Buy American, Eh?
by Bret JacobsonYou remember the iconic call by American labor to “look for the union label” (and ignore the price tag)? Well, U.S. union officials have turned to a new slogan, calling for “Buy American” provisions of bailout and stimulus legislation.
In fact, the AFL-CIO labor federation is highlighting its new website, which it says “gives workers, people who have lost their jobs and activists a chance to take action, share their stories, find resources and, most importantly, be part of a grassroots movement to help the nation climb out of its 10-million jobs hole created by the recession.”
But what if those people lost their jobs to Canada? Perhaps it would be best if union bosses stopped being hosers and checked their own Internet host, where the IP address resolves to our brothers in the Great White North (Oh Canada!). We ran this trace from Washington, D.C. to the AFL-CIO’s website:
For hypocrisy, this ranks right up there with outsourcing union pickets to the homeless.
Look: There’s nothing wrong with finding an efficient, cost-effective provider wherever they may be, but this has to be embarrassing to union bosses.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
59 Comments
Pay no attention to the IP behind the curtain.
I'm not afraid to say this (I'm armed), the major force behind the unions always is, always has been, and always will be, organized crime. This is who funds the Democrats. This (along with billionaire pinkos like Soros), prop up the MSM and Obama. Look for the union label? Indeed.
Outsourcing union pickets to the homeless?
Nothing willever embarrass UNION bosses, nothing.
The only thing that gets their attention is cash.
U Are Whining.
Correction, ever since the mud guppy (yes, I know it's Delta Smelt) in California prompted the greenies to shut off the water to one of our most productive fruit and vegetable farming regions, our produce comes almost exclusively from places like Chile.
I've been unemployeed now for four months and my job was shipped to Canada, because CFIUS allowed another foreign invester to buy another American company. Oh and by the way, to the former CFIUS commitee member and congressman, who is on the board of the foreign company, imagine my middle finger pointing in your general direction.
The question is: What would it take to for this country to again become a nation that produces things? Because common sense dictates that if you rely on others for your durables, you are at their mercy.
Excellent catch Bret. Thank you.
FreeKirk, who was the congressman?
aharris….Don't get me started, I can transform into a raving maniac over these agriculture issues
Wonder what happens to this food chain from foreign countries, when the world economy collapses?
Think about the logistics, the transportation costs, OMG, what will happen to Mrs obamariods new
initiative to get more fresh fruits & veg to folks in the inner city? Rought ro….. I know I know, we can
build greenhouses on top of all the skyscrapers…………………Nuff Said
: ) OK, that's pretty funny.
I avoid buying products from unionized companies whenever possible. In the end this usually means that I get the best product at the best price.
I see an awful lot of people wearing union T-shirts and union hats shopping at Walmart. Does Walmart even sell anything made in America?
I would have to agree that if we all started buying American products it would be good for the economy. The US used to manufacture everything. Now we buy it all from China. The products may be cheaper, but we are supporting China’s economy instead of our own. Where will the jobs come from if the US produces nothing?
Glad I am in a small community. We are putting a greenhouse in this year and working on ideas to increase production in our garden. All of my neighbors are pretty much of the same mind….We preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
U Are Whimpering…..
Great point!
I do not shop at Walmart. About a month ago, I had occassion to go into one, with someone else. I killed some time strolling around, checking tags, and stickers, from country of origin. I could not find ONE thing in Walmart, that was made in the USA.
Remember a generation ago? Ol Sam Walton built his empire with the "Made in America Slogan", even when they got caught with the expose' of sewing stickers into garments……….
I remember that too. If American companies were taxed a bit less, it might be worthwhile to make stuff here. As it stands, though, why should a company work hard when the government is going to take most of the income.
The democrats should stop use the donkey as their symbol and switch to the hippo — the hippocrats.
I lost a job to Mexico in 1989 (maquiladoras), my company sent me to Mexico to help set up the assembly line, this Mexican dude was laughing about our jobs coming to them, I replied – laughing back at him "your job will be in China in 10 years", I was wrong, it was 7.
Thanx for the nice post
I will come back soon to read more posts if they are all this good.
Check je later
Henk
Wal-Mart does buy produce from the local farmers where their distribution centers are located, but the volume at this time still requires them to fill out the supply from elsewhere in the county or overseas. Also, we need to withdraw membership from the free treason agreements that are taking our jobs away now. We must do this last step, for if we don’t other countries can slap all kinds of fines and tariffs against us and we have no recourse but to pay them. These ideas you all propose would be declared impediments to trade. We need to negotiate trade agreements nation by nation. What we have now is the kind of treaties/agreements that George Washington warned us to avoid. If we clean up our act, the rest of the world will come to us to manufacture products for them and if we create an environment that is friendly to innovation, so our entrepreneurs can create the products of the future, make them here, and sell them here after hiring their fellow citizens to make them, we will all be better off.
You ever notice the "live better, buy union" bumper stickers are on Toyota's? Did you hear Toyota's new theme song for their commercials? "Ain't No Stopping Us Now".
Avoid Wal Mart, buy at thrift stores.
No joke, the Amish and Mennonites still make a lot of products and can be found on the net if you look hard enough
Unfit
Nitwits
Incapable
Of
National
Spirit
And that ladies and gentlemen is what is known as Astroturfing.
On the question of free trade around the world I believe it comes down to this. Do you want to maintain the high standard of living in the US, or do you want to be more equal with countries like China, India, etc? How can it be fair trade when China manipulates its currency, uses what amounts to slave labor, and is immune from the sort of health, safety, and ecological regulation we have in the US? How can we compete? The only way is to turn the US into something like Communist China. That's not my idea of the American dream. We need to be more isolationist in our trade agreements. We must take care of Americans first, even if that makes China or ?? angry. Years ago Americans bought American cars and supported America. They had a strong sense of patriotism, American pride. Only draft dodging hippie liberals would buy the more expensive imported cars.
You have to make up your mind. Do you want to be and live the American dream, or, do you want to reduce your standard of life in exchange for cheap DVD players and cars with sticky gas pedals?
Before I start,
I should point out that I am from/ live in Bentonville Arkansas.
I meet Sam several times and played TBall with his grandkids.
So my opinion is not unbiased.
However I would like to point out:
1: Sam buit his Empire selling cheap, not just selling American.
If US companies could match price/quailty WM would buy here & aviod impost fees.
2:If you bought food, most likely your chicken/ pork came from another NW Ark company Tyson.
3.Your items where shipped to you via the 2 largest US trucking fleets: WalMart and JB Hunt.
4. Your WM store employes the largest non-union work force in the USA.
5. WM's low prices raise the value of your dollar. Your shirt is $5 instead of $20.
So yes, I would love to see more "made in the USA"
but thats on US manufactures more than it is Walmart.
"Look for the Union Label" and then don't buy!
Gee..Does NAFTA ring a bell…???
I did my own research on this. I did a tracert from my desktop to http://www.aflcio.org, and it times out after 12 hops, ending in Toronto, Canada (most likely because their routers are not set up to respond in an effort to thwart being located?). I also did a domain search, and came up with this…
http://whois.domaintools.com/aflcio.org
After saying all that, I don't really see what the big deal is here..!? Both Bumbay BC, and Toronto on practically on our Northern border. Many people get routed up and back through Canada that live close to the Northern border, in America. The aflcio.org domain was created in 1995, and was last updated roughly one year ago this month. Why is this a big deal now? The AFL (American Federation of Labor) has been around since 1885, and has involved Canada since then, and by 1902 there were 700 locals in Canada. And if there is a Canadian firm providing cheaper hosting than they can find here, then why shouldn't they…?
I don't agree with them hosting outside of the USA, but it is a business decision after all. The question then becomes why, not where…?
we will only be worried about 1 product in the very near future, F O O D!!!!!!! When our refrigerator quits
instead of pitching it, we will find the tinkerer down the street & he will fix it, & he will want to be paid in
cash. Same with autos, really as you said, any durables will be repaired, not replaced. When they
expire, we will probably do without, it's hard to imagine, but how can it be any other way? I believe we
will live much as citizens of the USSR did, waiting for things we need in our everyday lives, on a long
waiting list. I pitied them, when they were suffering, but I find it hard to feel sorry for us, we had the
system to prevent this, but were asleep at the wheel.
Agree OV,…………..However alot of the manufacturing machinery was dismantled to be shipped to
China & Indonesia. I know the weaving machinery from fabric mills all over the South were shipped
abroad. The Gvt had advised vertical integration in the Ag industry, so cotton farmers in Txz formed
co-op's to build fabric (denim) mills, which, by the time they were paid for were obsolete, but they were
good enough to sell to China. If other manufacturing sectors have been similarly phased out, what
can we actually manufacture here?
There is nothing wrong with Canadian trade,the US and Canada share many of the same values, and interest, as well have similar laws protecting workers, and its citizens. The problems arise when we trade with countries that do not share the same values, or have the same protections for its employees, as is the case with China, in its currency manipulation, dumping and counterfeiting, as well as little or no regulation on pollutants, minimum wage, safe working conditions, I could go on and on, but the point is we should be promoting FAIR trade, not free trade!!
Not me there Lorben… I hear you and….. wish you good luck on this Y2K endeavor of yours and I too will do what ever it takes.
However, …as for me…….when all is lost,…….
I am going to be like that chat in the Tux on the Titanic after the ship's fate has been sealed
" I will have a brandy, though"
foremer Congressman James Saxton-NJ(R)
Lorben……..you do realize you will need 24/7 security for that greenhouse, if we have a societal
breakdown? Good luck with your garden, I'm supersizing mine this year. Want to be able to feed
about 3 or 4 families if need be. I havn't needed to can in years, just froze everything. I'm buying
extra Mason jars regularly, sold most of ours at a garage sale years ago. I'm getting the 'itch' to
dig, the Gurneys catalog came a couple of days ago, although it's too early to start, we don't plant
until after Easter, this year around 4/10, need to check the almanac. We have unusual soil
moisture this year, so need to be careful not to waste it by working the soil too early or too much.
Nothing wrong with being prepared, we're getting a sizable generator, so we may continue to
pump our well, at 350 feet it's too deep for manual pumping, but we could reinstall our windmill,
if needed. It has not been operational for 50 years.
It's also a business decision on products an indivudual will purchased.
yeah hkyntn,……….we have soooo much in common with our neighbors to the north, like socialized
healthcare, and doncha love their immigration policy ie. anyone who shows up on their soil with no
pasport, no papers of any kind is given asylum.
Not quite sure how a business decision correlates with an individual making a purchase?
I catch your drift however…
This doesnt even make financial sense – US web hosts are generally less expensive. I wonder if they locate their site there to be out of immediate reach of US and state govs.
Walmart is just one example of the problem, not the whole thing. They do game the system though by their sheer size, forcing manufacturers to move operations overseas if they want to do business with walmart. I don't blame Walmart for running a money making business. I blame US trade policy and strangling regulation of US manufacturers.
Why make anything? The government pays almost double the salary with all the perks at no risk. Pure gravy. (/sarc)
Can anyone else out there see the problem?
It will require a combination of more automation, lower taxes, or a restructuring of taxes that will amount to the same thing, and an end to the Union mentality.
When a union auto-worker, after being laid off from his mindless button-pusher-job and sent to the 'Job Bank' makes MORE for just sitting on his ass than the engineer who designed, built, and programmed the robotic automation that put the auto-worker in the job-bank, then something is out of whack. It's not that the engineer is making nothing. Its that the union worker is being paid more than double what he should really be making, and the idea that he can make this kind of money for sitting on is ungrateful ass in the 'Job Bank' is abominable. Without the overhead of the union wages and other goodies such as their overly-generous healthcare and pension, how much cheaper could US-made automobiles be?
When US Federal taxes cause American-made goods to cost more to foreign buyers, while many foreign companies do not assess taxes on foreign-made goods that are sold here in the US, then American manufacturers are at a major disadvantage.
And then regulations that actually encourage US manufacturers to outsource are also part of the problem. CAFE standards were meant to encourage an increase in the average fuel economy of American made cars, but the result was that American car makers could simply make a domestic car out of foreign-made components, and the domestic car was 'considered' an import for the sake of complying with the standards. Other new regulations that will drive manufacturing out of the US is the upcoming Cap & Trade regulations that will raise the cost of US manufacturing significantly. Manufacturing will simply relocate to India, China, or other nations that don't engage in the AGW-hoax-driven tax-grab.
Yes we need to make things, but we also need to be able to afford things as well. One way this happens is through automation. The price of domestic goods is lowered through automation. What most people don't know is that a greater number of manufacturing jobs have been 'lost' to automation as factories automate here in the US, than have been lost to factories moving to China or elsewhere.
- Jay
China is an evil regime and unless one has spent time there, it is unknown to most Americans. Here are some hard facts: China is using the money it is making on US debt to build more factories to take the REST of the American manufacturing jobs. The COMMUNIST (and corrupt) government wants to put EVERY SINGLE CHINESE CITIZEN to work and they have a great social service plan: Work or DIE in a slave labor camp. There are a billion people in China and EVERY single one of them works in some way for the benefit of the state. When they get to old to work, they go to live with their younger family members. There's no possible way that the USA can compete with this kind of manufacturing juggernaut. They don't have unions to protect their workers, they have slave labor camp where political dissidents and convicts are forced to work–or they will execute them. This is the reality in the country we owe TRILLIONS of dollars to–and now they have stopped buying our debt. 27 cents of every dollar the USA spends is borrowed and the insane politicians keep right on spending borrowed money. Our way of life is rapidly coming to an end and if we don't turn out all of the Congress and 1/3 of the Senate in the 2010 election, we are not going to survive this. Vote out all incumbents and get some fiscally responsible businesspeople and economists in the legislature who understand the consequences and are prepared to act to save our nation–and PRAY it is not too late!!
I'm the Conservative NOMINEE for the 12th Illinois Congressional seat and we have to act now! Visit my site at
http://www.voteforteri2010.com and find out more. America needs ALL of us to unite and the time is now!
China is an evil regime and unless one has spent time there, it is unknown to most Americans. Here are some hard facts: China is using the money it is making on US debt to build more factories to take the REST of the American manufacturing jobs. The COMMUNIST (and corrupt) government wants to put EVERY SINGLE CHINESE CITIZEN to work and they have a great social service plan: Work or DIE in a slave labor camp. There are a billion people in China and EVERY single one of them works in some way for the benefit of the state. When they get to old to work, they go to live with their younger family members. There's no possible way that the USA can compete with this kind of manufacturing juggernaut. They don't have unions to protect their workers, they have slave labor camp where political dissidents and convicts are forced to work–or they will execute them. This is the reality in the country we owe TRILLIONS of dollars to–and now they have stopped buying our debt. 27 cents of every dollar the USA spends is borrowed and the insane politicians keep right on spending borrowed money. Our way of life is rapidly coming to an end and if we don't turn out all of the Congress and 1/3 of the Senate in the 2010 election, we are not going to survive this. Vote out all incumbents and get some fiscally responsible businesspeople and economists in the legislature who understand the consequences and are prepared to act to save our nation–and PRAY it is not too late!!
I'm the Conservative NOMINEE for the 12th Illinois Congressional seat and we have to act now! Visit my site at
http://www.voteforteri2010.com and find out more. America needs ALL of us to unite and the time is now!
Can't add anything to this comment! It's as old as the Democratic Party, too! Even the fight at the OK Corral in the latter 1800's was against the Irish Mob! I'll believe you'll find that ACORN is a mob outfit, too!
Right on the money, Cowboy. These animals have no shame.
FreeKirk, give us a name. We should know who are enemies are.
Ms. Newman. I cannot endorse you because I am not a a resident of Illinois. I won't indorse you because I do not see an unqualified endorsement of the constitution as written. You speak all around it, but to it suggesting that you would compromise the foundation of our republic for political advantage. We the people need representatives that will keep the constitution strong and inviolate. Also, we need to withdraw from these multilateral trade agreements and negotiate strictly on a nation by nation basis. These are the only ways to protect and serve the nation and keep us strong.
This just proves that their Unionization of the world is on track!
Good post, I favorited your site so I can visit again in the near future, Thanks
Jay…….The best opportunity to get these unions cut down to size was the failure of GM & Chrysler.
If they had declared bankruptcy unions all over the world would have taken heed. We won't get that
opportunity ever again. Agree about automation being the answer, as it has actually been ongoing
for 40 years, maybe longer. When automation replaces workers, those workers must not be kept
on payroll, as has been the practice. These so called job banks are a joke to any average blue-collar
US worker. Auto Execs who negotiated these ridiculous contracts over a period of 30 years, should
have been drawn & quartered. They had the same mindset as congress does now. They thought
every year or 3 years when the UAW contract was up that, since they were renegotiating, the boss,
should give the unions a little something more. After 30 years the workers ended up owing the place,
with a little help from their congressional friends.
Inferior quality, price too high:
U.A.W. = U Ain't Workin
We don't see hardly anything that's made here in the US except food products. Almost everything is MADE IN CHINA. This is very sad. Thanks to all of our Progressive lawmakers in DC. MADE IN THE USA =UNION. I didn't know that.
Unproductive Arrogant Whiners
However, my Walmart experience is different. I always look at where a product is made and can find items made in the USA in Walmart, think plastics, toys, containers, even some clothing. I also notice that Walmart carries more clothing NOT made in China, but in other developing countries. Stop and think for a moment about the fact that our government has regulated our industries into other countries. It is a business' job to make money and when you combine that with the American desire to have more for less – this is what you get. Walmart is still American owned, and does employ many Americans, and does offer a decent healthcare plan – or so say the cashiers I have spoken to.
[...] View original here: » Buy American, Eh? – Big Government [...]
Create the environment the work will find its way here. Especially if things in China go south. Inovation and new products are the way out. China is not the inovative. Just about every product they manufacture was created, developed, and designed somewhere else.
And I will raise a snifter of brandy in honor of you and say a prayer for you, knowing your fighting the good fight.
You know that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has no foreign intel gathering capability?
They gather intelligence on things going on INSIDE Canada. So does the union really think it's safe or does it realize…?
Well said sensible99. The 800 pound gorilla question that "FREE TRADERS" can't and don't want to answer is how do you sell goods and services to people who have no money? Consumers have already maxed out their credit cards and home equities, so there is nothing left.
I have driven, and enjoyed, General Motors cars for a long time. I just have not had all the issues others at least claim to have had. If I buy a new car in the future, it will not be from any UAW-controlled company, and that includes Ford. The only way I will end up with another UAW car is if I inherit, or buy from a family member disposing of a used car.
Otherwise, my next new car will come out of a factory in a Right To Work state, built in a non-union plant.
former Congressman James Saxton-NJ(R)
You must be logged in to post a comment.