[CW] Made in USA

[Ken Brown]

Hi Joe,



>
> With all respect Ken, this is a crude idea.
>
> Are you aware of the fact that Motorola (a US company) took over 
> Vertex Standard (YAESU) an that Ten-Tec is probably using more third 
> party parts inside their equipment than you can imagine?
That is exactly the point I am making. Buying a radio (or a car) that is 
presumed to be built in any particular country, may well be "assembled" 
in that country mostly from parts made in other countries. It is 
virtually impossible to buy anything (radio, car, foodstuffs) that does 
not include parts or ingredients from several different countries.
>
> GM sell their cars as 'Opel' in Germany and as 'Vauxhall' in the UK. 
> Fortunately the US people buy lots of Porsches and the ML model of 
> Mercedes is manufactured in the US.
>
> Do you really believe that such a "buy British" attitude fits into our 
> modern world? To me the crucial items when buying a radio are quality 
> and price. It really doesn't matter where it comes from.
I submit that the way you draw the line between what is crucial and what 
is not, is crude.

If you would like engineering jobs and manufacturing jobs to be 
available in a particular country, then it does matter whether you 
purchase goods that have been engineered and manufactured in that 
country. You can look at a purchase with a very narrow view that only 
includes the cash cost you pay versus the equipment quality, capability 
and performance that you get. Or you can look at it with a much wider 
view which includes consideration of how that purchase effects the 
quality of life and the environment everywhere.

Money is one of humanity's greatest inventions. Not everything that 
money makes possible is good however. If we pay no mind to what our 
money is supporting, we may find the overall value we are buying is much 
less than we thought.

Oh well....this is sufficiently off topic that I'm QRT from it now.

DE N6KB