Buying American-made Toys

[Joanne98]

I did not buy any toys for the many children in my life this year. Admittedly, money was very tight after the economy collapsed from eight years of Republican mismanagement. However, the main reason I did the scrooge thing this Christmas is that I simply refused to buy Chinese made toys for the American children I love so dearly.

The American children I love so dearly need to inherit, from all of us, a nation with a strong manufacturing base. These children need to grow up in an economy that will pay good wages to all our citizens and that actually makes things. Buying cheap junk made in third world nations for Christmas presents is not doing these children any favors.

I cannot understand why no American toy companies are making toys in America. Obviously, the greed of the corporations and American governmental trade policy has combined to destroy toy manufacturing in this nation. If both our corporate leaders and government officials cannot change their behaviors and start making toys in America, we should boycott completely imported toys and change our elected leaders at the first opportunity.

Continued>>>
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Buying-American-made-Toys-by-Stephen-Crockett-081228-919.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. American toys can be found here:

www.spencerwoodentoys.com

Dave is an environmental activist, ardent liberal, and all around great guy and a wonderful artist.

[Joanne98]

2. Thank you ayeshahaqqiqa!

:hi:

[knitter4democracy]

3. They haven't hit any craft sales lately, then.

Or etsy.com. Lots of locally-made goodies there.

[Book Lover]

4. Good point, and rather sad

This idea that only a company or corporation can make anything worth buying is a sad one. I know many fellow artists-cum-crafters who sell well enough on Esty (I hope to soon join their ranks!)

[no_hypocrisy]

5. I could name the corporations that made my toys and games when I was a kid.

Ideal
Marx
Hasbro
Mattel
Parker Brothers

All made in the U.S.

[psychmommy]

6. i remember the smell of a brand new doll on christmas.

they don't have that smell anymore. that is how i know what dolls aren't made here. they are made cheaply and smell like the petroleum products from which they are derived.

[Sonicmedusa]

7. It's pathetic, isn't it?

And now with the FDA claiming that trace amounts of melamine to be safe in infant formula and murcury to be safe in fish, it reminds me of the SNL skit about Mainway Toys:

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76jconsumerprobe.phtml

[tomreedtoon]

8. Put a skirt on a stick, give it to a girl.

And tell her to give her new "dolly" a name. Go ahead, I dare you.

That's about the skill American companies, and Americans, have at making toys. Get used to it. Chinese slave laborers are better than you.

[My Good Babushka]

9. That's not true

There are lots of wonderful handmade toys made by American artisans, like at etsy.

[Tansy_Gold]

11. I'm gonna risk getting a warning on this one but it will be well worth it

You are so full of shit your eyes are brown, tomreedtoon.

http://www.toysmadeinamerica.com/




TG

[tomreedtoon]

14. Tansy, you're so cute! Here's your dolly!

You can call her "Li'l Tansy."

The yuppie New York intellectual handmade toys you are promoting are beyond the reach of most working people. Li'l Tansy is all that many children are getting this year. That is, unless they want to buy Chinese-made toys at Wal*Mart made of pure melamine.

Face it. American manufacturing is full of fail. Give up.

[Tansy_Gold]

16. give up? Like you? ain't gonna happen.

You've already given up. Your negativity doesn't belong here on DU.

Yes, I get cynical, and yes, I criticize things, but give up? Not, not on your (worthless) life.

what you've said is that you personally value the cheap, poisoned plastic toy crap -- and lots of it -- over a single well made "yuppie intellectual" toy, the kind that may last for years or even be passed down to another child, another generation. You've said American ingenuity is dead, American inventiveness vanished, American skill completely and totally lost. Boy, it must really suck to be you, mired in all that misery.

Can the average working parent (a phrase that's fast becoming an oxymoron in this economy) afford to go out and buy a backseat full of "yuppie intellectual" toys? No, I'm sure they can't. But is that the only measure by which you determine the fitness of parents? The quantity of junk they give their kids? Apparently it is.

Your comeback was pretty lame, and I'm probably gonna be sorry I rose to your bait, but I generally do. I'm one of those people who sincerely thinks she's got a halfway decent head on her shoulders and more than the average intelligence --- and maybe even a tiny bit of wisdom garnered over the past 60 years through raising two successful kids to adulthood and parenthood themselves.

I don't know what your life situation is and I really don't give a flying fuck, but for the lurkers who will read this, I'm not going to shut up. Oh, someone may report me for a "personal attack" - and goodness knows I've done my share of reporting other personal attacks -- but my attack is more on the stupid, ignorant, insulting and ultimately destructive thinking put forth in your puerile posts.

Grow up, little boy. Nobody worth impressing is impressed by you.


The totally unimpressed



Tansy Gold

[Sonicmedusa]

18. No, you are full of "fail"

The website that Tansy posted has links to numerous American toy companies including Little Tikes, Silly Putty, Nick Jr. Magazine, and Slinky, all of which are which are quite affordable.

How did you get so miserable?

[Jane Austin]

19. I think you've just found a new product line for us!

Love the Big Plush line.

Thanks, Tansy!

[Sonicmedusa]

13. You are the biggest part of the problem

to perpetuate the "Americans don't want to work" myth.

Are you trying to say that Americans are not creative enough? Skills are learned. Americans were doing just fine making the same toys that are now being made in China, until the manufacturers decided they could increase profits my reducing labor cost.

Chinese labor is NOT better than American labor, it is mearly cheaper labor.

You post is pure bullshit.

[tomreedtoon]

15. You misinterperet. Americans are STUPID.

They don't learn in schools, because their teachers are stupid.

They went for Republican lies, because their education left them stupid.

They don't have creativity, because creativity requires intelligence, and they are stupid.

And their bosses fired them and stopped manufacturing real goods, because THEY are stupid.

As I said before, full of fail. All along the line.

I suppose you can name your doll "Li'l Medusa."

[Sonicmedusa]

17. You must not be an American

because you are SOOOOOOOOO damned SMART. ;)

Have a nice day.

BTW, I hope you are raising your children in another country.

[Jane Austin]

20. "They don't learn in schools, because their teachers are stupid."

You take that back!

I've seen some awful teachers in my years, but my friend im NC who knocks herself out for her kids is not stupid.

My niece and her husband in CA are both smart, interested (and interesting) and dedicated.

I take your point, but your sweeping generalization is not fair.

[knitter4democracy]

22. Check out knitty.com. I dare ya.

If you were a member of Ravelry.com, you'd see the massive creativity Americans have. Etsy.com will blow your mind.

[Book Lover]

24. They, they, they...

So what country are you from and/or living in? Because it appears there are no stupid people there, and I've been looking for that place all my life.

[knitter4democracy]

21. Excuse me?! As a craftsperson, I'm offended by that comment.

When my daughter was four, I found the most beautiful Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls made by a local craftsperson, and I had two friends order their own in skin fabrics closer to their children's skin tones.

I've knitted dollies for charity that were a joy to make that my kids tried to steal out of the mailing box.

I'm sure that if you went to Etsy.com, you'd find many well-made dollies and other toys. I have found gorgeous wooden toys that my kids love and play with all the time at crafts sales, going so far as to order special ones and go to the craftsman's house to pick them up. There are many of us craftspeople in the US who are keeping our crafts alive and know well how to make dolls.

[knitter4democracy]

25. Here's one:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_18&listing_id=19075023

I think she's cute, and she's only $30. Handmade here in the US.

[My Good Babushka]

10. New Mandatory Testing

Many people at etsy are in a fluster-- because of Chinese imports there will be new, expensive, required testing for all children's products. Very talented craftspeople in the U.S. may have a hard time legally selling their toys, even though their toys were never the problem! I hope there will be exceptions for small businesses in the U.S.

[knitter4democracy]

23. I hope so, too. Craftspeople here should get a break.

Crazy.

[Gman2]

12. We can do anything they can do. And did. Now

trade and currency policies have allowed the Reds to do as they even warned. The west gave them the shovels with which they will bury us. I am a moldmaker, and at the front of outsourcing and toysd being made all elsewhere. We do the most technical molding here still. Toys are dimentionally imprecise, so it is a natural for chinese artisanship. If a toy is not exact scale, so what. I fixed molds purchased abroad for years. When they were new. They stank, and malfunctioned, and you had to make junk work. Anything that is well sorted, set in stone and designed, will go to china. Anything that is a rats nest of needed R&D, it stays here. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, we cant make a buck. We get the losers and they get the cream. This ISSSSSSSSSS the system. Also, the chinese fund technology centers. They are stocked with the latest tech and talent. We are saddled with laissez faire and neoliberal zea;ots. so our businesses must survive on equipement that is way outdated, or go so far into debt, that any up[set in the business cycle, will result in their deaths. This is the ideologue hamstringing of our economy. They dont care, they are still making bank. Let us eat cake. We have traitors in our midst. They are represented by lobbyists that shortcircuit our democracy. We have no say, till we too can bribe pols into our pockets. It isd time to do away with the strict blinders that insisted that the space shuttle made money, till it lost a lot from crashes. Shortsightedness is likely the result of CEO'sd being paid in company stock. Stupid humans.