It's good to see people make a concerted effort to buy American, and I can appreciate your struggles. I also try, and find that sometimes I do without rather than buy an imported item. I think the same way that you do…. my jobs have always been in American manufacturing, so without items that are made in the usa, I’ll be flipping burgers, that simple.
The last ten years has really eroded our manufacturing base. I was trying to find a USA made spark plug for our motors a few months back and AC Delco, Autolite, Champion and Motorcraft are now all imported… ten years ago they were all domestic.
People really don't care and don't bother asking or looking at the label. I was at Wal Mart a few months back and noticed a lightbulb display with Sylvania (Made in USA) and GE (Mexico) light bulbs. They were identical in every way (60 W 2x life…) including price. However, the only boxes that were missing from the display were the GEs that were on the top display and slightly easier to grab. I bet if you would ask whoever bought those bulbs if they try to buy American products, to a person they’d say ‘yes’. But in reality they don’t want be inconvenienced, not even so much as to bend over to chose the superior American product on the lower shelf, to better support the economy.
It’s a losing battle that’s still worth fighting.
