I find it hard to talk about China without discussing how inferior their products are. I've been blessed that I never had to experience a job loss due to outsourced manufacturing. But I've bought more than my share of Chinese-made junk, and quality products are getting harder and harder to find. The economic models don't adequately account for this.

For example, I recently had to do a plumbing repair that required 1.5 inch PVC pipe. Well the Chinese "inch and a half" pipe was just a fraction of an inch smaller and thinner than its 25-year-old American counterpart. The difference is barely perceptible to the naked eye, but just enough where the pipe ends had to be filed down to make them fit. A simple repair turned into a major ordeal, just to save the company....what? 2 cents per thousand feet of pipe?

I've tried to use Chinese wood screws that snapped from the torque of a manual screwdriver. I've had electric appliances burn out after a couple of years,  because the manufacturer used the smallest, cheapest gauge wire they could get away with. For a nickel more, my coffee pot could've lasted a lifetime. It took about 20 washes to wear holes in my T shirts from Wal Mart.

These products carry the same American and American-sounding brands as always. Even if the savings was passed on to me, which I highly doubt, it cost more in gas to go back to the store for another coffee pot than whatever they could've possibly saved by using 22 gauge wire instead of 20.

These companies should be stripped of their storied, decades-old American brands. The inferior junk they're importing does not live up to the brands' reputation and it's borderline fraudulent to label it as such.