HONESTLY, “MADE IN CHINA”, IS THE LONG VERSION OF “JUNK”.

man with broken computer

My Chinese computer works pretty good, my Chinese pressure washer, not so good.

I did an article awhile back talking about what a really bad idea it was for American manufacturers to do business inside of China. Well, the events over the past few days have validated my concerns. Actually, if you had an IQ no larger than a piss ant, you could have seen it coming. Where the hell did we get all of these dumbass politicians that have inhabited the halls of government for the past 50 years? But, I’m not even going to discuss lame brain politicians. I’m going to discuss the lame brain everyday Americans. I’m going to include myself as one of the lame brains. I’m totally guilty as well. I’m a regular customer of Harbor Freight. Just about every tool they sell, if not every single one, is made in China. Hey, what’s a guy to do that’s an avid “do it yourselfer”, that needs a pneumatic nail gun for a relatively small task? Your choice is a name brand, made in America for $350.00, or a Chinese version that looks pretty much identical for a third of the price. The Chinese version is hidden away in my tool box out of sight, so I don’t have to explain why I bought the cheap knock off, and I just might use it again in about five years. Guys are sensitive about the quality of their tools. It’s not a good “look” to have second rate stuff in your big red roll away. That’s why I put all of the Chinese stuff in an old file cabinet over in the corner.

So basically, we’ve been suckered. We’ve been lured into buying second and third rate merchandise in the name of saving money, and in the end we have a house full of junk. I must admit, on a few occasions, I have actually ended up with a few pretty good products that were cheap to purchase. I want to emphasize few. Also, even though some of the stuff works pretty good, it doesn’t even come close to the stuff made in the USA. I can tell you as a former owner of a metal fabrication shop, I rarely ever bought anything other than American made tools and equipment. As a business owner it just doesn’t make sense. A homeowner is a totally different proposition.

Now, if you wanna be really stupid, buy a Chinese product on line from Amazon or Ebay. If that dang thing fails 35 days after you buy it, you can forget getting it fixed or replaced. Even if it fails with the return period, get ready for hours and hours on the computer trying to convince them that it doesn’t work. Case in point, I bought a 2,000 psi electric pressure washer from Amazon. ( I use a pressure washer about 10 hours a year ) The price was right so I bought it. The weather was pretty bad for a couple of weeks after I purchased it, so I couldn’t really try it out. When I was able to try it out, it would only run for a few minutes and shut down. They made one excuse after another, and the clock ran out. I was stuck with a useless piece of crap. If I had bought it locally, even if it was made in China, I could have returned it and received some sort of compensation. Do not buy anything made in China online from a Chinese supplier, it’s a really bad idea.

A few short years ago, you just didn’t have a lot of choice. Just about everything in the world was being made in China. Manufacturing in the USA was almost non existent. That’s slowly beginning to change thanks to President Trump. I would sincerely prefer to by American whenever possible, but we’re not quite there yet. I’m 100% behind President Trump in his efforts to level the playing field with China and others. I’m willing to pay the higher prices if it puts America and Americans in a better position. I’ll give up my Harbor Freight habit for a stronger more prosperous America.

Before I close, there is one more big concern that I have. I heard someone on TV say what I have been thinking for awhile now. A couple of years ago, I bought a home surveillance system for my house. It used a DVR with a hard drive. You were supposed to be able to connect it to your computer and give it an email address, so you could view what the cameras were recording from remote locations with your smart phone. After I thought about that for about 1 3/4 minutes I decided there was no way I was going to give this thing an email address connected to my computer, with the Chinese company managing the data. How much surveillance is built into the electronic devices we use on a daily basis? There are millions of Chinese made computers running at this moment all across America. That sounds a bit risky to me. I recently bought a high end camera drone. To use my smart phone as a navigation tool, I had to download the software from a Chinese app. The app had other functions piggy backed onto it, and there was so much activity on my phone it was draining the battery within four or five hours. I had to go into my phone and find all this stuff and delete it. The stuff I deleted had absolutely nothing to do with flying the drone. Who knows what these attachments were doing? Were they grabbing info from my phone? I’m not smart enough about phones to really know. I got a little paranoid over it.