Chile and China

My mother loves the dollar store. She loves the whole cult and mystique of the dollar store. I think there are a lot of people like her. I'm not one of them, although I consider myself frugal. I just find most dollar stores are filled with stuff you really don't need. If you don't need something, even if you can get it for a buck, it's still not cheap.

Anyway, the other day she said to me that everything that comes from her new favorite (upscale) dollar store (which is actually called the $1.19 store, a name that is curiously hard to say) is made in China. In fact, my mother reports that so much of everything we have today comes from China it's starting to get on her nerves.

I just bought a new Macintosh laptop computer (I'm bi-platform) and I was only mildly surprised to see the sticker on the box. Made in China.

My mother then made another observation: all of the producer in our part of the world comes from Chile. We live in Texas, but we're eating what is grown in Chile.

What do we make any more? I know America has gone to a service economy (but even there, we're messing up ... look how many service centers are outsourcing to India) but food and cheap junk used to be a mainstay.

It occurs to me that a lot of this stuff ... fruits, vegetables, small everyday items ... are likely things that our Depression-era ancestors raised or made themselves. We don't do that any more. Just like getting the car washed or hiring somebody to walk the dog, we now get others to grow our produce and make our kids' toys.