What products do you buy that are made in USA and where do you buy them?

The easiest is probably food, if you have a farmer’s market near you.

For jewelry, artsy stuff and gifts, a great place to go is Etsy, which is where individuals sell their handmade items. You can often see where they live.

Maggie’s Organics sells cotton clothing. They’re based only a few miles from me.

Burt’s Bees has natural body care products, and they’re based in North Carolina.

There’s also gradations of “made in the USA.” If it’s assembled here of imported parts, or even made elsewhere of American parts, at least there’s some involvement with American workers.

I bought my flag online from The Valley Forge Store.

I live in Norway, but there are still American products that I end up buying.

Mexican food boxed dinner kits and sweet potatoes are the two main ones that I come across and buy.

@laureth, I guess today must be my day to pick on you. I was looking at Maggie’s Organics and their products are made in Central America.

I have a zippo but to be honest I don’t think I’ll buy another as I can’t see the thing actually breaking.

The majority of the stuff that I buy that I know is manufactured in the US are medical devices.

edit When I say I buy I suppose what I mean is I requisition

@bkcunningham – Huh, some are USA. Last I’d checked, they were all USA. Mea culpa.

American Apparel for clothes, backpacks. Also, a lot of home cleaning products, and body cleaning products along with toilet paper are made in America (Wal-Mart). Rickenbacker Guitars (with German tuning knobs) Fender DeVille (with a Mexican made foot switch). All my records from the bands I listen to come from independent labels who produce in America. Tattoos, from an American tattoo shop in San Diego (7 seas!) Alot of other things lie my paints come from Europe, my technologies come from China and printers. Macbook Pro (Assembled in China) Canon printer (Japanese company, made in China) All my food though is from American grown farms. Well maybe not because I buy alot of Mexican food and the reason its cheap is because they buy from Mexico, (I wonder if that what makes the food soo good steroid free animals and veggies) American labeled water.

It’s on the website under “maggie’s story/history,” @laureth.

Where are ‘Leatherman’ products made? We lurve Leatherman.

To name a few, at Winn Dixie, Fresh Market and Publix:
Martin’s bread and pastrie products (Chambersburg, PA)
Land O’Lakes butter (farmer owned cooperative)
Smuckers (headquartered in Ohio

Produce (flea market with a local farmer’s market) I grow my own tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries, oranges and grapefruits.)

We own two Yamaha electric golf carts that were made in Atlanta, Georgia, and cusomized in Florida.

@cazzie To the best of my knowledge, Leatherman products are still made in Portland, OR.

Food comes to mind for me too.

Cabot cheese made in VT.
VT maple syrup.
Michigan cherries.
Michigan and NY state apples.
FL citrus (some of my citrus is from Mexico)

When I shop I dotry to look for made in USA, and am willing to pay moreif the quality is there.

When Armani Exchange first came to America I ran one of their shops inside of Bloomingdale’s and back then Armani had all those jeans made in America, not sure if that is still true. I liked the idea that all our denim was made in USA. He felt that America was one of the best coutries for denim, that we did it well. China was great for silk. Spain and Italy for leather, etc.

I live in Australia but the problem is the same here. I agree with local markets for food. But for anything manufactured, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to mention expensive. Even the iconic aussie brand such as Billabong is often made in China but designed in oz and costs often 10 times as much as a similar product from a store such as Best and Less. Really how much designing goes into the average t shirt. Labor is so much cheaper in other countries, it is difficult to compete.

@JLeslie – I was just in an Armani Exchange in Melbourne. I was astounded at the prices, even for Armani they seemed outrageous and I am a great fan of Armani. I must admit though I didn’t check to see where they were made, I just assumed somewhere in Asia.

Often much ado is made about the low wages that are paid to workers in foreign countries but I always think that if it keeps someone from starving how can it be a bad thing. And when it only costs pennies to eat and live, then making pennies does not seem like a negative???

@rooeytoo Yeah, last time I was in AX the prices had gone up a bit from the time they first opened, not sure why. Not sure if he felt he needed to differentiate himself more from lower end stores? He still cared that it was Armani, even if it was for the masses. The level of detail that went into the design of the stores was unbelievable in the beginning, including the scent he had pumped into the stores, which I don’t think he does anymore. He’s amazing.

@rooeytoo – re “And when it only costs pennies to eat and live, then making pennies does not seem like a negative???”

The problem comes in when it costs more than pennies, eh?

@laureth – it is projection, if I had the choice to make pennies and it kept me and my family from starving, then I would choose to make the pennies even if it only meant fending off hunger. I am not the type to complain that I don’t have steak as long as I have something in my belly. So based on my own feelings is how I arrive at my conclusion.

Most of my food is grown and produced here. There are a few fruits and veggies that I get from Puerto Rico but its a common wealth of the US so I guess I can still count it as US produce.
Coffee is some teas and seasoning are probably the only thing that isn’t.
My car is Chrysler. Most of my past vehicles are american made.
Not too many electronics are but my computer is a HP and so is my printer. I try to buy american products mostly unless we don’t have anything comparable to a foreign product.
For me its about quality first and price second.

Mostly software.

In general, it makes sense to buy food locally as much as possible, because it reduces the need for transport.

Otherwise I recommend to be a bit careful about promoting “Buy American” or “Buy European”. For example, if more and more Americans are refusing to buy European products in an act of patriotism this will lead to more and more Europeans refusing to buy American products. A key driving force of human progress over the past 10,000 years has been specialization of labor combined with growing trade. Undoing all this destroys wealth. So Germans should keep buying Oracle licenses from America, and Americans should keep buying medical instruments or green technology from Germany.

To me a more important factor is the condition of workers creating the product. If people get a fair salary and have the right to form unions making fair deals with employers in China, I would not have a problem buying Chinese products. If people are treated like work slaves I do. But I can afford to pay more for products tied to fair trade. People with low income are often forced to buy inexpensive products tied to unfair trade.

@mattbrowne – Re: “People with low income are often forced to buy inexpensive products tied to unfair trade.”

Isn’t it sad, then, that the unfair traders who want a captive market have an interest in keeping wages low and conditions bad across the board, while raking in the money (read: power) to keep that initiative in motion? Far better to save up for something worth buying, find a substitute, or do without where we can.

@rooeytoo – Re: “I am not the type to complain that I don’t have steak as long as I have something in my belly.”

I’m not talking about you complaining you don’t have steak. I’m talking about these people complaining that they don’t have rice.

Well, not made in the USA, but designed in California: My APPLE stuff… I buy it online at Apple directly or via ebay… or personally in Apple-Stores here in the EU or in the USA.
And PEANUTBUTTER…

@laureth – of couse that is hellish but that is not what I was talking about. It says nothing there about workers being underpaid by USA standards which is what I was speaking of.

I do always wonder though when I read articles like that what happened to the local knowledge of their ancestors who lived before food was imported from the mainland. I know where I live in a tropical area, things grow with little cultivation. Throw any seeds out into the dirt and they grow, what about coconuts, bananas etc. Here many of the aboriginal people have lost the knowledge and often the incentive to survive without the local shops. It is sad on many levels.

@rooeytoo – from the article I linked:

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

I linked there because Haiti is known as a cheap place to manufacture garments, the likes of which are sold at Wal-Mart. Here’s a link about their working conditions, which notes:

“Excel Apparel Exports, jointly owned and operated with Kellwood Co., produces women’s underwear for the Hanes division of Sara Lee Corp., under the “Hanes Her Way” label, sold at Wal-Mart. The plant also produces women’s slips sold at Dillard Department Stores and night wear for Movie Star, to be sold at Sears and Bradlees. Many workers earn less than $1.33 per day and the company raises its quotas at will. Before President Aristide raised the minimum wage, the quota for a typical operation-sewing waistbands on underpants-was 360 pieces per day. Now the quota is 840 pieces-a 133 percent increase. The workers did not have the right to object to the speed-up; they do not even have the right to speak to one another at work.”

Here’s another -

“In a country where the legal minimum wage is a meager $2.40 a day, more than half of the 50 assembly firms operating in Haiti are not paying even that, according to a recently released report by the New York-based National Labor Committee (NLC), a human rights and labour group.

“From Disney’s Pocahontas pajamas to Hanes underclothes, Haitian workers are making pennies an hour producing items for the U.S. market.

“For each Pocahontas pajamas priced at $11.97 in Wal-Mart, a Haitian worker receives only 7 cents, according to the report titled “The U.S. in Haiti: How to Get Rich on 11 cents an Hour.”

“The report details how major U.S. corporations like Disney, Wal- Mart and J.C. Penney are profiting from the exploitation of Haitian workers.”

The reason I’m making a point of this, is that there’s this idea that even if we pay the sweatshop workers “pennies per hour,” they can still live well on that wage and be happy. Especially when food commodities go up, people making those few pennies sometimes have to rely on eating dirt cookies to fill their bellies.

Some folks think there is no solution, but I think there is. We could pay more than five bucks for some of that underwear. A lot of these folks left the farm to move to the city where they could get those “pennies per hour,” but I wonder if they’re eating any better when they buy food instead of growing it anymore.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

@laureth – Yes, very sad. But the Fairtrade movement keeps growing.

A little global knowledge for you, @rooeytoo, the population of Haiti doesn’t have it’s roots there. They have no ‘ancient’ knowledge. Their indigenous population was killed out early in the European settlement of it.

Hispaniola (or Haiti) was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and was the first island in the New World settled by the Spanish. By 1550, the indigenous culture of the Taino Indians had vanished from the island, and Hispaniola became a neglected backwater of the Spanish Empire.

Read more: Culture of Haiti – history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, customs, family http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Haiti.html#ixzz1d8HD5fP2

This is a country raped and pillaged, literally, by colonists.

@cazzie thank you for the global knowledge, amazing what wiki can teach you! But really how long must someone live in an area to learn that seeds grow in fertile soil and coconuts and bananas taste good. I sympathize with the problems of hungry people anywhere and donate to charities that teach people how to make their own way in the world. I do believe that victimhood is perpetuated by well meaning people telling someone they are victims so the rape of colonization theory doesn’t convince me. I have first hand knowledge of that claim being used to the detriment of the people involved.

And I am assuming that @laureth never purchase any products made outside of your own country then???

That would be an incorrect assumption, @rooeytoo. I do buy things from outside of my country. But I try to buy locally first, or from fair trade businesses, or from just about anyone who does it in a better way than Wal*Mart. Better options exist, if we’re willing to look for them.

The choices are not binary.

Yep me too.