eBay and the dollar stores started it all. eBay with cheap knock offs and ease of purchasing imported goods without going through a freight forwarder, minimal customs etc.

The dollar stores did a HUGE amount of damage to local businesses and people who make things for a living. On it's face, you'd think, well hey... Woolworths and other 5 and dime stores closed up... they're just filling the void in the good old American 5&10, right? Wrong.

Dollar stores selling stupid cheap imported goods gave rise to hoarding. Instead of little Johnny just having a regular birthday party with regular paper plates and white napkins, now he's getting the whole ensemble... matching plates, cups, balloons, a banner etc etc and whatever Chinese trinket he wants in a color coordinated gift bag...Why? Because it's stupid cheap and Hallmark is way too expensive. Well what's wrong with that? I want to go all out for my kid too!

On it's face, nothing...but the problem is, PERCEPTION. Everything is so cheap that people just hoard things AND their reference/index of what things should cost are now in relation to all these cheap imported goods... same with eBay... same with Amazon... and same with practically everywhere now, because margins are razor thin and the cost if raw materials so high, the only way to turn a profit is to peddle imported bullshit. Since VERY few do ANYTHING productive or with their hands, their value of a dollar is now extremely warped.

Now take someone who lives in the USA and fabricates, build's and makes various products you might find in a typical store. They have to pay top dollar for materials, consumables in the mfg process, taxes, insurance, licensing etc that ding dongs cranking out similar, lower quality, but good enough warez in bare feet and not even safety glasses don't have to adhere to. Take a simple cutting board as an example...Dime a dozen in Costco, an absolute fortune by an artisan that doesn't really net that much for his efforts.

So the problem started with dollar stores... and our govt has done little or nothing to protect hard working Americans who work their asses off, running their own gig. Yanno... the kind of gig where you gotta pay into disability and workers comp, but can NEVER collect it yourself? It costs more to ship anything one town over than it does to get the same weight in an "e-packet" from China. BTW fuck Obongo and you didn't build that... Anyway... Few people have ANY clue what it's like to run your own gig right now. The deck is stacked hard against everything you do... and some if us can't work for the machine and don't have any other choice.

I heard a while back that Trump was going to put a 60% tarriff on Chinese goods to help Americans. As much as I enjoy some of the cheap imports myself, since there's honestly no way to be 100% on supporting domestic goods, I think that would really help manufacturing here. But something needs to give because the imports are too cheap, domestics are too expensive and our dollar ain't worth shit. I still refuse to buy an imported vehicle...