This is a bit long, but stay with it, somehow it fits with a country's
industry going down the tubes.
I spent a portion of my day dealing with something called "The Specialty
Metals Clause" of the "BUY AMERICAN ACT". Boeing is enforcing this on their
military aircraft contractors, because the US Dept of Duhfense is pushing it.
I could not ship $190,000 worth of hardware today because we could not prove
the metal cans of 10 cent capacitors (made in the USA at an electronics house,
then installed in US made circuit boards here in Rockford, IL, and put into a
box machined in Rockford, very American indeed) were made from metal POURED in
the USA. The law says you can used metal poured in a "non Qualified country"
if it is then put into a product MANUFACTURED or IMPROVED in a qualified
country. So you would think that if the component is fabricated in California,
integrated into a board in Illinois, and assembled into a box in Illinois, it
would constitute "manufactured in a qualified country" (USA). The thing is,
the BUY AMERICAN ACT does not consider the USA as a qualified
country. I could buy the parts from Luxembourg and be OK. Raw materials used
in many components (including microprocessors, safety wire, and most Mil Spec
hardware) simply cannot be bought in the USA, although you can buy products
MADE in the USA from these materials and keep the economy going, but the Buy
American Act won't let us. So instead of spending several million dollars a
year buying products from US companies to put in my products, the Gov't says I
should get them from a qualified country ouside of the USA instead to comply
with the BUY AMERICAN act. Go F'ing figure.
"Peter C." <nosimport@mailbag.com> wrote:
" Britain is the largest exporter of Automobiles in the world, with a
total of 506,000 passenger and commercial vehicles shipped to many
parts of the world during the year 1951. More than half of Great
Britains (sic) output were the passenger cars that are more and more
commonly seen in the States. These small cars have become very
popular recently, partly because of the low price and partly for the
economy involved in running and maintaining them. Such names as
Rover, Hillman, Austin, and MG are almost as well known today as Ford
and Chevrolet. Among the larger more expensive cars shipped from
Britain, are the Jaguar, Allard, Rolls Royce, and Daimler. Britain
expects the demand in 1952 to break the record sales of 1951!
Sigh
Ron Soave
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop
thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
G. W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
---------------------------------
Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less
|