Boycott Chinese goods. Anyone up for that?

[panader0]

I am going to make a serious effort to boycott anything made in China.

[brentspeak]

1. I look for the "made in the USA" label every time out

:kick:

[NMDemDist2]

5. which includes the sweat shops in the Marianas

but hey, you do what you can eh?

[havocmom]

9. ... and US prison labor.

Wonder why they are so keen on arresting non-violent pot smokers? Prisons make money contracting labor out to corporations. Inmate workers get 'paid' (a laughable wage) and prisons get to claim they are training inmates for work on the outside. Corporations get to save big bucks on labor, site costs and slap MADE IN USA on stuff. Plus, corporate management doesn't have to learn a foreign language or hire translators.

[brentspeak]

30. What corporations are having their stuff made by prisoners?

I'd like to avoid their stuff, too.

[havocmom]

51. Google these two phrases for starters

US manufacturers using US prison labor

and

Call centers using US prison labor
(Yeah, think about calling reservation call centers and giving your credit card # to somebody on 'the inside' who probably has friends on the outside.)

Many of the articles are a few years old. Companies started getting a lot of bad feedback. Many of the companies are big name and Fortune 500. Not a lot of new data, but since the corps own media, that is not surprising. 'News' is well managed anymore, by the corporations making all the $$ on questionable practices.

Sifting through the google results, one discovers that besides not having to pay benefits and such, many companies saved on cost by using the prison facilities, UTILITIES (tax payers pay the light bill which means yet another method of corporate welefare), and in some cases, the pay is WELL below minimum wage. Oh, and there were some tax benefits written into law so there is another big spoon full of Corporation-Helper the tax payer puts on Fat Cats' plates.

This one link sorta gives a brief overview:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/02/62430

Perry Johnson had intended to move to India. But the company chose instead to open inside the Snake River Correctional Institution, a sprawling razor wire and cinder block state penitentiary a few miles west of the Idaho line.

The center's opening followed a year-long effort by the Oregon Department of Corrections to recruit businesses that would otherwise move offshore, and echoes a national trend among state and federal prisons to recruit such companies.

<snip>

Ten states, including Oregon, employ inmates in for-profit call centers. Oregon and many others also make garments and furniture -- industries that have largely moved offshore, other than in prisons. Inmates are paid between 12 cents and $5.69 an hour, according to Bureau of Prisons statistics.

<snip>

"It's like bringing little islands of the Third World right here to the heartland of America," he said. "You get the same total control of the work force, the same low wages, and it does nothing for the inmates."

Do the google. Lots of big names. Hope some have cleaned up their acts, but with the control of the press, how do we know who is naughty and nice?

Oh, don't forget computer recycling... all those dangerous chemicals inside outdated tech toys... Yep, big name computer companies and prison labor for recycling. Toxic jobs are not just for prisoners in China.

[havocmom]

55. And for real fun, ask the google outsourcing tax return processing

Yep, more and more US taxpayer returns turned over to private corporations who then ship the data to India.

Feel safer America?

Mortgage processing? Oh yeah. That too.

All your personal financial data are belong to other nations now. Not to worry. We are loved over the globe. What could be go wrong?

:banghead:

[Raksha]

43. That would be a great progressive thing to do IF the jobs existed

"on the outside." IF the jobs existed, training the prisoners in useful skills would go a long way towards reducing recidivism. Unfortunately, the jobs have long since been offshored, and just about the only way anything is "made in the USA" any more is through this new form of legalized slavery.

Re >>Inmate workers get 'paid' (a laughable wage) and prisons get to claim they are training inmates for work on the outside. Corporations get to save big bucks on labor, site costs and slap MADE IN USA on stuff.<<

[brentspeak]

29. Do you know which companies have their stuff made in the Marianas?

I'd like to know so I can avoid their products.

[NMDemDist2]

34. most anything from the Gap and their allied stores for one

google it, I bet you'll get an eye opening list

[Fierce]

62. Look for the UNION LABEL.

That helps.

[porphyrian]

2. What about Chinese babies? - n/t

[Sequoia]

19. Now, look here you!!

I'm a gonna keep this here baby.

[porphyrian]

25. Heh, heh. - n/t

[SoCalDem]

3. We have been doing it for years.. We just don't buy much of anything

It's something that empty-nesters like us probably discovered too..

Once the kids are launched, our buying ground to a halt:)

[gollygee]

4. I have always tried to buy things where I have at least some reason to believe

the workers were paid a living wage.

But wow is it hard to avoid "Made In China".

[DFW]

6. What's left, besides brie, pineapples, BMWs, and barbecue sauce?

[Benhurst]

11. And I'm not even sure about BMWs. Do you think they are

making the fancy electronic equipment in them? The computer screens and CD players? They may be; but I doubt it.

[marmar]

7. What ISN'T a Chinese good these days?

I'm sitting at my computer, having a cup of coffee and a bagel right now. The coffee cup, the plate the bagel is on, my computer monitor, and my mouse were all made in China.

[Warpy]

12. That's the problem, really

It's not just cheap Walmart t shirts that fall apart after the third washing. It's washing machines, furniture, half the parts in your car, a third of the stuff in your computer, more and more of your food, shoes, farm equipment.

I'm afraid they now make nearly everything we used to make.

While Congress slept and fiddled with flag burning amendments, this country was weakened to the point we will not survive the next big war, let alone win it.

[lurky]

8. Unfortunately, I think it's too late.

Aside from food, pretty much all of life's little necessities seem to be made in China. The only things made in the developed world seem to be "luxury" items that are priced out of reach of most people. :(

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

10. k&r. It is difficult to do, not all that much seems to made State side.

But, it is worth the try. We've been trying to boycott for years now. Cuts down on our purchases! & that is good for the pocket book.:D

[Lorien]

59. Well, there are also goods made in the rest of the world

Germany, Sweden, Canada, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom...I find that there are plenty of items to choose from that aren't made in China that are better made, though somewhat more expensive. Specialty stores, such as shops for cooks, Irish imports, Scandinavian furniture stores, toy stores that carry German and UK imports, etc. are also great alternatives to Chinese crap that falls apart within a year.

[supernova]

13. For the past couple of months at least

I'm looking for Made in the USA or the EU and india seems to be OK in that regard.

I don't have anything against China, but I want them to clean up their act, and I'm not going to be their experiement lab. They don't even have to do that, all they have to do is ask why we ban certain substances and practices. Sheez that part of it isn't rocket science.

Buy hey, if they have to follow the same standards we do, I bet our brilliant American manufacturers will find out that those "cheap" Chinese products aren't so cheap to produce afterall.

[nancyr]

14. I already do.

[lpbk2713]

15. I recently bought a set of pans made in China.

I found out when I wash them with Comet the paint on the outside comes off. This has me concerned that the food inside might be affected even though the inside is teflon and not paint. I don't really care to use them now after what I have been hearing about the lack of regard for human health and safety the Chinese have in the products they export.

[demobabe]

35. You wash your dishes with Comet?

I really hope you're joking. That will make you sick.

[lpbk2713]

67. The adhesive from the labels wouldn't come off

[immoderate]

39. If I wanted to get the paint off of something...

I might use Comet. :shrug: It's surely not the best cleaner for painted surfaces. It's got an abrasive, (like sandpaper,) and bleach!

There are those who question the health effects of food cooked on Teflon. Controversial, but here's a Google search. Take your pick.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hazard+health+Tefl...

--IMM

[Viva_La_Revolution]

71. Cooking with teflon is bad enough for you

leeches chemicals into your food. :scared: I use very heavy inexpensive aluminum pans instead... except for eggs. I can't manage to fry them perfectly in anything but teflon. :(

[RB TexLa]

16. Nope

[pippin]

17. All well and good . . .

but we're edging dangerously to China bashing rather than asking what the hell are our regulatory agencies doing. Corporate greed was at the root of moving our industries to countires where labor is cheap. Deregulation or funding cuts of watchdog agencies that were supposed to keep our food, toys, etc., safe are also the problem. The latter quite obviously part of the current adminisitration's screwed up erconomics.

By the way, not everything made or grown in the U.S. is either safe or perfect. We've have our own share of tainted food, shoddy automobiles and appliances that fall apart.

Chalk this mess up to the Republican nonsense about non-geovernmental oversight and corporate greed. The last thing we need in this world today is more xenophobia by getting Americans to make China the next bogeyman.

[judaspriestess]

18. We have already begun

:)

[Katherine Brengle]

20. I've been doing the same.

As much as I feel for the workers in China who will pay the price if large scale boycotting took place, I'm just sick and tired of being a consumer of cheap plastic (unsafe) crap - primarily from China.

It's more a cheap plastic crap boycott for me, but that covers a lot of stuff from China. Also turned out my daughter's apple juice was made from Chinese concentrate (go figure - it makes so much sense to SHIP FROZEN FRUIT CONCENTRATE FROM THE OPPOSITE END OF THE PLANET) so I had to switch to a much more expensive organic brand.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. Why? Sinophobia?

Should we boycott American goods every time our stuff gets recalled?

[spoony]

23. Toxophobia

Perhaps the fear of having one's family poisoned by reckless idiots. Or perhaps the desire to support US labour. There really aren't a lot of reasons NOT to boycott their crap.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. Well then why not boycott U.S. goods?

Did that come up when American grown spinach killed several people last year?

[spoony]

26. We don't have policy control over Chinese practices

We can correct problems in our own system. You are sailing a leaky boat.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. That's rich.

[rockymountaindem]

42. How about not driving down the value of the US dollar

and not enticing more corporations to offshore jobs. Are those good enough reasons?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

46. Protecting jobs is a fine reason.

But I can't support nationalism dressed up as a labor movement.

[Boojatta]

68. Do you want ...

... your money to help pay to keep the tanks in good condition for the next time the government of China decides to use them to crush uppity citizens on bicycles who dare to peacefully protest against systematic lies and oppression?

The Tiananmen Square massacre happened in 1989, not exactly ancient history. Can you imagine such an event in the USA without even an official inquiry into what happened?

Spend your money on goods made in America, Taiwan, India and other places. Don't contribute to helping the smirkers who are now running the show in China.

Let's make the right choices. They may be small and passive-looking choices, but together we can help bring the world closer to the day when the smirk gets wiped off the faces of despots everywhere.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

75. No.

Do you want your money to help pay to keep raping children at Abu Ghraib?

[Geek_Girl]

22. this Christmas I plan on buying made in the US especially for toys

Not so much for a boycott, but just because I'm really scared of this shit.

[TheFarseer]

61. you might have to make the toys yourself then!

although my mom made some toys for us back in the day, so it can be done.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

69. You can make a doll cradle out of a quaker oats cylinder box.

Both sizes of box, depending on the size of the doll.

Cut a square hole in the side, leaving some room on each end. Leave the lid on.
Paint.

[Tansy_Gold]

72. Check local arts & crafts fairs, which are plentiful

during the holiday shopping season. There are a whole lot of woodworkers and other toy makers who turn out beautiful, safe, long-lasting, non-plastic gifts. They may even become family heirlooms.


Tansy Gold, on her handicrafts soapbox again. . . . .

[Geek_Girl]

76. I found this link

It list some toys and toy companies that make toys here in the USA.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

28. ...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[here_is_to_hope]

31. Done and done...

What I have to buy new is checked and checked again. I am a bit of a 'nationalist' that way.
What I can buy used, I am a little more lenient in where it came from, damage was already done I figure.
Buy local, the job you save will be your own.
I think that after living in a small Montana town, I have learned how the dollar flows.

[treestar]

If it were very effective, some Americans could lose their jobs

Economic activity flows from here to there and back again. Somebody over here is involved, and employs people.

For that matter, the Chinese have to eat, too.

I don't know what the answer is, but it's not this kind of thing. Highly overgeneralized, too. Some of their products may be good. Not distinguishing there is punishing people just for being Chinese.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[EFerrari]

54. Okay my little unregistered user, I want to see you label of origin!

:rofl:

[Kip Humphrey]

33. Already do... to the best of my ability.

[dysfunctional press]

36. it's way past too late for that- we're china's bitch probably for the rest of most of our lifetimes.

we sold our national soul when we decided that cheap do-dads at walmart justified the slave labor conditions over there...

paybacks gonna be a bitch, too.

[MrCoffee]

37. good luck with that

[Gregorian]

38. You'd have to boycott everything.

I was just about to post what you did, and there it was.

Not that it won't do any good. But it's kind of like what Judy Barry did with the logging companies. You don't go to the chainsaw to stop logging. You go upstream. Unfortunately, nobody is willing to deal with upstream. Because upstream is "US". Ultimately it's about two things. One of them is how we are living. The other is how many are living it. And neither are going to change. Not really.

[Lorien]

63. Nah, mostly just electronics and badly made crap

as I posted in post #59, there is the rest of the world to consider. My father used to live in an area of Columbus, OH called German village. You could find all manner of food, clothing, toys, gifts, gadgets and more that were made in Germany there. Other cities have Italian, Greek, Norwegian and other areas of town that carry imports from their native countries. The stuff tends to last much longer or be healthier for you, so there's a balance to the cost.

[Gregorian]

70. I've spent my entire life watching this.

I have this keen ability to judge quality. I remember when the Japanese toys were made of our recycled tin. I was young, as it was around 1960. As a machinist and engineer, I've watched the tooling catalogs over the years. And recently the Stock market thread here has had some very interesting Chinese recalls.

Yeah, I'm totally into the German stuff. They are absolutely nuts about quality. I've got a German milling machine and a Porsche. Both are just mind blowing.

But my most recent mountain bike, that's designed in Santa Cruz, is manufactured in China.

One of the sleepers is the amount of Chinese ingredients and components that comprise stuff that is actually made in other places. I could go on and on.

I don't actually have a feel for what percentage of stuff is made in China. It isn't as bad as I've made it sound, I don't think. But it's probably higher than most people realize.

It's just so sad that we gave our country away. I'll never forget taking a two year school at a junior college in machine tool technology. When I came back a few years later to visit, the whole place had been vacated. We just didn't need machinists, I guess.

[joeunderdog]

40. Read: Dollar Stores.

Almost all of the stuff is made in sweatshops.

[maveric]

41. My MIL is hell-bent on this!

She NEVER buys anything from China. Only shops at Target where the ratio of Chinese to American merchandise is lesser. If she does happen to buy something from there she promptly returns it.
Sadly there's not a lot that she can spend her $$$ on.

[Raksha]

44. What this thread and so many like it clearly indicate

is that there is a growing market for American-made products BECAUSE they are made in the USA, and a lot of people are clearly willing to pay a few bucks more for them. After all, the phenomenon is nothing new. I can remember when even in the Fifties there were people who refused to drive foreign cars for that very reason...they thought it was unpatriotic.

Has anyone considered the possibility of RE-OPENING some of those closed factories? Has Mattel considered producing maybe one-tenth of their Barbies in the U.S., with "Made in USA" prominently featured on the box? I bet they'd be an instant hit with collectors (and many parents) even if they cost a few bucks more.

Have we actually fallen so far that to even consider producing ordinary consumer goods in the USA again (and NOT in prisons or the Marianas) is some kind of heresy against the globalist religion?

[mudesi]

45. Good luck with that. You're going to end up without any possessions whatsoever. (nm)

[L. Coyote]

47. YES, let's all go off the XENOPHOBIA cliff. So nationalistic. USA USA

Let me think a moment. Is any of this getting a little out of proportion, and if so, WHY?

[gaspee]

50. I' about the least nationalistic

person there is. I dream of the day where there are no borders and no countries (knowing full well it's not going to happen in my lifetime.)

I haven't bought stuff made in China for years precisely because their workers are treated so badly. Who do you think handled that lead paint day after day after day. Little Bobby and Suzie probably haven't been exposed to enough lead from those toys to do lasting damage. but what about the young women making those toys.

A few years ago I was appalled by the number of chinese workers killed on the job each year. It was enough to fill a small american city. That stopped my buying cheap goods from China. Not everything is nationalistic.

Case in point and I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but here it is. I have more empathy for the Iraqi civilians killed in this war than I do for the US military deaths. Why? Think about it for a minute. I think you'll get it.

[Lorien]

64. They didn't suggest only buying US made items

just not buying items made in China. China abuses it's people and the environment to a horrific degree, plus many of our jobs have been sent there. Dangerous goods are not the only reason to boycott.

[gaspee]

48. I try

But it's very hard because so many things are made there.

It helps that I'm not a very big consumer.

[MethuenProgressive]

49. You'd better turn off your computer if that's what you want.

Not just the box, but almost everything supporting the WWW has Chinese components.

[EFerrari]

60. That's hurts.

:(

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. Good luck

I went to get some stuff I needed.

I looked at labels

90 percent of the products were made in china

Perhaps, since this included meds, less than 2% were made in the US, but only because we have not outsourced the labs yet

Otherwise, everything was made OUTSIDE the US

It was a gut wrenching feeling to know that I could not avoid these not in the US products even if I tried

Though my nephews will get wood toys made in the US for their birthdays, even if I have to go ahead and make them myself

[lonestarnot]

53. I will avoid their shit whenever possible, especially when there is an available choice.

[sakabatou]

56. Already started

[EFerrari]

57. I'm down but, without a label of origin, how can we know what is what?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately.

[Gabi Hayes]

58. somebody tried....wrote a book about it. as has been said, good luck

http://www.amazon.com/Year-Without-Made-China-Adventure/dp/0470116137

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Bongiorni, on a post-Christmas day mired deep in plastic toys and electronics equipment, makes up her mind to live for a year without buying any products made in China, a decision spurred less by notions of idealism or fair trade-though she does note troubling statistics on job loss and trade deficits-than simply "to see if it can be done." In this more personal vein, Bongiorni tells often funny, occasionally humiliating stories centering around her difficulty procuring sneakers, sunglasses, DVD players and toys for two young children and a skeptical husband.

With little insight into global economics or China's manufacturing practices, readers may question the point of singling out China when cheap, sweatshop-produced products from other countries are fair game (though Bongiorni cheerfully admits the flaws in her project, she doesn't consider fixing them). Still, Bongiorni is a graceful, self-deprecating writer, and her comic adventures in self-imposed inconvenience cast an interesting sideways glance at the personal effects of globalism, even if it doesn't easily connect to the bigger picture.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[rucky]

Your head will explode

when you start noticing how many things are Made in China.

[Telly Savalas]

65. Are non-Chinese sweat-shops are more humane?

Why should I buy something from Indonesia or Bangladesh, but not something from China?

[Fierce]

66. Thank you. I do.

There are some things that are unavoidable. But once you start reading labels, you see how much is made elsewhere...and how much is really still made here.

[ehrnst]

73. Buying secondhand, consuming less, really helps avoid supporting them all

Granted, that does not solve the problem of getting tainted toys or other items, but dollars are not going towards the corporations.

Consuming less, period, is an even better solution. Our country's desire for mountains of affordable stuff feeds the industrial monster.

[Done]

74. If you don't by clothes or shoes from China...

you're going to be naked and barefooted.

[sandnsea]

77. Support LABOR RIGHTS

For us, for all immigrants, and for the workers overseas. When those workers don't fear being fired, or EXECUTED, they will start speaking out about the toxins in the products and demand better regulation.

[Vadem]

78. I have been trying to boycott them, as well as Mexico, Peru, Chile...

etc., for fruits and veggies! Their standards are much lower than ours as far as pesticides are concerned. I'm just buying USA if I can!