NOT Made in the USA: What’s in Your Closet?

I just looked in my closet and was shocked to see that most of my clothes were not "Made in the U.S.A."

This is not meant to be a political statement or a social commentary. Just a statement of fact.

Lately, several articles of clothing I had purchased from one designer in a particular department store had holes in them when they came out of the washing machine. Of course, it could have been due to an error I made in the setting – putting delicate clothes in a normal wash – but when I looked at the labels, these clothes were:

• Made in Thailand
• Made in China
• Made in China of Italian yarn
• Made in Vietnam
• Made in Korea
• Or, if they were "Made in the USA," they were made of imported fabric

Even my blue jeans were not "Made in the USA!" And you can’t get more American than blue jeans. I started looking at clothes from other stores and almost all of them are made outside of this country. What is happening?

When I asked one store manager, she explained, “It’s cheaper to make them outside of the United States.”

So, not only are we exporting jobs, in some cases, we’re importing inferior apparel.

It’s not something I have ever thought about, but when it came to my attention - and I started rummaging through my closet - it hit me over the head like a ton of bricks. 

One service that is "Made in the U.S.A.": the U.S. Postal Service, the organization that brought us “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," is falling down on the job or at least they are in my neighborhood. What’s up with that?

I read an article in today’s paper that the U.S. Postal Service is facing bankruptcy and will begin implementing cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery. One analyst quoted in the article began, “Over time, to the extent the customer service experience gets worse….” Over time?

I used to get my mail in the morning, now it comes sometime before dinner (when is anybody’s guess) and most of the time it’s just junk mail or no mail at all. Sometimes I’ll get other people’s mail or other people will get my mail. On Saturdays all I get are flyers. They’re talking about not delivering the mail on Saturday. Well, essentially, they’ve already started doing that. Now the agency is going to raise the price of a first-class postage stamp to 45 cents, a 1-cent increase, beginning Jan. 22. Hopefully, that will allow them to provide better service.

And here’s something else that bugs me. For the past month or so I’ve been getting multiple communications from my car dealer reminding me that my car needs to be serviced. First, they call my house incessantly and I tell them I will make an appointment when I’m ready. Then they e-mail me that they’ve already made a service appointment for me and tell me the date and time of the appointment and the problem they found with my car. How can they tell what the problem is if they haven’t even seen the car? There’s no way to answer the e-mail or write back that I did not make an appointment and I wasn’t going to keep it.

They continue to call me.

I guess they aren’t selling any cars so they need to make it up on service.

What’s in Your Closet and What’s on Your Mind?