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It's also become increasingly difficult, and in some cases nigh impossible, to avoid items from China. I'm older and don't need a lot beyond the food and shelt

It's also become increasingly difficult, and in some cases nigh impossible, to avoid items from China. I'm older and don't need a lot beyond the food and shelter I work for, I have plenty of "stuff". But buying clothing, gifts, electronics, well, the list is long and I won't try to cover everything here, that doesn't have at least part of it's assembly provided by China is not easy to avoid. It's not just people's wallets, it's time, it's lack of knowledge and one's ability to figure out how to get what they need without involving China in the acquisition. I agree with you, but let's not pretend that we don't stop "buying from China" because we're all too lazy and greedy to do so. We could use some legislative and corporate support and I think a lot more people would get on board.

syshum 5y ago
It is hard if you want to say "Buy American" or something like that But I find it easy to avoid chinese products, for example I just recently was in the market for some cookware, I thought my choices were expensive American made pans, or cheap China, but in reality I found some very good cookware coming out of South America for very good price
mrweasel 5y ago
Clothing isn’t to bad, most is made in other countries, who are terrible in their own way. For stuff like electronics is impossible, it’s almost all made in China. The only solution I see it keeping stuff for longer or buying used.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Not all made per se, but assembled in China at least. china is not yet a powerhouse when it comes to manufacture top of the line SoCs for example.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  On a positive note, most modern electronics have a bunch of "bent metal", screws, and memory + microprocessors. The first two are very low value and frequently produced directly in China. The last two are high value and most frequently produced in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and various parts of Europe. When you look at the "value added" by assembly of an iPhone in China, it is astonishingly low. The vast majority of value (for hardware) is added outside of China.
  - davidzweig 5y ago
    Chinese companies also make low-middle-end microcontrollers (gigadevice etc.), passive components, switches and connectors (clones of Japanese designs mostly) that are much lower cost and 'ok'. There's also PCB manufacturing and stuffing, tooling, injection molding (using Chinese or German machines), final assembly. For things like Bluetooth speakers, it's all local.. a wifi router might me be all local appart from the SOC.. iPhones yeah different story.
- cheaprentalyeti 5y ago
  For electronics in general and CPUs in particular, "Made in China" is becoming the Clipper Chip for the 2010's/2020's. So yeah, this thing with intel is very disturbing. They're paying for the rope that'll be used to hang all of us with this.
pjmlp 5y ago
Hence why I took care to hint as much as possible, definitely there are goods impossible to get elsewhere, others are relatively easy to find if one cares enough.
dnautics 5y ago
> It's also become increasingly difficult, and in some cases nigh impossible, to avoid items from China. I have the opposite experience. I find it's becoming increasingly easy. I'm finding myself surprised that most things aren't made in china. So far the only thing I haven't been able to get was a waffle maker -- I can do without! Or I should just actually get a $300 waffle maker instead of something stupid that will probably break after a few runs The hardest to find was a power drill. I suspect that much of this is labor costs in china going up and manufacturing moving to India, Pakistan, Thailand, vietnam Also -- I don't buy much from Amazon anymore, so this is going to b&m establishments
- chang1 5y ago
  I picked up USA made waffle iron from C. Palmer Manufacturing. It's super basic and almost 2-3x more expensive than the first few results on Amazon, but it's great! (https://cpalmermfg.com/waffle-irons.html https://cpalmermfg.com/waffle-irons.html) Hope that helps with your waffle making.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    perfect! But I will be making chaffles =D
  - MisterTea 5y ago
    At first I suspected made in USA could mean assembled in USA from Chinese castings and other parts. But man is it so freaking satisfying to see at the top of the page next to "About us" is a link to their tool and die shop. They're a freaking casting shop that decided to make waffle makers. Fantastic.
    - travisgriggs 5y ago
      Some random niche waffle iron company just saw a spike in online sales. They have got to be wondering what just happened. You’ve been “hacker news hugged” would probably just confuse them.
  - Tsarbomb 5y ago
sysOpOpPERAND 5y ago
there is an app where you can scan beauty products and it will tell you what is in them, it gives you warnings about dangerous chemicals in certain products. it's called think dirty. there is another app for food that does the same thing called yuka. i wonder if there is an app where it will tell you the origin of a product or a rating on the company based on ethics. like ethically sourced rating or something along those lines.
joveian 5y ago
I agree that legislative and corporate support would be helpful, however in my experience the only pretending is that more than a small number of people care. Look at your own post - on the one hand, you would be financially supporting genocide, on the other hand you want to buy gifts. That this is even a question is sign of where things really stand and I think you are putting more effort into it than most people. See also how many people aren't willing to take minor precautions to avoid killing their own family members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo

syshum 5y ago

It is hard if you want to say "Buy American" or something like that But I find it easy to avoid chinese products, for example I just recently was in the market for some cookware, I thought my choices were expensive American made pans, or cheap China, but in reality I found some very good cookware coming out of South America for very good price

mrweasel 5y ago

Clothing isn’t to bad, most is made in other countries, who are terrible in their own way. For stuff like electronics is impossible, it’s almost all made in China. The only solution I see it keeping stuff for longer or buying used.

ekianjo 5y ago
Not all made per se, but assembled in China at least. china is not yet a powerhouse when it comes to manufacture top of the line SoCs for example.
throwaway2037 5y ago
On a positive note, most modern electronics have a bunch of "bent metal", screws, and memory + microprocessors. The first two are very low value and frequently produced directly in China. The last two are high value and most frequently produced in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and various parts of Europe. When you look at the "value added" by assembly of an iPhone in China, it is astonishingly low. The vast majority of value (for hardware) is added outside of China.
- davidzweig 5y ago
  Chinese companies also make low-middle-end microcontrollers (gigadevice etc.), passive components, switches and connectors (clones of Japanese designs mostly) that are much lower cost and 'ok'. There's also PCB manufacturing and stuffing, tooling, injection molding (using Chinese or German machines), final assembly. For things like Bluetooth speakers, it's all local.. a wifi router might me be all local appart from the SOC.. iPhones yeah different story.
cheaprentalyeti 5y ago
For electronics in general and CPUs in particular, "Made in China" is becoming the Clipper Chip for the 2010's/2020's. So yeah, this thing with intel is very disturbing. They're paying for the rope that'll be used to hang all of us with this.

pjmlp 5y ago

Hence why I took care to hint as much as possible, definitely there are goods impossible to get elsewhere, others are relatively easy to find if one cares enough.

dnautics 5y ago

> It's also become increasingly difficult, and in some cases nigh impossible, to avoid items from China. I have the opposite experience. I find it's becoming increasingly easy. I'm finding myself surprised that most things aren't made in china. So far the only thing I haven't been able to get was a waffle maker -- I can do without! Or I should just actually get a $300 waffle maker instead of something stupid that will probably break after a few runs The hardest to find was a power drill. I suspect that much of this is labor costs in china going up and manufacturing moving to India, Pakistan, Thailand, vietnam Also -- I don't buy much from Amazon anymore, so this is going to b&m establishments

chang1 5y ago
I picked up USA made waffle iron from C. Palmer Manufacturing. It's super basic and almost 2-3x more expensive than the first few results on Amazon, but it's great! (https://cpalmermfg.com/waffle-irons.html https://cpalmermfg.com/waffle-irons.html) Hope that helps with your waffle making.
- dnautics 5y ago
  perfect! But I will be making chaffles =D
- MisterTea 5y ago
  At first I suspected made in USA could mean assembled in USA from Chinese castings and other parts. But man is it so freaking satisfying to see at the top of the page next to "About us" is a link to their tool and die shop. They're a freaking casting shop that decided to make waffle makers. Fantastic.
  - travisgriggs 5y ago
    Some random niche waffle iron company just saw a spike in online sales. They have got to be wondering what just happened. You’ve been “hacker news hugged” would probably just confuse them.
- Tsarbomb 5y ago

sysOpOpPERAND 5y ago

there is an app where you can scan beauty products and it will tell you what is in them, it gives you warnings about dangerous chemicals in certain products. it's called think dirty. there is another app for food that does the same thing called yuka. i wonder if there is an app where it will tell you the origin of a product or a rating on the company based on ethics. like ethically sourced rating or something along those lines.

joveian 5y ago

I agree that legislative and corporate support would be helpful, however in my experience the only pretending is that more than a small number of people care. Look at your own post - on the one hand, you would be financially supporting genocide, on the other hand you want to buy gifts. That this is even a question is sign of where things really stand and I think you are putting more effort into it than most people. See also how many people aren't willing to take minor precautions to avoid killing their own family members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo