A reader “MM” commented “One thing I would make mandatory is to clearly label the country of origin on all products. It has disappeared with the globalization. I can see it only on a small percentage of products, and then only because the producer is domestic.”
This sounds like a request for a “Truth in Labels” Act.
Reader Kevin quickly got to the key idea with this quip: “Countries of origin listed like percent daily values on a cereal box nutrition label?”
Let’s take “Truth in Labels” labeling to the logical conclusion.
Proposed Label Items
- 60% China manufactured
- 75% of steel China used from Australia
- 100% genuine Chinese coal
- 75% of oil used from Iran
- 25% of oil from Saudi Arabia
- 10% South Korea Steel
- 22% Genuine Mexican parts
- 10% US value added assumed
- Label made in Vietnam with 100% US cotton
- Parts from China 40%, Mexico 30%, US 20%, elsewhere 10%
- All components shipped to Mexico for final assembly
Label Czar Needed
Not all of the above pertinent to every item. Item 9 primarily applies to garments.
To administer this vital program we would clearly need a label czar.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Clearly we need more government oversight and control.
We are so intertwined globally that labels as such would become arbitrary and meaningless.
It sounds great in a trumpian way, and surely appeals to many of his supporters, but that is taking advantage of people’s ignorance on just how supply chains work.
Simple answers are always appealing, but reality always has a way of intervening into that simplicity.
If a woman were appointed “Czar” (and by the way, wtf is that term doing in American nomenclature??? It means “Caesar.”), would we call her “Czarina?” Has there ever been a woman “Drug Czar” or similar somesuch bullshit?
What a joke!
Czar is a made up label by obama.
He did this to get around congressional oversight and approval.
Obama was a petty tyrant. This is part of his legacy.
Please don’t use his tyrannical methods or processes.
Probably pick it up from UK in modern times. Some idiot started it here years back, think under Blair.
Czar for everything.
The transferred sense of “person with dictatorial powers” is first recorded 1866, American English, initially in reference to President Andrew Johnson. The fem. czarina is 1717, from Italian czarina, from Ger. Zarin, fem. of Zar “czar.” The Russian fem. form is tsaritsa. His son is tsarevitch, his daughter is tsarevna.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=czar
A strong secondary effect of the West’s financialization racket, where a few gets handed billions for nothing, and the rest just get robbed, raped and left destitute and begging; is that the mythical “leader” suddenly becomes some sort of person of importance. Rather than, as is appropriate in free and healthy societies, just some annoying pompous twit, to ridicule and shoot in the head for kicks if gets too uppity.
So now, if there is a supposed “problem,” the solution is to appoint a Czar, elect a President, hire a CEO, or whatnot. Any of the three conveniently, inevitably and without fail, from the Fed enabled protected classes. And then to give these inevitable mediocrities (the Fed and supporting society, as a function of institutional survival necessity, doles out money/power to those most likely to cheerlead for it, not according to any kind of merit nor competence, hence delivers, at best, mediocrity, by necessity.), ever expanded power over others
Hence Czars, self promoting “rockstar” CEOs, Loudmouthed “Hope and Change” and “Make America Great Again” drivel that ends up having real, always deleterious effects, for people as a whole. And on and on and on….
Latin America has had the same “Strong Leader, Cheer For Him!” culture for a century and a half, as those countries were saddled with a protected class from the get go. And, now, we’ve got it too!!!
Very good comment. You understand Latin American history and its negative implications for the American people during the later phase of Capitalism.
Actually, FDR was the first president to appoint a “Tsar”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars
Shocker. The Dictator himself.
When were you born? Inauguration day 2009? Obama made up the czar label? Dolt.
We need this mainly for food. In the words of someone very close to me who has been in China many times on behalf of a Fortune 100 corporation, the Chinese will put “anything” in food, including toxic substances, if it will lower the price.
pyrrhus – yep, that’s the first thing I look at on the label – whether the food is from China. If it is, I don’t buy it.
To accuse the Chinese solely of doing this is completely disingenous. The inspection of food products is so random and infrequent that everyone potentially can do it. If caught it is simpler & much more profitable to pay the fine. With that said I don’t care for made in China food.
It should not be limited to country of origin. They need to disclose all details of the food we eat, i.e. GMO, organic, farm name & location, health inspection dates & pass/fail statements. This stuff is going into our bodies.
I just got back from the supermarket, and everything was clearly labeled. Every apple had an individual sticker on it with the USA region or foreign country. Every banana bunch had a wrapper with country name and whether it was organic. The out-of-season berries and grapes said Mexico, Peru, Chile, California or wherever. All the jars of jams and preserves said if they were USA, Argentina, Turkey, etc. You just have to learn to pay attention! It is Already Labeled! Whether this is by law or pro-active, I have no idea.
Similarly, every tool in the hardware store is labeled, whether China or the location in the USA. Any fool can read the existing labels. Perhaps people need to learn to read English, or get their eye glasses adjusted to better see the fine print. Unfortunately, a Czar cannot force lazy people to spend time scrutinizing the labels. Drill Sergeants might be the better answer. Or like the DMV, force people to take an English reading and comprehension test at the Bureau of Shopping before licensing them to shop. That would also force all the immigrants coming to this country to learn the English language.
Don’t know if a 300 page “label” would work on consumer items, but something like this is already happening on the wholesale side of things.
Oil companies are now requiring suppliers to guarantee, in the sales contract, where parts are sourced. Too many large steel bolts have been purchased from a US based wholesaler, but the bolts are from China and contain too many impurities. The bolts have been failing at 4x the rate the US manufactured bolts (which cost 20% more, but have 1/4 the fail rate). Given that a failed bolt on a billion dollar drilling project can shut down everything, paying an extra $1000 for proper bolts is a gimme. Especially when you add in legal liabilities when the rig fails.
Two large US computer companies are now renegotiating supplier contracts, because of quality control problems. A huge number of defective chips / cards because the suppliers just buy the cheapest components. Automated B2B systems just pull the lowest price off an “exchange” and buy those components — but there is zero quality control. So the computer “manufacturers” (really assemblers…) are now requiring their suppliers to certify where they buy components from.
And then there is Amazon… which has serious counterfeit problems, as well as the quality control problems other businesses have observed. Return costs are growing and adding to losses (when you look at GAAP “earnings”, including the cost of stock options etc).
The fashion industry has always had its knock-off Louis Vitton bags and so on. But anyone can wander around Hong Kong and buy authentic LV labels from the same sub-contractors that supply labels to LV’s own manufacturers. The label is “authentic” even though the garment is not.
Fred – very interesting. Thanks for posting.
Someone I know was busy inventing cheap individual labels that were not able to be coppied ( sort of natural matrix that could be read but not engineered), smart idea.
Actually a database with complete details would not be that hard ( apart fraud) as it would be a simple entry by original producer that accompanied the product, compiling as it was integrated into whatever. A code on the product brings up the database for those wanting to know on an app..
Voluntary ( including paying/allowing random QC) would be good enough, same sort of reasons people will buy ‘Made in wherever’ .
Either way the easiest for the consumer where concerned is voluntarily advertising origin where the product gains value from that.
Do importers carry liability…?… that must be incredibly complex in law.
Simple answer there for you Mish
“American produce” and “Made in America”
Saves ink.
I know of a number of companies who have had quality control problems with essential components and chemicals made in locations such as the UK and Massachusetts. Quality control is not a problem unique to any particular country. USA has its share of inferior merchandise, sorry to say. I’ve experienced good quality from Turkey, India, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand and even on occasion China, Europe and the USA. It is always buyer beware.
Things are always changing, which makes generalizing by brand or country like a moving target. I talked to an engineer from Mexico recently who was hired by a USA company for quality control at their China plant because of problems with the Chinese managers. No reason quality control need be restricted by borders.
You exhibit basic reading comprehension problems joel
Companies can’t control quality in products from places that don’t have pride in their work or places that have centuries of history cutting corners.
You lib-tards see everything in terms of your racism labels and are unable to see any alternate explanation for everything. Its why you lost the election. Its why your patron state of California is bankrupt.
I always appreciate your weekend barrage of insults, Fred. Like clockwork, they arrive. Really good writing though, like legendary German-Californian patron saint Bukowski. You ought to write books, like Bukowski, who did well enough to quit his day job at the post office. But better online than endangering others on the road, is my philosophy. But longer term EtOH will do worse to you than all the lib-tards in the USA and EU combined. I think you already know that.
BTW, I didn’t lose the election.
Spot on. My family looked into investing in a soy sauce plant in China. During a visit to the factory they were adding any kind of filler they could get their hands on. They simply did not give AF.
Der Labelfuhrer…….LOL……………….
Labels should be mandatory on all government facilities. “Warning; Big Government is Hazardous to your Health.”
WARNING — Not all the stories in WaPo and NY Times were written by the democratic national committee. A small percentage may have actually been researched.
ALERT — Everything in FT is opinion. CNBC is 98% opinion, 2% cramer sound effects… Booyah!
Big fan of labeling point of origin for food. I just don’t trust food from certain countries, especially fish. But I believe we already do that. With other products its less important to me. I base on buying mostly on price and quality. I trust the corporation to address both and not sure if there’s a correlation between quality and country of origin.
I have two residences approximately 120 miles apart and can tell you there is night and day differences between the food from each area whether it is store bought or restaurant. Big city food absolutely sucks, rural area food is superb. Prices in big city are higher for the shitty food.
I live in Manhattan. we face no such issue.
I know the content of my car composition, but not my food. Some foods are labeled, but many only state who distributes it. I don’t think we need a label czar, but I don’t think it is too much to ask where my medicine was made.
The wife just ordered a few inexpensive items on-line from China. The total bill amounted to about $6. I asked her how much of that $6 covered shipping. She said shipping is free on all goods coming from China, regardless of the weight or amount of the goods. Hmmm. The US Postal Service generally doesn’t deliver goods for free. Is this another Obama executive order taxpayer subsidy to promote good trade relations with China? We cover all Chinese shipping costs? Trump needs to reverse that one too.
LFOldTimer – this is a good article on the US Postal Service, how they’re losing money, and how China benefits.
““I can’t believe our government would do this to undercut American sellers to help the Chinese sell more in America,” McGrath said.
Under this decades-old arrangement, which is overseen by an agency of the United Nations and has participation from nearly every country, national postal services give each other discounted rates on international mail under a certain size and weight.
Here’s how it works. Say someone from Germany wants to sends a letter or package (under 4.4 pounds) to Chicago. The German postal service will handle the Germany-to-U.S. leg. After the package arrives in, say, New York, the USPS takes over, delivering it to its final destination.
Countries used to provide this forwarding service to each other for free, but in 1969 an update to this postal treaty called for small fees (called terminal dues) on each mail piece. Since then the dues have grown, and the payment system has become labyrinthine. In most cases, however, postal services still charge each other less than they would charge their own citizens for moving a package across the country.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-china/?utm_term=.c3cfa1f6fbc5
Thanks for the article, backward.
Obviously this is another lousy deal for America that needs to get renegotiated by Trump.
As if USPS is not in enough fiscal trouble. Now it has to deliver Chinese parcels at a huge subsidized discount.
Not surprisingly, under the Obama administration the program was enhanced causing even bigger losses for USPS.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Poor Trump. As if there’s not enough crap he has to fix.
Why would foreigners be willing to export to us more than they import from us?
One reason is surely welfare proportional to wealth – positive interest on inherently risk-free sovereign debt, eg. US Treasury Bonds.
We should eliminate welfare for the rich and then far less welfare would be needed for everyone else.
Don’t quite understand this comment.
The US is monetarily sovereign. It can create its fiat at will – any amount of it. Thus its sovereing debt is inhertently risk-free. Thus positive interest on its sovereing debt is WELFARE.
Please pardon spelling of “sovereign” – pathetic spellchecker or I don’t know how to use it.
That is patently false. Creating currency is actually quite risky. ask the Wiemar Republic how that worked out for them. Between that and the expansion of credit we’re hollowing out the job market by making automation cheaper than human labor; at least, more quickly than would otherwise occur. You can create more tickets, but it’s meaningless without an increase in shirts. The current perceived safety of sovereign debt is illusory. When I was a kid, a Caddy cost @ 6K. Now it’s what, 40K? How are those dollars treating you. When the country was founded a dollar was defined as one FIFTEENTH of an ounce of gold.
Between that and the expansion of credit we’re hollowing out the job market by making automation cheaper than human labor; [bold added] justaned
Correct. The solution then is to eliminate another source of welfare for the rich – government subsidies for private credit creation, including the huge implicit subsidy of forcing us all to lend (a deposit is legally a loan) to depository institutions instead of allowing all US citizens to have inherently risk-free accounts at the central bank itself or equivalent*.
*A Postal Checking Service forbidden to lend, pay interest or otherwise create liabilites for fiat.
Also, the problem is not automation but that it is and has been unethically financed with what is, in essence, the PUBLIC’s credit, but for private gain.
Funny, for all the untold regulations here in Germany under the EU, there is no requirement to write on the outside or inside of the package “made in….”. Yeah, often the package says “made in China” etc but it is not mandatory. Lots of packages have no source country, so it is impossible to “buy German” or “buy EU” on a regular basis.
My favorite: the organic food labels (“Bio”) that list the source country of the ingredients as: “EU Landwirtschaft/Nicht EU Landwirtschaft”, meaning the contents are from EU agriculture and non-EU agriculture–which, coincidentally, is the entire planet. Very helpful.
Hmmm, that would be to keep people amused I expect, something like writing ‘ Turn over for the answer’ on both sides of a piece of paper. I hear that the Germans are very ordered to instruction, so maybe they didn’t get the joke. Possibly there is an EU official who is still laughing about having introduced the format. Not sure if it is still a UK label, but I remember ‘Product of different countries’ somewhere, which at least lends an air of either mystery or uncertainty, depending on the temper of the reader.
11. 100% of the butt in this garment makes your butt look fat.
Unless it is part of hate campaign, the detailed origin labels are not needed. I usually look for label when the product falls apart in my hands. Usually it is ‘Made in China’, but this is statistically justified, because almost everything is made in China.
Fish farms in China are often located next to pig farms, because the pig manure is thought to be an economical food source for the fish. So if fish from China has to be labeled as such, I wouldn’t mind.
Well if you folks read the laws passed you understand that corporations are pushing to keep all GMO labeling out of stores, LAST year ALL MEATS DO NOT REQUIRE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN told to consumers… Natural is now considered the SAME AS ORGANIC except of course any and all chemicals may be used! get up to speed BIG 1% ELITE CORPORATIONS HAVE run around the corner already!
Pro-active “No GMO” labels are running rampant these days, even for shampoos and cosmetics and items where it is silly. Free market will solve the GMO labeling problem via pro-active “No GMO” labels if that is what the public is willing to pay for. Don’t need a Czar or laws to accomplish it. Do some label reading next time you are in a supermarket, and see for yourself. Or better yet, grow your own non-GMO grains and grind your own flour and bake your own bread for ultimate quality control.
It’s now *illegal* to use country-of-origin labels on meat, as the WTO has ruled that the US is in violation of their rules when it allows such labels.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2015/12/usda-ends-cool-enforcement-with-presidents-signature-on-omnibus-bill/
You can’t tell if the beef that you buy in a supermarket came from the USA or Mexico or Canada or China anymore, courtesy of the WTO.
It’s another Parthian shot from Obama as he left office.
First, what does this mean?
Plastic, metal and silicon is cheap. So an iPhone is ‘100% of that’. But you’re not spending $700 on a new iphone to buy a pile of plastic, most of that $700 is the way all of that is put together and the software that runs it. So what % is that?
Or is this a measure of ‘value added’? If the plastic case comes out of one country and is worth only $7, is it 1% of the value added. If after all that assembly in its worth $200 but then the final $500 is the software being loaded in the US do we say the product is 500/700 or 71% made in America?
More importantly what value is any of this? Why not capture the religion of the workers and make a label….’25% Muslim labor’? Or right handed vs left handed people? Or men vs women?