As far as being loyal to our own home grown manufacturing base goes, well, we're all hypocrites, aren't we? Our homes are full of imported stuff, and we all love a bargain, so we buy what we buy.
I've got two Korean cars, an American SUV and an Australian manufactured (but American owned) car in my driveway, one English bike and 3 Japanese bikes, a Chinese lathe, a Taiwanese mill, an Italian MIG, a Malaysian TIG, and so it goes on. My place is like a UN of mechanical objects.
I bought a little Chinese gas powered hedge trimmer from my local "Aldi" (German supermarket chain) store on Thursday for $149.00. It looks quite well made and fired right up, and trimmed my hedges easily. I could have bought a Stihl hedge trimmer (made in Germany) for around 600 bucks, and I've no doubt the Stihl product would be a better quality product, but I'd rather spend the remaining 450 bucks on other stuff, like bike parts and fine American whisky.
Over here, a well known Australian Entrepreneur, Dick Smith, started a "Buy Australian" campaign, trying to shame us all into buying Aussie products over imports. I always thought this was a little ironic, seeing that Dick Smith made his fortune importing cheap electronic goods from Asia.
Sure, the manufacturing industry here is in decline, but we're making money hand over fist selling the raw materials to China, so I guess it all goes around. Cheers, Terry.
