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-Land of the Free
What 'Made in USA' used to mean
2020-09-17
[American Thinker] Soon after arriving in a South American country to work in 1978, after some years in South Asia, I was talking with a local mechanic about a used car I was trying to get fixed. The fact that it was a Chevy seemed to excite the mechanic, and he commented on the vehicle's overall quality by saying it was "mah-dey en oo-saw." When I responded that I had no idea what he had just said, he looked at me with absolute perplexity and said in Spanish, "You are a Yankee. You should know what 'mah-dey en oo-saw' means!" It finally dawned on me that he was transliterating "made in USA," pronouncing the English words with Spanish sounds rather than translating them, which would have been "Fabricado en Estados Unidos de América," something I would have caught immediately.

It used to be that "mah-dey en oo-saw" had all kinds of local pronunciations around the world, and they all signaled that something had been well made and was a solid product. It's been a long time since the 1970s and a very long time since North America topped the list in the world's opinion for turning out quality products, with the possible exception of German manufacturing.

Now with China producing most of our consumer, medical, and electronic products, it's only old guys like me who remember what a solid American product looked like and how it actually functioned. And with the COVID-19 crisis and China's predatory marketing as well as financial bullying, we are looking at the empty hulks of our former factories and longing for the good ole days.

At a "Made in the USA" event in 2019, Trump touted new U.S.-based factory jobs and American-made products and plans another at the White House this October 5. Joe Biden has been trying to play catch-up with his "America First" campaign, while accusing Trump of actually continuing to close plants and ship jobs overseas. Whether Trump or anyone else will be able to bring home the factory jobs and whether we can realistically rebuild our supply lines from within the country are legitimate questions that can only be answered by the formation of a broad coalition of entrepreneurs and financiers as well as the crafting of regulations (or de-regulations) that will again give oo-saw sustainable conditions for profitable industry.

In the meantime, we can continue to say with somewhat reduced pride that many good products are presently "dey-seeg-ned en oo-saw" (designed in USA) or at least "cone-soom-ed en oo-saw" (consumed in USA).
Posted by:Besoeker

#4  When I was growing up in a marginally middle-class neighborhood, not that long after WW2, all the guys wanted to be auto mechanics and all the girls wanted to be beauticians, more or less. Bringing your car to an auto shop was like coming out of the proverbial closet.

And that's how our tanks kept rolling. Not every nationality had the same attitude.

Old German WW2 joke:

"One Panther tank is worth 10 Shermans!'
Reply: "Yes, but there are always 11."
Posted by: Matt   2020-09-17 14:25  

#3   He could take a part off an American tank and it would fit another tank without any reworking.

As I learnt here, leading up to World War II American tanks were redesigned to maximize the number that could be packed into a ship for overseas war, and standardized so that the tank crew could do most of the repairs themselves at the side of the road, rather than needing to be hauled off to the base mechanics shop far to the rear. I don’t recall if Henry Ford was involved, but the philosophy was the same — a Democratic peoples’ tank that trusted the yeoman on the ground to be able to diagnose and repair his vehicle without the need for specially trained specialists.
Posted by: trailing wife   2020-09-17 13:44  

#2  Quality. I once talked to a British man who restores WWII tanks. He said he could take a part off one British tank and it wouldn't fit another tank without some serious working. He could take a part off an American tank and it would fit another tank without any reworking.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2020-09-17 08:45  

#1  Daisey BB gun

Louisville Slugger

Rawlings baseball glove

etc.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-09-17 08:43  

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