I support your stance 1000% and am willing (even eager) to help compile a hardware "Made In" list if that would be of value and isn't already being done somewhere else.

It does get complicated.
We (United States) have American companies in China and Japan. (Mexico too) They have companies here in the U.S.A. Some of those companies are run by and employ Americans.
Some products are made in China, (or just assembled in China) but the parts come from other parts of the world including here at home.
So just it because it says 'Made In China' that might not be the whole story.

absolutely and I know. And we are supporting it. We are so blind IMHO.

I know there are more than we would think, very reputable manufacturers whom are now forced to use Chinese components like steel casings, plastics, screws and so on. But this stuff is shipped there as trash, contaminated by products, toxic plastics and who knows what is was before and sent back to us, We heat it up and run these electronic products in our studios. I have such a problem with all this now and I want it to turn around. I want us to get our pride back and take control of our world. These people don't even know what they are making for god sakes. And there are so many here that need jobs.

I think we should have labels listing what all products have inside them so we know where it is made and what it is made of. Then we can make our own choice. Its a start and the only way to get us back on track.

Its a problem and I am so sick of it and feeling so worried. My house is filled with it and my children are playing with all this stuff that we bought.

And, local boutique shops here are closing the doors as I sit and support the reason. Made in China filled box stores are becoming a feed lot. Small companies that took pride are closing and tired/
We are spending more energy thinking about building and supporting things made cheaper than we are of quality. Its all so ugly and against all the fathers who stood tall and blazed this trail before us.

Its so complicated. It's a web.

And I am willing to pay more if it is made better for the planet, our lives and our industry. Right now I don't think we are doing the best we could be. I think our priorities are off balance.

A big problem here in N. America is we don't want to manufacture these electronic components or assemblies.
There is a huge problem with environmental concerns with the process of making all that stuff.
This is why a lot if it has been sent to third world countries because they have little or no restrictions.
The labor force in many of these countries have little or no safety regulations to protect them like we rely on and benefit from here.
In the US and Canada the laws we've passed over the years have made it impossible for businesses to operate. We have voted and demanded "not in my backyard".
We've literally driven these industries away permanently.....
We enjoy the benefits from all this...lower cost products that we wouldn't normally be able to afford if it was built here, environmental quality and control and safety in our homes and the workplace.....it's a huge tradeoff!
I just don't see how we can turn back from that "progress" and even if we could at what cost to our future and lifestyle?
Eventually China will realize the same things we have found (probably sooner than we did) and this will change and the next third world nation will take over until we run out of third worlds...
The truth of the matter is nothing in the modern industrialized world has ever been safe.
And it's just a matter of time before business and profit has no more consumers...

"Fabricated in Malaysia"

The problem is that we make these rules that we think can last forever, but they really can't. The only way we can get back on our feet is to do something about free trade... but that's not going to happen.

I wasn't around during the 50's, but after the war and such, we became the hugest power because we were a producer for EVERYONE. Then we rode our laurels, got lazy, and now look where we are.

We need to make it cheaper to make goods here in the US than it is to import them. But we created such a ridiculous dynamic with our own wealth vs the extreme poverty of other countries, it's nearly impossible. We would need some very high tariffs in order to do that. We have a lot of flawed systems, and everyone's hand is in the next guys pocket. You may be fearing for the recording industry, but I'm fearing for the country! I don't know what's going to happen in my lifetime at all...

I could go on forever, and probably not come up with a solution or even a good point... so I'm just going to try to work on some music.

When I was 20 years old, 33 years ago I read an article in Popular Mechanics about a family (I believe was Texas) who had been making high quality bolts since the early 1900's. This company supplied most of the bolts made for bridges, towers and so on. They took pride is using the very best materials. These bolts would hold your bridges together.

The article was all about Asian bolts that looked just like theirs but would not pass if they were put under stress. They were deeply concerned and trying to educate the nation. They said that these bolts would not hold the way their bolts would and if we didn't stop this, there would be a day of great regret.

I know why we all are trying to save a buck but haven't we figured it out by now. I'm going to shut up now and move on. I'm sure what I'm saying isn't new to any of us. But, i think if we don't start thinking differently, there might not be a way out when push comes to shuv.

djmukilteo, post: 359743 wrote: A big problem here in N. America is we don't want to manufacture these electronic components or assemblies.
There is a huge problem with environmental concerns with the process of making all that stuff.
This is why a lot if it has been sent to third world countries because they have little or no restrictions.
The labor force in many of these countries have little or no safety regulations to protect them like we rely on and benefit from here.
In the US and Canada the laws we've passed over the years have made it impossible for businesses to operate. We have voted and demanded "not in my backyard".
We've literally driven these industries away permanently.....
We enjoy the benefits from all this...lower cost products that we wouldn't normally be able to afford if it was built here, environmental quality and control and safety in our homes and the workplace.....it's a huge tradeoff!
I just don't see how we can turn back from that "progress" and even if we could at what cost to our future and lifestyle?
Eventually China will realize the same things we have found (probably sooner than we did) and this will change and the next third world nation will take over until we run out of third worlds...
The truth of the matter is nothing in the modern industrialized world has ever been safe.
And it's just a matter of time before business and profit has no more consumers...

"Fabricated in Malaysia"

Yup, as we buy shrimp, oysters ,seafood that live in the same water they dump everything from carcass from rotting cows where leather products come from and so many other things we call a good deal. So we are supporting it and thinking its not effecting us here.

The politics and trade agreements make it nearly impossible to invoke dramatic change. Grassroots efforts to NOT buy China-made products stand a better chance of success because they can not be controlled by legislators, corporations, unions, etc. The consumers have the power - they just either don't know it or refuse to wield that power.

I work in the manufacturing sector and there are REAL issues with material control for products made in China. Many times, recalls are caused by tier 2 or tier 3 suppliers of components that are in China and components or materials are released into the supply chain which do NOT meet the specifications indicated by the OEM. This is why "Engineered in USA" or "Assembled in the USA of imported materials" doesn't amount to a hill of beans because by the time a quality spill is realized, the whole supply chain is filled with defective product - the lag time can be very significant from when the sub-quality item makes it out into the public sector. What makes matters worse is when you are dealing with a closed economy like China, the recourse to make whole the OEM is nearly non-existent. Some Chinese executive gets fired (or worse) and we are supposed to believe all is well again.

Sorry - aside from audio production, I have a keen passion for economics and politics as well.

As could I saNz!
It's a global thing now...and we here (US/Canada) are still the largest consumers of goods in the world!
We buy things here that people in other parts of the world don't even know exist....something as "basic" items like deodorant and dryer sheets or toothpaste which we buy every second of every day doesn't even exist in a billion humans lives...and there are literally thousands of this kind of "stuff" we buy every day that we come to expect in our lives...
I was just reading an article about the changes that are occurring in places like China and India where just that one concept of deodorant alone is changing their economies! Colgate-Palmolive is opening new plants in China just to keep up with demand!
What's happened is....we already are the stable consumer market and the corporations have to expand into new markets and new consumers.
GM just recently announced that their new business model has to be manufacturing facilities within the country where the product will be sold. This is a corporate paradigm shift. Cars built by GM in China will be sold in China at Chinese prices...
WTO agreements, NAFTA all of it will geographically consolidate the consumer market base and the only thing that's needed then is the jobs and paychecks to maintain the consumers...
There are certain things we are still good at building...unfortunately it's really expensive and military hardware requires a market base....hmmm what a business model!

I know a few companies who came back from China because of the low quality they produced in their Chinese factories. Some had to truggle to get back their good name and reputation, others went down the drain...
I have watched this for several years, now, and I have adjusted my shopping habits to look for the REAL country of orgin. I was much surprised that, e.g., Logitech lets his stuff manufactur in C. as well. This is a Swizz company...and I don't buy them, anymore. This also explanes the lower quality over their earlier products, too. Were ever possible I buy stuff that hasn't traveled half around the world. Some quality devices from abroad are excluded from this, though. Presonus had the remote of their central station made in China,as well. I talked to Rick Naqvi at Presonus beause the TB buttons of 2 CentralStations went kaput. He appologized and said, they were about to move the production back to the States because of the low quality coming from China, too.
Considering the constant contamination of fabrics and toys with all kinds of harmfull chemistry, I have stopped buying those products, long ago. Still you can find some in my home, because of lausy import regulations they can stick a "Made in the EU" or others on their goods through importers..
I hate that!!

globalization. It's not going away. I'm no expert. 'they'll do it cheaper' is the bottom line, whoever 'they' are. U.S owned companies run international business, out of the country. I can buy the best 'watcha-call-it', it just won't be from a centralized location, unless i mandate/pay. The bottom line of capitalism is profit, which equals power. since u.s is taking over factories any/everywhere, i become less worried of quality average stuff. i worry more about refined arts of craftsmanship, which will be exponentially increased/reduced.
National Fruit, is worth looking into how 'U.S' takes/pushes stuff.
U.S has also been known to sell their outdated weapons to their own 'opposing' countries. Kinda like selling your old rust-bucket car to a person, and racing it against your shiny new one. It's a sickening form of quality control.
Ugh, as an american, the old 'made in the u.s.a' stamp istn't there anymore. Figuratively and literally. Lazy americans would rather 'collect' than put their work into products. It's funny how we still cherish european made products, even tho they are part of globalization too.
Can i blame the factory owner using illegal labor to process their product? (fish in my area) Can i blame the illegal worker? YES! both are to blame!! Why would i expect any sort of QC from either party? after all capitalism is money FIRST. Call me a lazy American, but i still wouldn't trade my 'Japanese' brand car for an American brand. In the last few minutes of the day, it's just a brand. 'Foreign' brake pads are made in the same factory as 'domestic' ones, albeit to different requirements, but its all a name game now, globalization has taken it's place, and will grow. Until IMO we get too close to one another and become segregated again, this time over power, not cuz of physical limitations. You know what they taught me as a finance major in the U.S and it's a quote "you have to be prepared to put your morals aside" nice huh?

Consumers make choices and the market reacts. Anything can be changed. But it won't, just like the big box stores that sell appliances for $10.00 an appliance profit killed the small family owned appliance stores. We can do something about this if if we try, surely nothing if we don't.

I fully empathize with you, audiokid. natural is correct to bring up the fact that it's difficult to truly discern what companies are chinese and which are not. EZmpc is also correct in pointing out that probably the most effective way to invoke change is via a grassroots effort.

One point that I would like to make is that we experienced a similar situation starting around the 1970's with Japan. It was around that time that we started experiencing a deluge of competitively priced products from that country and after some period of time there was a growing grassroots effort to "Buy American". There is a natural tendency to be xenaphobic and fear that by benefiting "them" we are hurting ourselves. I would expect that the current onslaught of Chinese products will begin to moderate in the coming years as they have to deal with the internal after effects of their booming economy. Their government cannot control the inflationary effects forever and their quickly expanding middle-class will require substantially more internal consumption.

"The China Issue" has of course been discussed everywhere else, but I just wanted to point out these two threads on another forum. There's overlap in what's already been said, but maybe some interesting points as well.
[="http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/169516-tale-bad-capacitors-taking-company-down.html"]Tale of bad capacitors taking a company down - diyAudio[/]="http://www.diyaudio…"]Tale of bad capacitors taking a company down - diyAudio[/]
[[url=http://="http://www.diyaudio…"]do you own a chinese tube integrate? does it.... smell? - diyAudio[/]="http://www.diyaudio…"]do you own a chinese tube integrate? does it.... smell? - diyAudio[/]
The question is only partly about country of origin - the first thread shows how Dell tried for years to sweep a bad component problem under the rug whereas Apple did just the opposite, admitted to it and fixed things at their own cost. Both are US companies with Chinese parts suppliers. Admittedly (this is my own generalizing), a larger company is more likely to operate like Dell, and a smaller one, or any company truly interested in its long-term reputation will operate like Apple. It's the same as always, you pay more to get better quality, or at least better service when quality falls short.

In the long term China WILL do better with quality, environmental concerns and all that, just as Japan has done over the decades, and if there's enough pressure from Western consuming nations for China to clean up its act, China's product quality could conceivably increase faster than did Japan's.

I have little or no clue what this means for the economies of all the different countries involved.

I'm with you audiokid. I avowed not to buy anything the made in China about 9 months ago, unless I absolutely could not help it. It was kind of like the same process as when I became a vegatarian a few years back. It's a lot of label reading, (and a bit more expensive) but you get used to it. It's also a little empowering after a while.

Of course sometimes it is totally unavoidable. Some observations to this:

1) My cable company uses MIC boxes. I have returned them 3 times due to malfunction. When you do this- they literally throw your old one in a big huge pile of other crappy boxes

2) I had to buy a home heater because I was freezing my nuts off. Every space heater I could find was MIC. unfortuntaly I had to cave. I am sure it will break just like the one I had last year.

3) I use a telephone headset at work. Could not find one not MIC. It is my 4rd one in 3 years.

4) My dog's favourite toy is a mouse on a cord. It is MIC, he has informed me that he does not wish to participate in my boycott.

5) My ipod is MIC. Ipods are made by a company called Foxconn in reportadly slavelike conditions for workers (paid $120 per month, controlled by armed guards all that nice stuff). But hey, what can you do- it's my ipod.

Good book to read about this is Thomas Friedman's Hot Flat and Crowded [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.amazon.c…"]Amazon.com: Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America (9780374166854): Thomas L. Friedman: Books[/]="http://www.amazon.c…"]Amazon.com: Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America (9780374166854): Thomas L. Friedman: Books[/]. In one of the early chapters he presents a worker in a chinese factory who apparently who finds it funny that we American's (audiokid is off the hook here!) buy so much crap that we dont need that breaks all the time and then buy again.

Pretty much everything I own is an American brand made somewhere else than in America.

For this to change we need to reform the worlds constantly failing economy, which is probably only going to happen while we are still alive!

RSA explains it pretty well.
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.youtube…"]YouTube - RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism[/]="http://www.youtube…"]YouTube - RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism[/]