BUY AMERICAN?  HA!

The sales lady at Macy's summed it up best when she told me, "If everything made outside the United States was removed from this store, it would be virtually empty."

This story began when I was meandering around Cato Fashions in a small, Ontario strip mall with my lady Sue recently.   To amuse myself I began to read the garment tags that confessed their origin:  Bangladesh, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Phillipines....

Finally, I actually stumbled on one blouse that was made in the US of A.

Much to my amazement it was priced smack in the middle of the range of all the rest of the garments--in the low $20s.

Which gave rise to an obvious question:  If whoever manufactured and sold this product can do so competitively, why isn't everything in this store made in the US of A?

I got a blank stare when I posed that question to the young sales lady there.

In the JC Penny store I was looking at lady's jeans.  They were sewn in China--and, finished in Mexico.  A double whammy! 

While we were in Macy's Sue pointed out their up-scale line of womens apparel where I did find a few items made in the US--"from imported fabric".

In Sear's I found an entire line of lady's garments made in the US.  I began to feel a tinge of encouragement.

Then I noticed that same line of clothes on the next rack came from Indonesia.  Again, they all had the same price.

So, what gives? 

I was chagrined when it dawned on me; the stuff made in the US probably was done with illegally, imported labor.