The Monday, May 12, 2008 edition of
the Wall Three Journal contained a study of consumer trends regarding
purchasing so called ethically-produced products. In the study, people were
asked how much they would pay for goods based upon the ethics of the company
producing those goods. In summary, people were willing to pay extra for more
ethically-produced goods than those from less ethical companies.
For every product in the Wall Street Journal study,
people had to assign a dollar amount from a pre-set range for how much they
were willing to pay. The problem Boycott Watch sees with the study is that
there was no option of refusing to buy those goods, which is very surprising in
light of the China Olympics boycott call over the unethical treatment of people
in Tibet by China and the fact that many of the goods in the study were
imports. The fact is that the Beijing boycott calls are an extension of calls
to boycott Chinese goods in general.
Boycotting
foreign imports to save U.S. jobs is nothing new. When Japanese cars first came
to the U.S., "eat your foreign car" bumper sticker, referring to U.S. job
losses, were common. The divide then is similar to today - Asian goods,
specifically the value of cars to miles, were cheaper than American goods and
now other Asian goods are cheaper. The difference today is that while Japanese
cars were far superior to American cars in quality, Chinese goods are generally
inferior today. At the time, Chrysler had severe financial problems because
their new cars all had major problems - dealers expected to have to fix
problems in new cars because of the low quality at Chrysler factories, and even
then the cars did not last long. That is until Lee Iacocca took over.
Then Toyota came along, the introduced cars that
were expected to last for 200,000 miles compared to 80,000 miles for U.S. cars,
forcing U.S. automobile manufacturers to start making decent cars. Another
major difference in that era as compared to today is that up until about 1985,
every gas station was also a service station because the quality of cars prior
to the Lee Iacocca revolution was horrible - in those days people expected
their cars to be in the shop far more than they do today.
The automotive industry learned they needed to
improve quality to compete with foreign car imports. The question today is what
can U.S. companies learn from China when it comes to manufacturing? We can not
compete with the pennies people make in China and other countries, the reason
foreign products are so cheep here in the first place. There is still one thing
we can learn - just like the national economies of our competitors, our
economic house need to be in order too. As a nation, we need to get our
national debt in control in order to strengthen the U.S. dollar as compared to
other currencies.
That is more easily said than
done. While Chrysler was bailed out by the U.S. government, there is no big
daddy to bail out the U.S. We have to bail ourselves out, and that won't be
easy. We as a nation need to tighten our belt and in turn our reliance on big
government in order to allow the U.S. government to catch up financially. While
President Kennedy said "ask not what your country can do for you but what you
can do for your country," the question today is "ask not what your country can
do for you, but what your country does not need to do for you."
The fact is that Americans want goods from ethical
manufacturers but are generally having a hard time finding what they want at
reasonable prices. If the U.S. would finally get its own financial house in
order, including lowering taxes, then the dollar would become stronger and
Americans would be able to buy more of our own goods which are generally
ethically manufactured anyhow, own economy would be stronger and we would not
have to worry about the ethical nature of foreign products because we would not
need the foreign products. |
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