[orange, proud]
I’m willing to pay more for products MADE IN THE USA because I’m a based patriot who wants to SUPPORT REAL AMERICANS
[green, accusatory]
OK then how about supporting american workers by paying them a living wage?
[orange, dismissively shaking their hands while having a look of absolute disgust on their face]
NO
[the comic is squished into a funneling triangle shape for some reason]
“ Also, how about paying more for oil since we’re bombing Iran? It’s made in the US!
“ NOOOO!!
Republicans support businesses not workers. The people who own the businesses benefit.
Republicans support businesses not workers. The people who own the businesses benefit.
Why do you think it’s “Republicans” and not “Republicans & Democrats”?
Kinda silly, really.
Look around. Union membership is down to under 10% (from over 40%), wages are historically low, our “labor party” abandoned labor many decades ago. The New Deal is now very old and just about dead.
Nooo there are theoretical undecided voters you’re gonna confuse them don’t criticize Dems!
You do have a fair point there, I should be more inclusive.
Nice strawman. Keep fighting it, bud.
How is it a straw man? Show your work, pal
The subjects are not “superficially similar”, in fact, you can’t have A (made in America) without B (wages)
This is an accurate portrayal of the opinions of countless “america first” dipshits, common enough that you’ve definitely seen it
I’ll do anything for the USA except for things that require me to do work or spend money.
A real american:
Funny how American = European American, whereas everyone else needs a prefix in front of them.
It should be American = Native American, and everyone else should keep the prefix.
“America” was a European invention (Vespucci). The Native Americans didn’t think of it as one unified land mass.
Native American is quite proper, you’re trying to add some racism here where there is clearly not. We refer to American as anyone who lives here, not just European Americans? Where the fuck do you get your information? lol
That’s not an American, that’s a Hunkpapa Sioux.
Which is one of the native American tribes.
And they were not in america?
THE OG OF THE WORLD … YA’LL ARE INTRUDERS
Is this LUCA?
All humans should be deported from planet earth as illegal invasive species, and restore this glorious planet to unicellular organisms.
Yeast?
Too advanced, they came later, it’s just an unforgotten Amoeba.
La di da, with your cellular walls and your organelles. Piss off, ya foreign gobshite!
Certain companies have tried this in a heads-up fashion: offer both the USA made option and one made overseas. The catch is the one made in the USA is 3x more expensive.
0% of people bought the USA-made one.
The few Made In America products with a 200% premium over the overseas competition I am aware of are not short on customers.
Of the many, many, many, “66% off from the factory” overseas products out there, almost none reach American retail shelves without a markup that gets them within 25% of the price of their “locally”-produced counterparts.
Your “certain companies” set-up those consumers to fail, in order to convince share-holders that their brands wouldn’t suffer from off-shoring production.
You should try being more selective with your sources.
I think you’re missing my point. It’s not that “people don’t buy American, even though it’s more expensive.” I’m saying that when done in a heads-up way, Americans will nearly unanimously choose the lower cost option instead of buying American; not because it’s American, but because it’s cheaper. Out of the examples of Redwing boots and Lodge cookware, how much cheap, disposable trash is purchased instead of the highly durable, more expensive goods?
I understand this is “hand-wavy” and I do not intend it with snark: my sources are literally every big-box and online retailer inventory sheet in the US, especially at America’s largest retailers; Walmart and Amazon to name a few.
Also, I would say that companies in nearly all cases benefit financially by offshoring of production. Their sales may take a short term hit, but any decrease in sales is vastly outweighed by hysterically larger profit margins.
My point is that cost is the driver, not moral stance. I’m also not judging. Looking at the average income in the US vs GDP, it’s entirely understandable behavior.
I also don’t want to piss you off, but you seem upset. Is it fair to say that you prefer to buy American? If so, good for you. We should pay all workers what they’re worth, Americans included. This comment is on a cartoon, brother. I’m just saying “yes, and…”
The few Made In America products with a 200% premium over the overseas competition I am aware of are not short on customers.
Name one.
Could I interest you in a https://www.jjgeorgestore.com/the-smarter-scrubber/
admitedly, I’m not certain that they’re not short on customers he made them a few years ago and they’re still being sold, could just be backstock
Destin from the YouTube channel Smarter Every Day had a hand in the creation of this. Is a great video highlighting the dire situation of US manufacturing.
Okay that’s pretty cool, still yeah idk if i can afford that when i can buy a basic scrubber for two bucks.
Agreed, but his bit about scrubber wire coming off and getting swallowed has made me strongly consider buying one of these.
Absolutely not. No normal people are buying it. People dedicated to buy in the USA were.
All those components he purchased were at the best possible price they could give him.
We don’t have enough manufacturing capability anymore to have internal competition. We can’t compete against china so we don’t even try.
The owners and stock-holders get the lions share and we’re left paying $2 for a $0.10 bolt.
We get it, you’re the bottom of the triangle. That a flex where you’re from?
I dont even know what flex means lmao im too old for that stuff
I’m probably older than you, or at least my adult children still answer the phone when I call and I’ll almost-certainly spend time with any grand-babies when that day comes.
“Out-of-touch” isn’t the flex you think it is either. Oh, and “flex” comes from workout-culture - its probably older than either of us.
I try to avoid American products wherever possible :)
I will pay more for a non-US option
I loved it when “smarter every day” decided to make a stand and try to build a grill brush, sourced in the US from all US parts, he couldn’t get some of the trivial parts from known US sources and it was still all over $100
Chauvinistic every day
I miss something? I don’t watch all his stuff, but I haven’t seen him be too horrible, aside from the occasional cluelessness.
The referenced videos where he tries to scare people into buying his American made $100 BBQ scraper. He drops the “this is because of jobs in the US” facade when he tries to import the chainmail from India and shows that the whole angle was just sinophobia.
Yeah, the whole video was a bit strange. Interestingly, telling about the US’s current fabrication capabilities. Just about all manufacturing in the US is now pretty dependent upon China, which in itself isn’t a problem, but for a country where a large chunk of the population thinks they can just homestead without fabrication, it’s a wakeup call.
Yea he’s a bit off…though I haven’t watched him in years and so I couldn’t tell you something accurate about the current him.
Basically the same sort of thing happened to him as to Veritasium, but in a different way.
I am definitely willing to pay more just to avoid stuff made in the USA and Israel.
This is a dumb strawman.
There’s basically two consumers, plus a bunch of lies told by the Epstein class.
Consumer 1: Wants a good product produced in a way they feel good about at a fair price. This typically includes preferring both locally made and fair wage pricing, as well as not-killing-the-planet.(Non-sociopaths who are currently not afraid about their finances tomorrow, tend to fall in this category.)
Consumer 2: Just needs the lowest price possible to survive another day. (People may drift btween these two modes, based on life events.)
Cosumer 3: Epstein class rapist. Wants you to believe their crimes are somehow your neighbor’s fault.
Edit: This maybe flew over my head. Is Orange man Epstein class?
Lol.
This maybe flew over my head. Is Orange man Epstein class?
I am guessing they’re orange to hint that they’re MAGA.
And now, then, I think this may shock you, but there is a fourth consumer class, and they’re a bigger class than you might think. They don’t think about whether a product makes them feel good. They don’t think about whether a specific product is at a low price. Even if they’re poor, they don’t think about budgets, and they tend to be heavily in credit card debt. These people’s defining characteristic is that they don’t think much about anything. They simply choose some authority figure to tell them how to live and then they do whatever they’re told to do. They may occasionally spout out a bit of propaganda out of nowhere, but importantly, they have never once deeply thought about it themselves. They lack even the basic mental tools to think about it.
When challenged, they’ll just say some other bit of propaganda, or they’ll get angry, but they’ll obstinately refuse to think even the tiniest bit for themselves. They have what is called an authoritarian personality, “characterized by a disposition to treat the voice of authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect.” If you look at the Wikipedia article, you’ll see there is a high correlation between having an authoritarian personality and being poorly educated or being religious (especially being an Evangelical Protestant).
Now, then back to the question about the comic. It is impossible to tell whether the orange man is Epstein class or whether he’s simply a mindless MAGA drone with an authoritarian personality, because they say the exact same things. One says it because they’re evil, and one says it because they refuse to question anything that the evil people say.
I mean I’d have to say, it is a sizable portion of americans. IE the whole selling point of tarrifs is to encourage manufacturing and jobs to move over here. There certainly is a significant amount of overlap between people that want more manufacturing in america that also widely want minimum wage to stay the same or even go down.
Now obviously this ven diagram isn’t a circle, there’s plenty of people that do actually want products to be made by people making enough to live on, both not screwing over labor in the global south etc… or in the US.
What you’re missing is that actual “Made In America” products, the ones that don’t just get a nice label based on a technicality, usually are made by workers paid a living-wage, so long as those products aren’t burgers.
Sucks for the burger-flippers, but without those other products, there are fewer living-wage jobs available to them to escape the minimum-wage trap.
Fewer well-paid workers results in fewer well-educated children. Resulting in more of the cognitave-dissonance-but-accidentally-maybe-doing-one-thing-right voters OOP has a problem with.
… but by all means, attacking certain “buy-local” people for only understanding the part of the message where one speaks with their wallet, and using the wrong, “patriotic”-and-not-en-vogue phrasing … yeah, its super-important work being done in these three low-effort panels without nuance or elaboration, yo.
Not only will I buy American I will buy from genuine local buissness. It will be much more pricy but I view it as a long term investment that I feel will pan out in the long term
As much as I think that’s noble, I doubt that applies to every product you buy. Picking only one category is a bit disingenuous.
Buying food? Sure. Buying hardware and tools? Sure. Buying clothes? Sure.
All of the above? I doubt it, man, unless you’re REALLY well off…
True it isn’t a 100℅ so it is not full on purity. But I personally try when possible
Dude everything is so expensive. Food and gas and this and that. I’m getting the cheapest I can. I can’t vote with my wallet if I don’t have one
Yo, it’s Bad! I didn’t know you were on Lemmy too!
Hi !
Been there for a while :)
I want to support the American owner class! The one I’m pretty sure I’m soon to be a part of! Once my 3 side hustles take off and we deport those “urban” problems!
I would like things made by local craftsman.
Made in USA has a markup for the cost of labor. But that’s kind of alright by me (when I can afford it) because we should pay people living wages. However, so many companies use “made in USA” as the sole reason to add even MORE markup beyond the additional costs for manufacturing.
I like made locally also because it means let’s transport costs and hopefully lower emissions in what it takes to deliver it to market.
I have a hard time understanding why certain companies should be allowed to be multinational conglomerates. Certain markets probably should have hard caps to the size companies can reach.
I agree with your vibe, especially supporting local craftsmen. But buying American a bit more complicated than looking for the “Made in the USA” sticker.
Some “made in the USA” stuff is prison labor. These companies are profiting off of prisoners. It’s better than slave/child labor overseas but it sucks all around.
Another aspect is that politics around the “Made in the USA” are merky. Final assembly can occur here in the US but it doesn’t mean that it was “made” here.
I went into a deep dive a few years back and found that because of various loopholes, American branded cars are often made in Mexico and then “finished” in the US whereas most foreign brands are assembled in the US.
All of this to say: until we escape late stage capitalism, it’s hard to know for sure how to best support Americans.
Cars sold in America are largely made in a process that involves significant value add in Mexico, the US, and Canada (and it would be very difficult to cut any out of it). Though they often use some components from elsewhere in the world.
Honestly anything of sufficient complexity made in the USA is probably partly made in Canada, and I’m in favor of that. I’d rather buy something made in OR, WA, and BC than replace Canadian labor with labor from a state with anti worker laws and less basic rights. At least I know Canadians aren’t being leased from a prison to makr products.
Which is why I don’t look for made in USA. I look for small local companies. I also refuse to support those small local companies if they are super patriotic. I hate how they’ve co-opted nationalism for advertising. Plus, it usually means they’re maga skid stains and I don’t want to support them.
A “made in USA” sticker with a flag on it is pretty bargain basement for companies I want to buy from.
