FTC: Made In The USA Comments Concerning Keith L. Waples--P894219 Keith L. Waples July 29, 1997 Federal Trade Commission Re: “Made in USA" labeling Dear Sir/Madam: I am disappointed in some of our government officials and outraged by their actions. I can't believe that our own government officials want to further decimate our workers' lives by more injustices, such as lying about where goods are made. We already have no way to determine, for sure, whether goods we made in the USA or not due to the deceptive designation allowed under APPA, American Products Produced Abroad. Even this is not enough for those companies which move factories to other countries, thus depriving our workers many hundreds of thousands of good-paying production jobs. Now, due to the fact that many USA citizens realize that buying products made in the USA is much better for our country, as a whole, than buying foreign produced products, our officials decide that we need to change “Made in USA” to include these foreign-produced products, also. Another way to fool the dumb USA consumer. If we purchase USA-produced products, then our workers do not lose their jobs to foreign workers, our workers spend their higher income in the USA which creates more jobs and which keep many people off of the welfare rolls, which other workers must pay for, and also keeps many from drawing unemployment, which other workers must pay for to be conservative, a worker’s wages are worth about 7 times what his pay is due to all the jobs created by his spending his income. That is all gone when goods are produced in foreign countries. And think of the income taxes these workers would pay if their jobs were not transferred to Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, etc. Also, the old idea I was fed in college economics - that everyone would gain, as each country would do what it did best (cheapest) and thus the consumers could do nothing but come out ahead as this would lower the cost to all consumers. Well, look at the prices of these foreign- produced products and see if the prices we consumers pay reflects the wage rate of from $0.29 to $0.75 cents an hour or so that workers in these 3rd world countries are bing paid. If the CEO’s of these companies that lay off USA workers and move their factories to foreign countries under NAFTA & GATT priced their foreign-made products for the consumers, then their multi-million dollar salaries, stock options, etc. would have to be reduced to a reasonable figure. If shipping our jobs to foreigners is so great for the USA worker, then why does the stock market go up every time a report from the government shows that USA workers are not gaining in wages or fringe benefits. By advocating the mislabeling of foreign-made products (I don't care if only 1% is made in foreign countries), this is a disastrous misservice to the United States of America. Is “truth” such a bitter pill to swallow? What is wrong with “Truth in Labeling”. Truth is not so hard to understand; it is not relative, it is not just in the eye of the beholder - it is black and white. Our government officials appear to believe that truth is whatever you can get the people to swallow as the truth. Well, labeling foreign-produced products as "made in USA" is not the truth it is a lie. Labels need to reflect the exact percentage of forms labor and other resources in all products. I understand it will be difficult for some government officials to try to change their concept of what is truth and what a right but I urge you to try and remember that you we supposed to work for the good of the people of the USA and that you are paid by them, also. Sincerely, Keith L. WaplesKeith L. Waples cc:Hon. Roy Blunt |