As everyone goes out today and does their black friday thing, MSN has put
out a list of 250 American made toys that are lead free and safe. I wanted to
paste this site in case anyone is interested in buying American made this
year. I know cost has always been a factor for me but this year, I think I am
going to not worry as much about cost and think more of safety for my
grandkids. Plus, it helps those of us that work hard here in the USA. Have a
great day shopping everyone!!
http://green.msn.com/Articles/article.aspx?aid=292>1=10628Thanks Lorster, this list will be a big help to many of us. With all the inferior products coming out of China lately, my husband and I have been trying valiantly to buy American made products, or at least products NOT made in China. Yeah, good luck to us. It's nearly impossible. I knew many of our products were China made, but I had no idea how far reaching the problem is. I'd hazard a guess that 95% of everything sold in this country is from China. I'm sure there's an exact figure out there, but I can tell you from my own experience, it's even over 95%. This is so wrong. We've got to start bringing American jobs back home. Jesse, I have made a point in the past several months to look at labels to see
just what IS made in the USA. NOT MUCH. Not even expensive clothes are
made here. It is amazing how many textiles we import. Lorster, I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday, saying how we were trying to avoid Chinese products and she said if we do that, we'll hurt the American distributors as well. They have the same difficulty getting American products to distribute as we do buying them. What do you think about that? Jesse, that is so true. It really is a catch 22 because when we punish the
chinese for making us bad toys, we punish all the americans that are
responsible for all the middle man stuff that goes on. this is a good lesson
on outsourcing.When I do my xmas shopping this year, I will completely avoid "made in China"; although I'm sympathetic to those who will be economically damaged, the thought of my child eating something like aqua dots is very scary. Very simplistic thinking I know, but when it comes to the children... you can never be too cautious.
Kara, you're right, it's very easy to know what to do when it involves safety, especially the safety of our children. But when it comes to things like buying a tea pot or a picture or one of the millions of other things not safety related, do we bite the bullet and stay away from Chinese products and hope the American middlemen don't get hurt too badly? I think that would be a good approach if it was a sure thing we could start taking our country back and making goods here. But if the distributors are going to suffer for nothing because the Chinese have too strong a grip on us, then I have to sadly continue to buy goods from China. Really though, this is a moot point, because it's nearly impossible to avoid Chinese products anyway, so I guess the distributors won't even feel a "strike" on Chinese products. Remember, there are American manufacturing workers putting in overtime this year because of the high demand for Made-in-America toys. Some people (outsourcers, middlemen, etc) will be adversely affected; others (American factory folks) will actually make a decent buck this year.
Jasmine, I'm so glad to hear that. It is about time. I'm all for American made
toys. Yes, they are expensive, but they are safe and you know you are
putting money directly into Americans pockets. I think we are going to hear
a lot more before this is over about all the unsafe products from china. I
don't think it is just in the toys. It is probably in many house hold products
out their too. I have gone out and tried to buy all american made and it is
very very difficult to do. Maybe this is the beginning of a movement towards
americans buying more american made. There was a story on our local news this AM about how some store (they didnt name them) still had aqua dots listed in their Black Friday news ad. The store claimed they couldn't change the print in time. Phsaw - wasn't that stuff recalled WEEKS ago??? Or are my days that far off again?
Aqua dots were on our freak-mart shelves for about 2 weeks after they were suppose to be off the shelves. And one day after they released the news about aqua dots being recalled... I went into freak-mart and there was this little girl carrying out an aqua dots studio and happy and excoted about it and her mom told her "When you get home you can play with it."
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