Y'all can thank IBM for the idea of never having anything fully made anywhere.
They started that over 40 years ago with their electric typewriter. The idea is that parts are made all over the world, then *everyone* has to import something and assemble it. Originally, everyone imported parts and assembled the machine in their own country, so it was always seen as made locally.
Also, always be careful when you look at stuff. For the longest time, Subaru cars sold in US have been made in Indiana (if I'm not mistaken) and lots of GM cars came from Asia. So while I was being sneered at for "driving a 'japanese' car", the people giving me grief were driving foreign GM cars. Lovely.
As for Whirlpool, yes, the brand is american. At the very least their frontloader line was made in Germany (don't know if it's still true) and, with the ramping down on their non-HE toploaders, I wonder what exactly they'll be making here -- is their HE toploader *made* here or just assembled here, or even fully imported?
Meanwhile, brands like Bosh and Electrolux are *building* plants here and keeping American employees busy.
I would prefer all this racism went away. The reason a lot of stuff is made in Asia or elsewhere is threefold: one, people here want to buy stuff for less money, so the only option is to manufacture them where it's cheaper to do so; two, people here who are investors want more profit -- your options are either to become investors (not my preference personally, but other people may be rich enough to enter the game) or make clear to the investors that the population here is hurting; and three, the powers that be in America decided that they don't want to be a manufacturing country, they want to be the kind of country where there's basically only service and design -- lots of places design stuff and send the design away to be manufactured. That is not usually bad, lots of countries are getting rich doing the same. The catch is that to do that one has to be in the bleeding edge of design, and there aren't many companies (not to mention industries) in US doing that anymore. For a long time, US used to be the country where all the good ideas came from. We're lagging behind for some time now. My hope is that we'll fix that in the next few years, so the majority of the population here will be able to find nice office jobs -- it's either that or back to the farm and manufacturing jobs on the assembly floor, not that there's anything wrong with that, just that my impression is that most people here would prefer to earn more doing less in an office.
Peace,
-- Paulo.
They started that over 40 years ago with their electric typewriter. The idea is that parts are made all over the world, then *everyone* has to import something and assemble it. Originally, everyone imported parts and assembled the machine in their own country, so it was always seen as made locally.
Also, always be careful when you look at stuff. For the longest time, Subaru cars sold in US have been made in Indiana (if I'm not mistaken) and lots of GM cars came from Asia. So while I was being sneered at for "driving a 'japanese' car", the people giving me grief were driving foreign GM cars. Lovely.
As for Whirlpool, yes, the brand is american. At the very least their frontloader line was made in Germany (don't know if it's still true) and, with the ramping down on their non-HE toploaders, I wonder what exactly they'll be making here -- is their HE toploader *made* here or just assembled here, or even fully imported?
Meanwhile, brands like Bosh and Electrolux are *building* plants here and keeping American employees busy.
I would prefer all this racism went away. The reason a lot of stuff is made in Asia or elsewhere is threefold: one, people here want to buy stuff for less money, so the only option is to manufacture them where it's cheaper to do so; two, people here who are investors want more profit -- your options are either to become investors (not my preference personally, but other people may be rich enough to enter the game) or make clear to the investors that the population here is hurting; and three, the powers that be in America decided that they don't want to be a manufacturing country, they want to be the kind of country where there's basically only service and design -- lots of places design stuff and send the design away to be manufactured. That is not usually bad, lots of countries are getting rich doing the same. The catch is that to do that one has to be in the bleeding edge of design, and there aren't many companies (not to mention industries) in US doing that anymore. For a long time, US used to be the country where all the good ideas came from. We're lagging behind for some time now. My hope is that we'll fix that in the next few years, so the majority of the population here will be able to find nice office jobs -- it's either that or back to the farm and manufacturing jobs on the assembly floor, not that there's anything wrong with that, just that my impression is that most people here would prefer to earn more doing less in an office.
Peace,
-- Paulo.
