You have a couple of good points Junkman. I fully agree with your disdain for low quality products. However let's think about this a moment. When we buy some US products (be it for cars or anything else) sometimes the so-called quality US consumer products we buy may be laden with parts made in china or some other country that makes inferior parts. Look at some of the new cars made today. The new Dodge Dart for example. As American as Dodge markets itself to be, I believe that car is actually a fiat made with parts from multiple countries around the world.
Even when we pickup the phone for customer service, no telling who we speak to from where because US companies outsource there customer services offices. If you ever had to call Citibank or even Sirrus XM for that matter you will not only get a headache but also a heavy accent as well. It may not be the fault of the person on the other end of the phone. Just our governmental law at work for us.
Here here!
Thing is... we've sold our manufacturing to CHEAP outsourced labor in every corner of the world.
Even the Zaino towels are manufactured in Korea.
Not so terribly different than China. I find it a little funny that with all the talk of NOTHING touching your car, inside or out, other than microfiber, that the Zaino blondes (from what I can tell) are 100% cotton.
Myself, I'd LOVE to only have cotton. My wife would be the happiest person on EARTH because she can't STAND microfiber! :laughing: Her hands are all cut up and rough from handling thousands upon thousands of papers a day and MF towels make her skin crawl!
I remember in the 90's when the us CAFE standards were cracking down on fleet fuel economy. The US manufacturers had in no way figured out how to keep making huge V8 cars that get European 2 liter fuel economy. The 'out' as it may.... was that IF a vehicle had more than a certain percentage of its parts made outside the borders of the US then THAT vehicle DID NOT have to fall under the US CAFE standards.
One of the darlings of the industry was the Ford Crown Victoria. I mean all the big families drove one, and literally every government agency had a whole fleet, (still does). So how in the world did they keep selling that big V8 gas hog when it fell well outside the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards? Well by outsourcing so many parts that it qualified as an 'import'. They even shifted manufacturing to Mexico just to make sure! True story.
Remember when Wal-Mart was on a "Made in the USA" campaign? Going into small towns and putting dozens of local businesses out of business they acted like it was all a good thing, and had "Made in the USA" banners all over the store. Now days you'll search high and low to find ANYTHING with such a label!!!
Having a product made in China doesn't have to mean it's inferior. Although... all to often that IS what it means. They have invested in and built some of the most advanced manufacturing plants on the planet, and are capable of making the finest products anywhere. At the same time, they can offer cost that lures retailers away from *quality* and more towards *profit*.
Take for instance if you can buy a 600gsm MF towel at $1.25 in China and another at $2.45 in Korea, or even yet another one for $6.00 made in Korea which one would you buy? How would you know one is any better than the other? Assuming that the raw materials came from the same place, are manufactured to the same specification, then all *should* be the same product.
(SHOULD being the operative word.) :dunno:
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