Lawmakers furious over China-made Olympic uniforms

I'm sure that many of you will recall the great fun that the media had with G.Bush senior's supposed amazement with the grocery bar code scanner......
Obviously the whole congress has not been out of the hallowed beltway in recent years and looked at the manufacturing labels on almost anything you can think of......99% of it comes from somewhere besides the USA.....These are the same morons that have enabled the massive outsourcing of American jobs and weakened our economy to the point we are dependent on foreign sources for some of our most basic needs.....I say we replace the whole stinking bunch of them, left , right, center..... maybe we could enter them in a "special Olympics" for the politically impaired.

ABC News posted a price list of each article of clothing. Men's blazers were $795. I could buy 10 blazers for that much from J.C. Penney's.

Wow. That IS funny and hypocritical. The day a member of Congress shows up dressed in nothing except American made clothes, they can get back on this particular high horse.

To wit, from the article linked above:

"If they have to wear nothing but a singlet that says USA on it, painted by hand, then that's what they should wear," he said, referring to an athletic jersey.

Where are clothes even made in the United States anymore? Of course, Creative Apparel in Harmony and D-F still make military clothing for many countries including the U.S., but I haven't seen a tag in a pedestrian garment that says "Made in the U.S.A" in more than a decade.

Golly, the men's blazer is made in China to bring the price down to $795? It has been a while since I bought a blazer.

Wonder how much the Chinese were actually paid.

I'd be willing to bet it was less than $50.

As with 90% of the things with which Congress butts into, this is NOT a government issue. The Olympics are an NGO voluntary organization not subject to Congressional oversight.

That said, Ralph St. Lauren is not the culprit. It is the greedy U.S. Olympic Committee which sold its soul for corporate sponsorship money. If it had wanted to, it could have included in the RFP a requirement that all purveyors provide products made in the USA. If that wasn't in the RFP then St. Lauren has no culpability.

However, USOC showed themselves to be total whores to commercialism. When I first saw the blazer, I assumed the person wearing it was a member of the polo team, only to learn that as Team USA marches into the Olympic Stadium they will be a marching advertisement for the Ralph St. Lauren Polo brand logo!

What's with those stupid looking berets?

I can see Ralph Lauren's domestic sales taking a huge hit after this cluster. Thanks to the Internet, bad PR sticks around like flypaper. I'm with Rep. John Boener: They should have known better.

The image I get from the uniform selections is one of a United States Army of Consumers. With a militant type beret selection, and screaming Ralph St. Lauren Polo brand logo, it creates the image America has come to represent; one of purchasing power. The athletics are a side note at the opening ceremony, it’s a parade of a national pride. What we have sent to London is the finest symbol of what America is today, an Army of Consumers.

Why lawmakers are upset over this is amusing. As some have already mentioned, this county has been selling out all it’s manufacturing talents for decades to the global economic engine, powered by cheap labor forces in China.

When the games begin the battle for superiority in the form of gold medals will commence. China will be out to secure all the gold medals that can to demonstrate dominance in athletics and world prestige.

My advise to all American athletes is to secure all the gold you can because it will make for a good bartering tool when the Fed prints so much money that the world economy implodes. However, keep in mind that the gold medals are not made of 100% gold, but 6 grams. The silver medal is 92.5% and will most likely have more value on the spot value.

Would the requirement to buy American extend to the equipment or would it be selective to which ever special interest group gives the most money? US govt should stay out of it.

Are there any US companines that still make clothing today?

I know that LL Bean gets dozens of shipping containers weekly with their latest cheap trash from China.

I wonder why the Olympic committe didn't just buy off the rack at any Wal Mart. That would represent what America stands for today, cheap consumer trash at huge corporate prices!

WC

When Mitt Romney was CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, the torchbearer's uniforms were made in Burma.

Huffington Post

Congress made this all happen when it was bought by the free trader lobby and removed the tariffs. Sorry Congress, you can't have it both ways.

When I was in Middle School in the early 90’s the entire school stopped teaching and dedicated two days to a Global Fair. They turned the gym floor into a globe of the world and all the students needed to walk to different locations and learn about the cultures and goods each nation produced. Some director guy, who was the motivational speaker of this circus, spoke of the new global economy like it was the second coming of Jesus.

Well, he was right in some ways! We all become part of this vision we where being taught about. I remember getting M&M’s for correct answers at global stations. How fitting for future consumers to be rewarded with junk foods for participating in this global economic model.

Apparently it was all worth taking two days off from class. It was a ½ hearted attempt at an economics lesion.

We were doing this in the early 80s when I was in Junior High.

I would like to know who did the Global Market Place training. It would be telling if the funding sources where revealed and for a school to shut down for the event was a big deal.