The shareholders are us. You and I. We place our investments in stock (real estate also of course) and we demand the highest return we can get.

Indeed. The first level are the stockholders. The second level are consumers that demand the lowest prices.

Maybe if everyone actually agreed to buy US made, even with higher prices, we could solve some of these problems. But then they need wages high enough to afford the higher cost locally made stuff, which cuts into profit.... and round and round we go...

I agree with your points.

But I'll ask this question; Should the United States with a robust (but declining) middle class and myriad environmental protections, etc, allow countries that pay next to nothing for wages and care nothing for environmental consequences import to our country and compete with our businesses? Talk about your unfair advantage!

So many people complain about what is happening to the earth, why not extend our values to rest of the world, by saying that any importers must abide by our standards in order to sell to us? Would that help the environment? Standards of living elsewhere? Protect some American jobs? Seems to me it would.

As long as there is the unrealistic concept of quarterly profits there will be no compliance. We will seek out the next group to exploit.
Beside salad bars, theaters, rock concerts, spectator sports this may bring about a sudden and drastic change to the economic playing field.
I wholly expect to pay a lot more for "things" in the short term as corporations attempt to maintain quarterly profits. This will ultimately end as we try to stabilize the economy and companies begin to fail. The huge amount of unemployed will rejoin the workforce to work in plants with few protections. Others will adapt to work for or create micro business within communities.
Some posts above touched on us pissing off China. I rather doubt any of the pandemic was initiated intentionally.
It's high time we perhaps develop the moniker MAFA - Make America Function Again.
It will be different for many, yet the great middle class, I don't see much change, for the elitists it's a whole new ball game. corporate profits -PooF!

Great post. I think it could be done and could be spun as action against climate change, holding the rest of the world accountable for their lack of environmental controls, with the side benefit of protecting the supply chains of local citizens. If it worked, then it could potentially level the playing field in terms of cost but also have a positive effect n the environment.

However, the pessimist in me thinks that it wouldn't work, as people will still want to buy cheap stuff, and companies will still want to maintain their profit margins... there would be push-back that would probably win out.

I stopped blaming my fellow citizens a long time ago for seeking out the cheapest available option. Nobody looks past the tips of their noses and never have. Doesn't matter if you're moneyed elite or working poor - all that changes is scale. It's part of the human condition. That being said I place the blame firmly at the feet of the Fed. It's one of the essential duties actually tasked to the Federal Government is managing international trade and they failed, miserably. It doesn't matter what side of the ideological isle you're on - they both failed us. Trade policies that fleeced the working class in the country were championed by both. What we gained in worthless material wealth with multiple TV's in every room and ten year old children with smartphones we lost in our own self reliance.

I don't for a second think that this can't be fixed though, or at least pulled back. We were already starting to fight back (for once) before this all began. Once this finally settles I fully expect the West to be reexamining its reliance on foreign powers. At least something good may come out of this.

I bought generic Benaldryl at Walgreens, found out it was made in China. It was the soft gel with liquid inside. I will use them, but will not buy again. Found out Kroger grocery has some house brands made in China. Wont buy those again.
I had just assumed the store brand stuff was made in USA.
I don't trust China not to poison us even if by accident.
Would think FDA and dept of ag. would be on top of this. I am ready to see televisions made in USA again. I have an old Zenith transistor radio made around 1962. It has a sticker on back that say's , " made in USA by highly skilled well paid workers" or something to that effect.

The same line of thinking prevailed when I was a kid about Japanese stuff.

No matter what, the almighty dollar will always win.

Today's generation is fine with China, and production wise, it appears to me China is eating our lunch in many areas.

Best to build a better mousetrap first.

No nation remains #1 forever, success breeds complacency, always has, always will, there are plenty of examples of this thru out history, and few care to learn those lessons.

Kudos to my alma mater Rutgers for developing a test that works off saliva instead of swabs. This will allow for a drastic increase in testing.

Ain't worth spit.... Oh wait it is.

If I could do a test to see if what hit my wife and I back on March 15th was covid19, I'd do it.

They better be learning them now. The Japanese haven't been an enemy since 1945. And their stuff was never as trashy as the Chicom junk. China has been at war with us for years and we're too stupid and ignorant to realize it.

Better mousetrap? NOTHING made in China is as good as what was being made in America even years ago. Look around at what giving it all to China has brought us.

Speaking of stuff made in Asia...
Remember Lucky Goldstar... the company that made those crappy $59 TV's & VCR's in the 80's.
Today they are "LG"...(Life's Good) in what is probably the most successful example of "Re-branding" in the history of the world. Very few young people have any idea what junk they made years ago... and now homes are filled with LG branded stuff. TV's, Washer's, Drier's, Stereo's, Stove's, Microwave's, Fridge's, Phone's... most of which are all able to communicate back to the South Korea via WiFi "for repair diagnostic service"

Oh and the 50k Covid-19 deaths... Don't forget the CDC went back to beginning of April and added in all of the Pneumonia Deaths as possible Covid... That's when the numbers really spiked... but how many really died of covid and how many would have died anyway from pneumonia... because most of the additions were old timers. Flu-Pneumonia in 2017-18 was still in the 60-80k range... depending on whether or not you go by "Season" or full "52week" period. Many of those were the young and healthy, not just the old & weak, and still the country wasn't shut down.

Come on man, should we hide our numbers? Why would they be padded? Transparency? Accurate data would heal the rift and get everyone on the same page about beating this.
The numbers appear to tell a different story, one that does not include a fall surge in numbers, that is already here.

Tell that to the governor of PA and the clown show at the Dept. of Health. What's the numbers? Depends on who you ask and what day it is. The chief coroner is filing lawsuits over their inept handling of this. They added a bunch one day, got called on it, took them off the list, moved some around to different locations. It's a complete dumpster fire. The governor shut everything down, no notice, no consultation with business leaders, community officials or legislators. Just full tilt dictator, do it or suffer the consequences.

50000 deaths, what they leave out is New York state and New Jersey are almost 23000 alone. Under 30000 in the rest of the country and we destroy the economy, businesses, investments, jobs, lives, go in debt or print funny money by the trillions. People throw the word "trillions" around like I do with "hundreds".

We went to war with Japan over 2500 killed and a couple of ships sunk. China never fired a shot and they kicked our a$$es, bad. It remains to be seen what is done to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Your fricking kidding right???
Let's see...
1) Trying to justify the shutdown now that it's clear MILLIONS won't die as predicted.
2) By shifting from Flu/Pneumonia to Covid-19, the hospital collects that extra $38,000.00 Fed bonus check.
3) I posted it before, but I'll do it again... you seriously believe NY's Flu/Pneumonia numbers after week 12

Just to reiterate for all the hoaxers. This is an eyewitness account of NY. Are you saying he is lying?

Actually, we have no idea how many people are succumbing to this virus. As long as there is an infection of Covid-19 at the time of death, then here in the United States it is listed as a Covid-19 death even if it wasn't the actual cause of death. If you don't believe me, how about this;

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/v...e_counting_that_as_a_covid-19_death.html

There is not enough testing being done to know what the actual infection rate is and way too many deaths are being contributed to this virus. At any rate, no matter how you hash the numbers out, the mortality rate for this virus is less than 1%. And the majority of those infected are in fact asymptomatic, meaning no symptoms at all.

For all the hype and hysteria, this virus may well be no worse than many recent flu years. The most unique thing about this situation is that it is a virus rather than the flu and the fact that our medical professionals were not properly prepared for it despite the fact that they fully anticipated this very scenario to eventually develop.

The illness is real. New York City - probably the largest, most densely populated city in the country and never shut mass transit down - had a problem. Lock it down along with New Jersey, Connecticut, eastern PA, no argument from me.

But where I live, I think 2 people were confirmed and I'm not sure anyone even went to the hospital. But everything is still shut down. People out of work, businesses closed that may never reopen. Little pizza shops, restaurants, family owned places that people had their whole lives invested in. One person did that, the Governor, with no advice or input from anyone but the inept, unqualified clown running the health department. A health department that's playing "hide the bologna" with the numbers and even state legislators can't get a straight answer from them. Now we know why you hire the best qualified people instead of the PC choice.

The response for the majority of the country was way overboard and based on computer models that were so far off, it was criminal. What are they going to do? Tell us "sorry about that. Better safe than sorry"? Well great, but this is a little more serious than a weather report they don't get quite right.

What about the pork, poultry and dairy industries? 100s of thousands of pigs killed and buried rather than going to market. Who knows what food prices will look like 6 months from now. WalMart won't be put out of business. But what about the little diner or the take out place I used to go to? They've been shutdown for 2 months. What about the local family run beef or dairy farm?

Ultimately, this falls square in the lap of the Chinese. But there sure are a lot of people here putting the "never let a crisis go to waste" advice into action in ways I didn't think I'd ever see in this country. I think some people have even commented how easy it was to get everyone to submit and comply. Don't think that's not being noted for future reference,

Yeah meat packing plants are being shut down because the virus was spreading in them. You all seem to forget that the whole point of the shutdown was to keep the virus from spreading. So when your little area didn't get hit hard then maybe, just maybe it might have worked. I'm not defending your governor, don't really know anything about him and your main issue seems to be with him.

Why were we unprepared? Why is a majority of our country's leadership in constant flux, do we have the best people handling the pandemic response? How were the best people handling the country's response duped? I do not think there is some nefarious motive in place.