Monitor Audio Made in China?

100 years ago, "Swiss made" was the mark of a third rate watch and the best watch you could get was American or English. 50 years ago, the best-made cars for the mass market were American and British with some continental European mfrs just behind. 35-40 years ago, Japanese cars were seen as third-rate cars in terms of quality. 20 years ago, some people frowned upon Taiwan- and Japan-made computers and computer chips. "State-of-the-art Korean-made chips" was seen as a contradiction in terms.

In 2007, I challenge someone to tell me which American watch-makers compete with some of the better European makers in terms of quality. If you wanted a car to go 50,000 miles with NO service other than oil/tire change, which US maker's car would you choose over a Toyota? (ever notice how many American cars are exported to places like Africa, the mid-East (other than Hummers), and Asian countries where dealer networks aren't thick on the ground?). And when you need to buy a PC, I dare you to find one where it is possible to find every part made in the US, at any price.

"Made in China" may not yet be synonymous with top quality but it is not synonymous with top price either. In the large scale, the caveat "you get what you pay for" remains true in mass-market products.

Peronally, I avoid China-made processed food products and health products. I do so for my own peace of mind. At some point, I am sure that I will be won over, the same way I am sure I will be buying African-made shoes and electronics when my seven year-old's children are buying their first TVs too.

I agree with Alan Blinder that "globalization is good for the world" and I agree with his assessment that for Americans, the next step of "globalization" may be worse than the last one experienced over the last 10-20 years. What is good for the average is almost never good for the above-average (GDP per capita for example). Americans have to wake up and smell the coffee and figure out what their competitive advantage is. A job is, unfortunately, not an inalienable right unless one lives in a society where jobs are subsidized by loss of other freedoms.

End o' rant.

Macrojack,

I must admit to being a bit shocked by the "our country [America] is being strip-mined" comment. Apart from the fact that the greatest environmental danger to American soil comes from American companies paying American lobbyists who effectively "pay" American politicians voted into office (not by the wealthiest few Americans, but by the other 90% of us (or the 50-odd percent of the other 90% of us who actually bother to vote) to make it easy to strip-mine vast tracts of currently un-inhabited land so the rest of us can feel better about driving cars (SUVs) which are often less fuel-efficient than the gas-guzzlers of 30 years ago.

In terms of American "being" strip-mined, it is we who are doing it to ourselves. It is not foreigners coming in to the US forcing us to buy more gadgets more often. Everyone wants their retirement nest egg to grow 10% a year (some 3-times GDP growth) but that only comes from less profitable enterprise dying out and more profitable enterprise picking up the slack. It is the American way. It is the way America became "great" - through a long prrocess of "strip-mining" other, more-developed economies (England, Germany, France). It did not help those countries that they accelerated their own relative demise through wars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but some of those wars were started by groups looking to re-live or re-establish their declining greatness (hmmm... rings a bell).

The world is what it is. It is up to all of us to figure out how to make best use of it. If everyone wants American democracy and capitalism to become more of a social welfare capitalist economy like France, Germany, or Japan, then we will vote it into place. However, trying to get voters to address real economic issues (like education, science and development, and conservation - all of which challenge existing regimes and break out new, eventually highly profitable, technologies) is a real humdinger of a problem. Voters seem to appreciate sound bites and "feel good about America" speeches a great deal more than change. And very few seem to look to the greater good, despite the fact that a slightly smaller piece of a much larger pie that more people like is often a much better piece of pie to have.

Macrojack, I did understand that your reference was figurative. My initial reference to "strip-mined" was literal, but I wanted to note that any literal strip-mining of America is being done by Americans. I disagreed less with the content of the word, more the mode of the verb as "being strip-mined" or "plundered" implies passivity and lack of ability to change the outcome. My point was that, in aggregate, Americans are doing this to themselves through the choices they make in policies, politicians, personal consumption, and parenting. And despite the fact that I agree with almost everything in your second paragraph (I don't happen to believe the US is over-regulated), it is ALL available for change. There is nothing that cannot be reversed... if we care enough... end o' my rant.

And now back to your regularly scheduled thread on Monitor Audio speakers made in China.