I too miss American clothes being 'USA made'.
It added to their desirablility for me.
Made them seem more like the real deal.

judging how most people dress, i hope they are paying more  attention to their dishwasher soap., just for the sake of hygiene.

It is important to remember there are two economic trends going on, at least in my view:

1. Increased tendency towards outsourcing
2. Increased peddling of absolute, worthless, poorly made shit

The two CAN be mutually exclusive


I think stuff, generally, is being more cheaply made everywhere, clothes or not.  If it falls under mass produced, then origin probably makes no difference...specifications and quality control are what do.

Example 1 (shoes) : The Weejun is not as well made as it used to be. I think this is less because it is now made in what, Honduras?, instead of Wilton, Maine, and more because Phillips Van Heusen, which owns Bass, has provided the Honduran workers with the crappy shiny plasticky leather of which Weejuns are now made.  I'm sure the Hondurans could do a bang-up job if they got the same materials to work with that Wiltonians did in the 80s and before.

Example 2 (cars): A few days ago my old-school Detroit Cadillac needed some repairs so I rented a car for two days. It was a Nissan, which I believe is made either in plants here or in Japan, both countries which most people must admit have skilled workers and who we generally feel "good" about making our stuff.  So this Nissan was faster and got better mileage but man, was the inside ever made of cheap shit.  Everything is plastic that it seems like it would be easy to break.  Even the pull out handles you use to open the doors.  The Cadillac's are solid steel.  The hooks for hanging coats in the Nissan are wafer thin little plastic hooks, attached to the hand grips on the ceiling.  The Cadillac's are, again, steel, 4X as thick with room for more hangers and actually bolted into the roof.   

Example 3 (furniture): Most of the furniture in my apartment dates from the 1950s or earlier (mostly 1920s-40s).  All of it is still in great shape.  Sure, there are some scratches on some things, some imperfections.  But mostly it is solid and good looking, and with dusting and and the occasional refinishing job every few decades, will continue to be so.  By contrast, the one new item I have is one of those ergonomic desk chairs.  Everything on it is made of plastic. It is just a little over two years old, and 3 months ago the back part of it broke off while I was sitting in it.  Note, I'm not fat nor do I throw myself into said chair.  It is functional only because I duct-taped the back part on again, and am too cheap to buy another desk chair at the moment.  Underneath, it says it was "Made In USA"



Conclusion: Quality is going downhill on most consumer goods, no matter where they are made.



Now, I'll admit, it makes me FEEL better to buy American and English stuff but that's another story. I'm a protectionist at heart.  I feel sorry for the Wilton, ME plantworkers who lost their jobs, and out of loyalty to Americans, call it outdated nationalism or racism if you want, I don't care, I would buy the Wilton shoes before I bought the Hondurans.  But I'm not prepared to say the Hondurans do a worse job making shoes than the folks from Wilton ME, if the materials they work with are shitty to begin with.    Quality has nothing to do with the feelings of nationalism.

Ideally everything would be good quality, and made here.  Most often, we have to accept bad quality AND not made here.

Boycotting slavery-made products is the right thing to do. But, fear not: the dusk of petro-industrial society is just around the bend.

^ Shame that. Eventually the western nations will be just like everyone else. We will be poorer, and they will be richer. Somewhere in the middle we'll meet. But they will be only slighter richer, and we will be much, much poorer.