Since this whole Wuhu flu fiasco started, I've been trying to buy local more and buy American to help out small businesses since they've been hit hardest. It really hit me how difficult it is to actually procure products sold by small businesses that are made in the US. My hair wax, for instance. It took me a whole day of researching to find hair wax that is made in the US and actually sold by a small business and not some mega corp like Amazon or Walmart.
So I bring this question to you gents. How much effort do you put into trying to buy something American made? If so, how do you go about it?
Did our textile industry collapse or something? I can't find any clothes made in the US anymore. I even read a few articles a while back about a lawsuit involving New Balance over their "Made in the USA" logo is misleading. Turns out to qualify for that to be able to slap that logo on your products only a little over half of the product needs to be sourced or made in the US. So most of the work still happens overseas.
I've got some of the USA made New Balance shoes and their packaging claims to be 70% domestically sourced. So it's not perfect, but I do believe they actually physically assemble (i.e. sew or whatever) the shoes together in the USA.
That aside, this pair I'm about to retire is nearly a year old and I'm quite impressed with how well they've held up. I would have bought two pair over that time of the expensive Asian-made shoes I wore previously.
That's just how it works now unfortunately. Nothing is really made from start to finish in one single country anymore.
China cheats, and cheaters win in the global market.
For textiles, you can shop at second-hand stores that are run for the benefit of your community.
That's the advantage of living in Germany, I guess. 80-90% vote for globalists and cheer the lockdowns. It's like Portland and San Francisco but it's a whole country. Why should I care about them if they run willingly into the wood chipper?
My shopping guideline is less based on location and more based on politics (or the lack thereof). I buy whatever isn't made by one of the OmniCorps like Unilever, Amazon, Nestle, etc. That's usually the store brand of a local super market chain. If I buy something bigger from some brand I give their website and social media a once-over for political red flags. If you're a virtue-signalling outfit I don't care if you're next door. You're off the shopping list.
I decided maybe it was time for a new pillow. So I ordered from MyPillow, a genuine all-American company.
As far as my usual shopping goes, I don't do much outside of grocery these days. For a while, I'd been about half-Walmart half-Schnucks, slowly favoring Schnucks more and more. Well, a Dollar General just opened up in my village (a really small village with next to no business, 8 miles from a more modernized town). I'm not sure how bad some of the other non-Walmart chains get, but I am definitely understanding a need to avoid Walmart.
How's the pillow?
I have a mypillow and it is pretty great. I love how it comes fully sealed so that people can’t open the package and contaminate the pillow easily. Additionally, I’ve washed the pillow itself a few times and it still retains its shape pretty well. Is it the most amazing pillow ever? Probably not, but if you aren’t looking for complete luxury, then I highly recommend it!
Just got it. Almost freaked out at the shape it came delivered, but followed the instructions (a 15 minute dryer cycle before first use), and those things expanded like you wouldn’t believe. It’s a nice balance of soft yet firm.
Thanks for the reply, been wondering still. Cheers
Hasn’t arrived yet. I’ll try to update you on that once I get it.
It depends on the items and availability in a lot of ways. Local small business shopping for me is really limited to video games, guns, restaurants, and hardware store.
I really do more of an avoid communist regimes over buy American. Electronics this is damn near impossible, I think the best I've done there is camera stuff that's made in Malaysia or Japan mostly. Hell, that's just because the Chinese suck at camera gear. I've done well with this on clothing, I have some American items and places like Vietnam and Thailand get into that business quite a bit. Most of my American clothing items was super expensive but the quality is top notch.
Another thing, I have been buying a lot of USA made hand tools in the last year. I have loads of hand tools, a lot of it really nice old stuff but I had a lot of junky Harbor Freight pliers that after 10 years are just making a rusty mess of everything, so I've been upgrading those. It's really easy to find USA made hand tools, but they generally aren't cheap. You have to get into the stuff marketed to the pros, but it's stuff you can use until you die.
General daily-use products, I don't try that much. Although I have sworn off Walmart and Target for close to a year now because of their commie shopping experience. That still leaves Amazon to get my $ of evil though.