. available to, and exploited extravagantly by we americans. Fundamentally: if the monetary system was still gold/silver (everywhere) there would be almost no wage disparity between different places on the globe.

Also, if there were any truth to the myth of american quality, the japanese car companies would still be making only motorcycles and generators. Excess is a specific cause of falling quality, that is human nature and it is magnified geometrically with collaborations like corporations.

Then there is the third world regimes proped up by american military might and "foreign aid" which does an excellent job of maximizing output of child labor run factories...

Bottom line: if you want to protect american jobs you have to bring the economy back to reality and the only way to do that is to go to a completely free market without the fake money promiscuously printed and handed out by the monetary mofia. Then stop messing around in other countries' affairs. ...Or it might be easier to follow the Fidel Castro plan.

 

[LadyJeanne]

What's the word to describe those companies? Practical.

As long as Americans view non-American labor as the root of an American economic decline, any company trying to do business in America will do what they have to in order to avoid the xenophobic, isolationist, short-sighted, not-invented-manufactured-developed-here mentality that truly is the root of an economic decline in a global economy.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Just a quick note - my comment intended to (but clearly did not) convey the fact that what intrigued me was not the offer of greater support for US industries, but the possibility of buying goods made in a more fair and equitable fashion. My standpoint on this is unpopular and, I should point out, is derived morally rather than economically. My personal take on the situation is that we in the United States enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, and that if anyone should make sacrifices in the global economy, it should be us and not the people slaving away in third world countries. I was just looking for the hole in the argument that buying US was actually a way to avoid buying from exploited labor markets.

How about buying foreign products that you know have been produced in an acceptable way?

We have coffee, tea, cane sugar and things like that from Fair Trade shops.
The products are manufactured by farmers in third world countries without the "services" of intermediaries who harvest the profits.
Buying those goods is a direct support and investment.

More information you can find at their website. I would post the link but I'm not sure that would be acceptable.
Google for Fair Trade and you'll find their Federation site.

I love their approach, and would like to be able to buy from them. Unfortunately I'm not in a population area where I can find them. I've only recently been able to celebrate the local grocery finally getting in some free range eggs. One hopes and tries ...

Shanglan