One of the provisions of President Obama’s stimulus package was an emphasis on buying American, supported by labor unions and protectionists entities all across the land. Shoot, I try to do that, as long as I feel like I’m getting reasonable value for the dollars spent. My last three vehicles were a Buick, a Pontiac and now a GMC. There’s the rub my friend. I’m not sure where the Buick was assembled but I think the Bonneville was screwed together up in Canada, and I know it had a lot of foreign parts. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the headlamp clusters on that Buick and saw Magneti Marelli as the maker. Gee, I didn’t think I’d see that moniker ever again after getting rid of my last Fiat waaaaaaaaay back in the day.

See what I mean? So, how do you buy American anyway? The video above from Reason.TV asks this and other questions.

Reason.tv went to a Washington, D.C. event where business owners and activists learned how to lobby for more protectionist laws. “If you want to sell it here, build it here,” says one participant who referrs to those who ignore the “buy American” imperative as “uneducated, ignorant people.”

And shouldn’t we be patriotic purchasers? That’s what car ads, draped with Old Glory and heartland visuals, suggest. What could be more patriotic than buying a Jeep Patriot? With American automakers hurting so badly, that’s got to help America.

“That’s nonsense,” says George Mason University economist—and Cafe Hayek blogger—Donald Boudreaux.

“The Jeep Patriot, despite it’s name is actually less American than some Toyota products. It’s literally impossible—at least in any practical sense—to ‘buy American.’”

Boudreaux argues that Americans should buy whatever products they choose; neither guilt nor laws should push them to buy American. “The thing that is most distinctively American is freedom. To insist that Americans should not be free to buy good from foreigners that’s very anti-American.”

At one point in time WalMart made a name for itself with a plethora of Made in America goods. However, their constant push on their vendors to lower their prices so that WalMart could continue to be our nation’s retail low-price leader forced those same suppliers to go overseas where super-low labor rates and less government regulation allowed them to meet the retail giant’s pricing goals. That cycle continues to this day, with China now being too expensive a labor market for many goods — that manufacturing now going to Vietnam and Malaysia and elsewhere.

As a VP of design and manufacturing for a sporting goods company in the 90s, I witnessed our attempt to make minimal purchases of foreign commodity components and combine them with higher-level parts made here and then to assemble skates in Los Angeles — it didn’t work. There was no way to compete. Changing tactics, with our lowest priced items made in China and the upper level lines in Thailand, we finally could offer goods to the US and world markets at a decent profit margin. You see, the consumer was not willing to pay that 10%-20% tax, the extra cost of making them in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Same with TVs and such. Ask yourself this question. That flat screen you’re eying at Best Buy for two grand and change — would you be willing to pay, oh say, $2,350.00 instead, as long as the majority of parts and its assembly were here in the U.S.? How about for every other item that you purchased this last year for home and business? Of course, the answer is no — you couldn’t possibly afford to do that. Maybe on a single item, or at least a few, but not overall. Still, I do have a mental disconnect with Cuisinart products that are Made in China. Remember when Made in Japan was a pejorative instead of an emblem of superiority?

Sticky wickets my friends — sticky wickets!

[H/t: Hot Air]

What the Obama administration needs to do is cut a deal with McNEIL-PPC, Inc. to send out to every American taxpayer their own super-size tub of KY Jelly, ’cause with the reamin’ that’s a comin’ based on last night’s Senatorial “compromise”, all us taxpayers are gonna need all the heavy-duty lubricant that we can possibly get our hands on as we bend over to take the BIG ONE up the ol’ financial wazoo! Yep, three of the GOP’s not-so-finest, Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, caved in to the persuasions of Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and the Senate Democrat majority and abandoned their fellow Republicans — which begs the question, “Just what did those three get promised in return?” The Senate minority leader puts it in the proper perspective:

“Now, if most Republicans were convinced that this would work, there might be a greater willingness to support it,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on the floor of the Senate after announcement of the deal. “But all the historical evidence suggests that it’s highly unlikely to work. And so, you have to balance the likelihood of success versus the crushing debt that we’re levying on the backs of our children, our grandchildren, and, yes, their children.”

True, this is about $100+ Billion less than it would have been yesterday, and that sounds like “such a deal”, if you’re one of those morons that buys into anything that gets promoted you way. Over at Patterico they are likening this to a bad car buying deal:

$100 billion off a $937 billion package. If that sounds good to you, then you’re probably the type of person who is impressed when the car dealer says he’s willing to knock $500 off the sticker price.

{…}

There are about 138 million taxpayers in the country. A $937 billion package, therefore, amounts to $6789 for every taxpayer.

If they cut it by $100 billion, that brings the total to the low, low price of only $6065 per taxpayer. For a typical family, that’s $12,130.

Twelve thousand dollars per family. That’s the number that may bring the “moderate Republicans” on board.

Who’s paying that? You? Or your kids, with interest?

Well, all we know is that it probably won’t be any of the high-profile Democrats payin’ for nothin’, as they sure don’t seem to like payin’ their fair share of the tax burden they dump on the rest of us!

But hey you say, Obama’s right, we really need to stop standing around and “DO SOMETHING!”, and do it “RIGHT FRICKIN’ NOW!”, or we’re all doomed! Doomed! DOOMED!!!!!!

Un, the Congressional Budget Office would like to have a little word with all you “depression hysterics” out there:

President Obama’s economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

CBO estimates that by 2019 the Senate legislation would reduce GDP by 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent on net.

According to the rest of this article, there is an admission by the COB that some jobs will be created by this so-called “stimulus” package — but that for the next 2-1/2 — 3 years the effects of that would be “minimal”.

So, get that into your head. WE are gonna let Congress give Obama the power to spend almost a Trillion Dollars even though the Congress’ own budget office says that this spending will achieve next to nothing. Michelle Malkin gives us the current update on where all this stands as of Sat. noon:

Here’s where things stand. The Senate will be in session today from about noon to 3:00pm Eastern. Members will speak, but there won’t be any roll call votes. Cloture will reportedly be filed on the Cave-In/”Compromise” amendment from Sens. Collins and Nelson. The cloture vote (to end debate) on the amendment is scheduled for Monday at 5:30pm Eastern. GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell’s office tells us that “if cloture is invoked on the amendment post cloture time will run until noon on Tuesday. At noon on Tuesday the bill will be subject to another 60 vote hurdle by either waiving a budget point of order or achieving 60 votes on final passage.”

They’re taking Sunday off.

Question: Who has seen the Collins/Nelson cave-in amendment? Where is it? When can we, the taxpayers, see it? SHOW US THE BILL.

She calls this bill a “gold-plated pile of crapola!”

Wow! What a way to learn the hard knocks of losing an election, especially to the most radical-Left candidate in many a generation. If this gets past both houses of Congress and is signed into law by the Chosen One, better hope that they get that KY delivered and fast. Cause “assume the position” will be the order of the day!

Remember, only the first 6 Billion is consensual . . .

Technorati Tags: Mitch McConnell, Obama’s economic recovery package

Makes about as much sense as the financial bailout — Heh!