Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Editorial

Journal tomhudson's Journal: Why I'm boycotting China. 8

I have made it a point of always boycotting the Olympics - they're meaningless, at least to me. You want to enjoy a sport, then go out and PLAY IT. Sitting around watching someone else participate is about as meaningful as trying to lose weight by watching someone else work the StairMaster.

I think it's lame that people are going "We can't boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympics - it only harms the athletes!" Come on, the athletes won't be invaded, detained, etc. Even if they never go to the Olympics at all, their loss is minimal compared to what's going on in Tibet.

The poor quality of a lot of the goods that comes out of China now just isn't worth the hassles. I went shopping this weekend, and I checked the labels to see where everything comes from. It's pretty band when you have to check the frozen veggies because some come from China, and there have been too many reports of contaminated foodstuffs.

At this point, I'm willing to pay double or more to avoid Chinese goods. I ended up with underwear from Canada, socks from India, frozen veggies from Belgium ... but so far I haven't found new runners that weren't made in China.

It's not a question of price - as the saying goes, fools know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

What next: "America - Made in China" ?

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Why I'm boycotting China.

Comments Filter:
  • New Balance still offers a few models of footwear that are Made in the USA [nbwebexpress.com] I plan to buy some soon even though they are a bit more expensive.
    • Thanks. I've never been one to pay crazy prices for runners, or "I need a name brand", but at this point, I'd rather pay the extra money than buy from China.

      The justification of opening up trade with China was so that they would have some "skin in the game" when it came to the possibility of losing $$$ if they didn't eventually buy a clue. If we're too chicken to "pull the trigger" and say "we're not going to buy as much from you until you address problems x, y, and z", then we've shown where our true va

      • Irony at its best.

        Some of the Made in USA stuff is crap... high paid crap.

        Some of the Made in China stuff is not crap.

        The problem, is at the core of things... do you shop by price, or do you shop by quality, or do you just shop by where something is made?

        American workers, from what I've seen, are equally capable of incompetence, as are the Chinese workers and the workers of virtually every nation. Craftsmen are FEW and far between, and they charge a pretty penny, but generally a well known, quality craftsm
      • The other comment is based on a recent problem I had. I bought two pairs of boots. Same brand, same everything. One was made in the USA... soft, supple leather, hiking boots. Cost me almost 100 bucks. I got it on sale. Cost me 60 in the end. Died in a year and some months. By the time I needed a new pair, the only ones available were chinese made.

        The other pair was made in China. They cost 109 bucks, I got them at 50 on sale... It was a harder leather (not wally world). Waterproofed. Two years an
        • I hear you - the country of origin isn't a guarantee of quality. However, China has extreme problems with uneven product quality, as well as safety.

          It's a bit of a crapshoot, but I'm not going to shop based on price alone, which means that "Made in China" loses a big advantage, at least in my eyes. Besides, their price advantage is only temporary - as their standard of living rises, their costs will go up, and the price advantage will get less; added to the costs of transportation to distant markets, et

          • Well, a lot of good businesses either never left or have been returning to our shores.

            Poor business models went out, but good business models will improve as the big shops go out of business treating their customers like shit.

            Not that I expect the majority to ever be intelligent... but we know that individuals within every group, majority, minority or anything I've missed will always make their own choices, regardless of the mass momentum.

            A lot of IT groups have been coming back to the states, and even retu
  • Are you boycotting the USA too? After all, the biggest imperialist war in recent history was started by the US in 2003. And US policy now includes not just "extraordinary rendition," under which prisoners (including, famously, a Canadian citizen) are turned over to governments known to practice torture, but also the direct use of torture by employees of the US government acting in the name of the US government. And the US have a higher percentage of their population incarcerated than China, a situation t
    • We Canucks also saw Powell's presentation as pure bullshit - an hour before he made his presentation, the news aired the clips showing the UN weapons inspectors debunking the aluminium tubes, etc.

      I've been saying for quite some time that the US is currently the biggest threat to world peace.

      However, unlike China, the US has been known to actually listen to external criticism on occasion, the current weirdness in Washington is, hopefully, just that - an aberration, and not the new norm; as the US econom

New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman

Working...