NaturalMystic:
I just kinda feel it to be a hassle, waiting three weeks for it to arrive. Silly, I know! I could have had one back 3 weeks after I lost my first one!
I hear you man, I do over 80% of my gear purchases online and living in Canada I'm always waiting longer for them to arrive.
For the Americans living in America, I respect your patriotism, the ideology behind your decisions, etc, in preferring to buy US made only products. Being born in a Third World tropical island, and now living in Canada, which is also more of a service driven country (compared to mftg), I don't necessarily have those same loyalties to product origin. I don't mind buying from China, South America, Singapore, Phillipines, Malaysia, etc, as long as the item is good quality and those mftg companies have not been accused of being "sweat-shops".
I'm also not referring to supporting blatant knock-offs but as has been mentioned already, in some cases, who knows what arrangements have been made between the the Big brand companies and the third world outsourcing companies they've contracted to make their lower end product. It wouldn't surprise me if they've given the OK to be "liberal" is using said designs to make lower end copies/knives for their local buyers who can't afford to pay the prices we pay for our original branded versions. In the end, the big companies are still making $$ so I doubt they really care. They're reaching a wider customer base, tapping into a market they otherwise wouldn't be able to and in the end it's all money in the bank for them.
I also don't see much point in buying only the knives that were made in the US and skipping the knives from the same brand that were made in China. In the end all that profit still benefits the entire company, local plants as well as third world outsourced plants like SRM, Navy, etc. Those Chinese manufacturers still get paid and the process repeats itself so unless you stop buying from that company altogether, you're still supporting those offshore contracted companies. I don't necessarily like it but I didn't make the rules so I'm not going to make myself poor buying only the latest and greatest high end "American Made" stuff if I can more than get by on some of the lower end stuff and they meet my needs. As they say, don't hate the player, hate the game!
I'm not trying to start a flame war here but from what I remember reading, part of the US' Capitalistic philosophy when they began outsourcing to China in the 70s was to be able to take advantage of the lower mftg costs due to the cheaper labor and sell at the original prices to maximize their profit margins. I'm pretty sure the powers that be didn't give a crap about child-labor issues and has been shown on several situations, it was probably a case of "don't ask, don't tell". Don't get me wrong, I really like the US, their beliefs, etc, and as I've mentioned before, my mom and younger bro live in the US (my bro served 4 yrs in the US Army, 2 of those in South Korea and Iraq). That being said, I've seen it far to many times where the US powers that be just don't give a crap about anyone but themselves. Look at the whole financial fiasco that we're just coming out of with the sub-par mortgages, Fanny-May, etc. The rich just want to get richer and don't care if they destroy the lives of us "Common folk". That's the opinion I've unfortunately come to have and it's unfortunate that it's become so tarnished. All you great folks in the US still hold on to the idealistic views that your country was founded on but the people in power have corrupted it all for their gain. It makes me really sad that this is the world we live in now.
I don't think it's fair to brand anyone purchasing these "cheap pieces of Chinese junk" as some have put it as being non-patriotic,skumbags taking jobs away from your fellow Americans, etc. It's the American leaders who allowed all this outsourcing to begin with. Are they unpatriotic? Again, the bottom line for the banks and powers that be is, lower-over heads = more profit. Don't hate on the small man because he has to live with these circumstances, he's just making the best of a (bad) situation. This is the global economy and the ride's only just begun.
Anyhow, this thread was supposed to be about the knives so I'll stop there but just wanted to give my 2 cents based on what others have said.
