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A short test on business:
1. Companies manufacture and sell products..
A. To support the USA.
B. Out of the goodness of their hearts
C. To make money.
2. Stockholders buy stock in companies...
A. To support the USA.
B. Because they have nothing better to do.
C. To make money.
3. The goal of ANY business is...
A. To make people happy.
B. To give people jobs.
C. To make money.
4. Most working people go to work each day...
A. To support the USA.
B. Because they have nothing better to do.
C. To make money.
Are we seeing a pattern to the correct answers here? Businesses do what they do to make money. They locate wherever the local labor and tax situation allows them to make the most money. Vast blocks of corporations are bought and sold each year because both the buyer and seller are trying to make money. There are damn few consumer items that are still made by wholly-owned American companies. ANY publicly traded stock is, by definition, owned by the "public", and hence it can be owned by non-Americans. The current business climate is overwhelmingly based on global economics. Virtually everything you buy can be linked to some foreign investment. And virtually any foreign product sold in the US has US stockholders. So boycotting French products is not only a foolish waste of time, it can actually be bad for the USA.
You really want to buy only American products? Write your congressional representatives and ask them to sponsor trade sanctions on anything foreign. When they stop laughing they may may get around to explaining to you that if they were to try that and succeed, we'd have almost no consumer electronics and the price of everything else would skyrocket. The effect on the global economy would be disastrous, and it would wreck our economy completely.
If you really feel the need to boycott something, boycott companies that hurt the environment or abuse low wage earners in sweatshops or involve themselves in shady deals with countries that are not pro-American.
Of course that would mean you'd have to walk wherever you went since the use of ANY petroleum product would be a no-no. Plus you'd probably be naked since it would be hard to find a clothing or shoe manufacturer that didn't abuse low wage earners. (There are some, I'm sure, but they're hard to find and if you do find one, they'd still have to be environment friendly. Tougher still.)
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Mark}--->8-8->
If you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
Last edited by M_Six; 06-01-2003 at 07:01 AM.
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