The Reason I’m paying $4.39 a gallon for gas....YOU!

I’ve offended a lot of people over the last 15 years preaching to stop buying Chinese and other 3rd world ‘merchandise’ instead of USA made products.

I kept saying, one of these days your ‘free trade global economy’ is going to come back to bite you. It now has it’s teeth sunk deep in our collective posterior, and still we don’t get it.

Let’s take one example. The Dollar Store. I shop at the $ store. Most of their products are foreign, mostly Chinese. Even the food. If it says ‘distributed by’ a US company, but doesn’t state where it’s grown, it’s likely Chinese, Mexican or some place you never heard of. I talk to people when I’m there. They mostly believe we have to label foods where they’re grown. Nope!

Not to pick on the $ Store, I find many USA made products there. And some yummy cookies from Canada! At least Canada is on some kind of economic/social par with us and has some safety concerns and regulation. Here, like most shoppers , I may be guilty by ignorance. If they’re selling 3 dozen cookies for a dollar, they’re likely produced by illegal alien labor. Canada, like us, suffers from greed and open borders as well.

How about that beautiful hand crafted picture frame, made by Chinese slave labor that costs...ONE dollar? Now how much do you think that Chinaman got paid? Pennies, if he’s lucky. But you go ahead, keep buying it! This country has sanctioned slave labor before. Not long ago, that Chinaman was likely in a rural, safe home, working his land, feeding his family with some dignity. Now he’s in a sweat shop making a picture frame for your kid’s photo who gets more in allowance than he does in wages in a crowded, dangerous sweat shop.

Just be aware of this when you buy that pack of 5 plastic spatulas for a buck from China.
China is becoming the biggest consumer of gasoline and the biggest emitter of CO2.
Know why? It’s not because their slave labor is driving automobiles. It’s to fuel their factory sweat shops, buy nice cars for their communist bosses, because we keep buying their cheap imports. So how much is that dollar figurine you didn’t need in the first place really costing you? The next time you fill up, on your way home from Wal Mart, etc., don’t bitch at the gas station attendant. Look in the mirror.


Mar. 2007 - China - The country's use of gasoline reached 52.47 million tonnes last year, an 8.4% year-on-year growth, after the year's car sales jumped 27% to hit 7.2 million. The forecast for this year's growth is 18%.........
China and its Role in the Oil Price Rise
[snip] China has become forced to import three million barrels a day, making it the world's second biggest oil-consuming country, after the US and ahead of its neighbor Japan.......This was reflected on the world price level, which remained at around $20-25 a barrel until 2003, when a big and perceptible increase in China's consumption began.