Made in China--guest blogger Nelson

Recently I came to the railroad crossing on the Lowell Park Road on the way to Dixon, Illinois. The gates were down, the red lights flashing and presently a long freight train came through heading west toward the Mississippi River. Every flatbed held a Chinese container, empty and heading back home to be refilled and shipped again.

Factories close, people are let go and the economy slumps. And the reason started with greed.

I worked for a Mattel company in Orange County, California in the early 1970s and I can recall that one Christmas there was a stevedore's strike that prevented the freighters from coming into the San Pedro docks. Mattel was going mad, realizing that if they couldn't get the ships in and unloaded in time for Christmas, their profits would slump.

And why were these ships loaded with Mattel toys? Because Mattel had found that they could have them made much cheaper in Japan than in the US. Some might call that good business for them to go overseas; I call it greed.

And later, when the Chinese came into the picture, Mattel had toys made there. . .which meant that if any other toy manufacturer wanted to compete, they would have to go to China too.

I am appalled, horrified by this but maybe, if I were in the manufacturing business, I would have done the same thing. I hope not, but making money becomes a terrible obsession sometimes.

The problem is that this going to China for the cheapies has had a reverse effect. As more companies have closed here and opened in China, the local economies have staggered and fallen. if that nut-and- bolt maker in Rockford has to close, the people he had working for him have to get other jobs or do with less. The result - and I see this every time I go to Rockford - street after street of vacant factories; which has meant a loss of the tax base, increase in crime and fewer city services.

It used to be I would refuse to buy anything made in China. I cannot do that anymore because to refuse Chinese goods would mean I wouldn't be able to buy a thing.