What If We Only Bought American Tech?

[Guest]

You've heard "Buy American" for food and clothes, but what about gadgets? We look at six tech categories and tell you what you’ll lose by buying American.

What If We Only Bought American Tech? : Read more

 

[allenpan]

i think the article will be more ideal if "american tech" means no OEM from other asian company.... the LCD TV, i bet the panel is LG or samsug, eventho it is american company does not mean american tech...

 

[Guest]

You seem to only mention American based companies...where do the parts come from for the Vizio TV? Are the panels made in America as well...or is the entire unit built overseas and just sold via an American corporation? What about the circuitry, chips, etc. for all of these items? Just because you buy from an American company...really doesn't mean the money is staying here.

 

[allenpan]

dell = compal or quanta ...so not really american tech..

 

[snarfies]

Not a well thought-out article. Of all of these items 0.0% are manufactured 100% in... hell, in the American hemisphere. The parts, probably 90% of them if not more, are imports.

 

[Codesmith]

There are very few products that can be truly said to be made in any single country. The raw materials and component parts are likely to be sourced from dozens of countries.

You could do a % break down on where the money goes. What country gets what % of taxes, % of profits, % of wages.

I really don't think Made in X has much meaning anymore in today's global economy.

 

[jah_33]

Russian, American it doesn't matter its all made in Taiwan

 

[jah_33]

Russian American it doesn't matter its all made in Taiwan

 

[cablechewer]

'Buy American' in the current environment is of very limited usefulness (beyond political grandstanding). Sure if you are buying a piece of hand-crafted wood furniture you can probably be sure everything in that piece is American. Buying a loaf of bread sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup? Almost certainly American. Any other product? Unlikely. Too many pieces are sourced elsewhere.

I would love to see a breakdown of where the money goes from that Dell laptop. Of course when you break it down you have to decide where to stop. Do you stop at Dell's suppliers or do you trace all the components right back to when they were dug up from the ground?

Unfortunately there is such a huge gap between "Buy ", "Made in Country X" and "Assembled in Country X". How many people will keep them straight and understand the differences...

 

[jkeelsnc]

While I like buying american when it comes to technology very little of it is actually made here anymore and especially not the various low level components like circuit boards, microchips, etc. Most of that stuff is made in China. Also, computer themselves are often still at least partly made in the pacific region. I would love to see production of these things brought back to the US. However, there are two problems. The cost of doing business in manufacturing in the US is too high and also a lack of qualified and high skilled technical workers to work in a microchip production facility (although training and education can be done.) Mainly, the business environment is too expensive in the US anymore in order to be competitive with the chinese for production. Honestly, what chance is there that we can match China's production costs? Almost none, unless we all want to move into a cardboard hut with a ditch for a sewer and work 16 hours per day at less than one dollar per hour.

 

[jkeelsnc]

Honestly, it makes more sense to buy what fits your needs. If that means samsung, sony, LG, etc then so be it. Personally, I will not buy Lenovo though. IBM should have found a way to at least keep it has a domestic corporation instead of selling the whole PC business to Lenovo.

 

[hellwig]

Corporations are responsible for the poor state of American goods these days. Whirlpool was sold to China, IBM sold off their PC division to Lenovo. Call Dell tech support, and you get someone in India. You can buy Nike shoes, but everyone knows those are made in sweat-shops in south-east asia. Coprorations did this because they saw using American labor was too expensive.

Now its the average consumers problem for also shopping overseas? Why do multi-billion dollar companies get to take advantage of foreign labor, laying off american workforces, but those same companies get to try to guilt us into buying American instead of a more affordable foreign option? I think more people would buy American technology if that still meant American workers were getting paid. Instead, if Dell makes a profit off a LCD panel fabbed in Taiwan, whats the point?

 

[danimal_the_animal]

I have ben burned buy EVERYONE I bought products from this past year that were made in america....faulty design.....obvious bad design yet the company sells it anyway knowing it wont work.....

now it seems that over the seas companies (except japan) quality is degrading also due to the economy.

make sure you buy from someone that will accept returns...and stay away from ebay for a while as bunk stuff is showing up with no way to get a refund...

 

[Nossy]

Define buying american? Does it mean we buy things that are made in the US keeping american (US) employed? Or does it mean the company's headquarter is based in USA? Those two are different. For instance it doesn't keep job in the US if all a computer company buy all the parts from Taiwan (Most of the electrical) and Customer Service and Technical help is outsourced to Pakistan. That means only the bigshot and admin gets a job while most the graduates who just came out of school with a IT education is screwed.

Does Mexico and Canada counts as "American"? Cuz some Chevy cars are made in Mexico and Canada but can still be claim as American made because Mexico and Canada is still in North America. Also, Toyota's headquarter is based in Japan, but some of their cars are 80% assembled in the US. That's more "american" to me in my eyes.

 

[Guest]

FYI, Leica is owned by a US Company called Danaher Corporation. Would that count them as American even if they are technically overseas?

 

[scooterlibby]

"Buy American" is just protectionist claptrap that does not benefit America, or anyone else, as a whole. I say this as an American with basic knowledge regarding international trade. People seem to forget if you punish other countries with tariffs, import quotas, etc. they will respond in kind, screwing your domestic exporting industries. Everyone loses. I'll buy whatever is the best value, not restrict myself to economic ideologies that conveniently fit onto bumper stickers.

 

[bardia]

"buy American" campaigns are as bad as the 100% American ones from many decades ago. It fundamentally misunderstands the point of being an American... protectionist, racist, what's the difference really? At least racists don't *** up our economy.

PS. I'm having a hard time fitting into Obama's new USSA. Time to have a Tea Party I guess.

 

[NuclearShadow]

I'm sure we could live off of purely American tech. If our business went purely to American based companies this would give them the financial resources to develop faster. So basically it would suck at first but could very well become the best the world has to offer. This would also greatly help create jobs within America and thus help the economy.

Of course it would only be a matter of time before the companies would get greedy and figure that it would be cheaper to move out the of nation so they could hire cheap labor that will accept any amount of pay and demand no workers rights nor benefits.

 

[FLGibsonJr]

The economic engine of the United States of America was built on protective tariffs which were put in place by our founding fathers, and specifically Alexander Hamilton our first Secretary of the Treasury. His idea, and our historic policy was to put protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods while allowing the import of raw commodities. He knew then what is still true today, a strong manufacturing base was key to prosperity and national power. His and our founding fathers policies led directly to creating the greatest economic power in the world. We began to dismantle that policy just recently in historical terms, 170 years after our founding, just after WWII and then much more completely in the Reagan administration and subsequent administrations, Republican and Democratic alike. The result has been probably the greatest economic crumbling in the history of the world. A once mighty economic power now lays in shambles, a mere shadow of itself, with an economy that according to a Noble Prize Economist more resembles a banana republic than a it does a modern advanced economy.

And to think that it was all self-inflicted and wonder how we allowed it to happen, but then again you read some of the above comments denigrating protective trade policies, and it makes you think, what a nation of fools.

Regards,

 

[bardia]

[citation][nom]NuclearShadow[/nom]I'm sure we could live off of purely American tech. If our business went purely to American based companies this would give them the financial resources to develop faster. So basically it would suck at first but could very well become the best the world has to offer. This would also greatly help create jobs within America and thus help the economy. Of course it would only be a matter of time before the companies would get greedy and figure that it would be cheaper to move out the of nation so they could hire cheap labor that will accept any amount of pay and demand no workers rights nor benefits.[/citation]

You have absolutely no concept of economics do you... "outsourcing" is just another name for "beneficial trade".

Think about it, if outsourcing is bad, then why should we do it between states too? Between cities? Between families? I know, everyone should just make everything they need by hand! That'd be great, then later we could go out and hunt wild boars and pick berries.

What is wrong with schools these days...