Made in the U.S.A.

Tonight I was looking for some shoes, since my old ones were getting pretty worn out. Now I have two issues when I buy shoes. Number one, I have duck feet, so called because I wear a size 9 1/2 EEE shoe. So it's tough for me to find comfy shoes. The other issue is that, as a rule, I try not to buy anything that's made in China if I can help it.

So you know, I'm certainly not a Buchanan-style protectionist; in fact, I'm all for free and fair trade. I just have issues with buying items from a country that points missiles at us.

Because I had one other item I was planning on getting at Wal-Mart anyhow, I stopped there first and looked for shoes. I think every single shoe I looked at was made in China. Now the tea I did get there (the actual purpose of my Wal-Mart stop) may have been made in China too but I have no idea. (Actually, where do we get our tea from?)

So I left there and eventually found my way to Vernon Powell, where I'd bought the pair of shoes I was replacing. As luck would have it, they had a pair on sale that both fit my wide feet and was at least assembled here in the good old U.S.A. They're almost the same as my last pair and are known as New Balance 575's. So I supported American workers in some factory someplace.

But it got me to thinking about this on the drive home. It seems like almost anything you buy at a discount retailer (and many more upscale ones too) is made in China. Now I realize that by having about 20% of the world population just sheer chance would dictate that a lot of things are made there but why China and not India (close behind China with about 1/6 or so of world population)? At least India is less hostile to our interests than China is.

Of course, the even bigger preference to me is having items made right here in the U.S.A. I can't say I strictly apply this rule (after all I bought a Japanese car) but at least I had the option of considering American cars at the time I made the purchase. This doesn't seem to apply nearly as much in many other areas, particularly electronics. And it's sort of a shame when how many thousands of American workers have been tossed out of a job because a company moves production overseas - I have a friend whose company did just that and let go hundreds of workers in Ohio. Now she complains regularly about having to deal with the Chinese and the crappy product they send over here. But it's cheaper for the company!

I suppose this all goes back to the comment that's made when advocates of illegal immigrants are questioned about why those people are hired. They always say that the illegals do the jobs Americans won't do. Surely that's not always the case, but it just makes me wonder how it's possible that, even with the much lower cost of labor in China, American ingenuity can't figure out how to make products that are price-competitive. Has America really gotten that lazy and ignorant?

Quite honestly, if China said tomorrow that, "ok, America, either we get to reinstate our rightful rule in Taiwan or we stop selling you our exports" they would have us over a barrel. (Never mind all the Treasury bonds they hold.) But what troubles me is that a huge number of Americans would say, "phfft! It's only Taiwan, who cares?" and bitch because the news break is interrupting "American Idol." Slowly but surely, China is building toward a time when they can put a proverbial gun to our head and it's a little scary.

Back in the 1980's, one of the socially-correct items for multinational businesses to do was to divest themselves from South Africa to protect their policy of apartheid. Maybe it's time for American businesses to do a new divestiture out of China and back into more friendly countries, even our very own.