Should we buy products made in China?

In one word, “yes” we should buy all the Chinese products we can afford while there’s still time to get them at the artificially low prices they’re offered. At the same time, we should “return” all the Chinese products that don’t work or meet our standards, to the stores where we bought them.
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My wife and I bought three (3) Oster brand bread makers made in China, as Christmas gifts. ($69.00 each at Bed Bath & Beyond was further reduced to $55.00 each.) The clerk at BB&B said, “You can return them if they don’t work.”…that was telling.
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We and our kids each opened and used our Osters with the same result, collapsed and burnt loaves. Back to the store they went (all 3), and we bought Panasonics ($119) and a Zojurushi ($225), both also made in China. They however work beautifully. The bread is excellent.
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Let’s face it, we all own many, many products from China, some that work amazingly well, some that don’t work at all, some that were dead on arrival. But let’s be honest, we all own more “stuff” than we ever could have afforded if our stuff was made in America.
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What if every American owned all the “stuff” they wanted and didn’t really need anything else? This is not only possible, it’s inevitable. I’m 65 and I don’t need much more. We enjoy cooking and we own every kitchen tool you could imagine. We own enough televisions, enough cell phones, enough computers, enough furniture. What does China have to offer us, AFTER we’ve accumulated what we need?
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Here-in lays the answer to understanding the threat of Chinese goods and reconciling our own jobless economy in America.
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Have you ever bought a product that was “dead on arrival”, that didn’t perform out of the box? Although you were angry, did you take the loss because returning it was more expensive than the cost? Remember when products were serviceable. If they broke you could order parts and repair them. Those days are over. Now we simply purchase blind and hope we’re lucky. If not, we just throw them away and take the loss.
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Stop doing that. Instead, review every product on line and choose the best. Require a “no questions asked warranty” on everything you buy. Return everything that doesn’t work. Drive the manufacturers of bad products out of the business of making junk. If that policy is good enough for America, it’s good enough for China.
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Panasonic and Zojurushi are Japanese companies who apparently exploit China’s work force while requiring Japanese (visa-vi US) quality (an engineering acumen learned from America).
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In Sept to Oct of 2011 America imported $28-Billion more (principally consumer goods), than it exported (principally soy beans and petroleum products) to China.
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Though the deficit Is alarming, it means that China is holding $28 Billion that it has to “cash in” in American goods at some point. The other alternative of course is to loan their surplus holdings of US dollars back to America, a policy that’s very good for China and very bad for the US. In effect, it converts the balance of payments (trade deficit) into Chinese ownership of American soil. Remember when the surge of Japanese industry displaced our auto industry in the 80’s? They came to America with all that cash and bought property and industries.
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My point:
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If America stops borrowing its own money back from China, and starts returning defective goods, China will be forced to spend their American dollars on American products and services. In turn, America needs to focus on innovation and new product development, to produce the new millennium of technology the world needs. There’s two sides to the “If we build it, they will come” game. China’s game strategy is to take over all the time-honored technologies (consumer goods and expired-patent products). Let ‘em do it! Good for them, good for us. If you need a new refrigerator, get it now while the price is right.
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America’s game strategy should be to patent and develop new and very expensive over-the-top technology, charging AMERICAN prices and hiring American workers to build those technologies. If we build it, China will come. It has to if it wants to sell its products in the US, plain and simple, it can’t use those American dollars for anything else (like buying American assets or lending American money).
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What our government is doing wrong?
1) We’re spending more money on their goods than China is spending on ours.
2) Then we’re borrowing the money back at interest.
3) Then we’re trying to tax American business to make up the deficit.
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What is American business doing wrong?
1) We’re exporting our innovation instead of our products. We’re enabling China (via US multinational formations) to innovate and develop the new millennium of world class products in China.
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Why is American business going to China?
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1) China offers a better stimulus package to our businesses than our current government offers.
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So, prepare yourself. Buy everything you absolutely need now, but only if it works and only if you can afford it. Then find out how you can invest yourself in America’s new technologies. Those are the "jobs" of our future, not building refrigerators.