About
us
Visible Country
provides a different approach to the "made in the USA"
theme. Instead
of listing hundreds of products we will show a limited number of
companies
each with its own page, tell you a little about the company and about
how they are in the business of making things in America.
Over time we'll add more companies. Visible Country won't be static, we'll be changing all the time.
Some thoughts on "country of origin"
The Federal Trade Commission is the government entity that controls "made in the USA" policies. The FTC policy is as follows:
For a product to be called Made in USA, or claimed to be of domestic origin without qualifications or limits on the claim, the product must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S. The term "United States," as referred to in the Enforcement Policy Statement, includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories and possessions. FTC
These policies exist to prevent unfairness and deception in the marketplace. But the reality is that its going to become harder and harder to attach this label to anything we make because we live in a global economy. For example, the Apple iPod and iPhone both list China as the "country of origin". Fine, except most of these products are only assembled in China and the components mostly made elsewhere. And what about the great Apple software, designed and coded in the US...doesn't this "intellectual property" count? The point is, the FTC needs to take another look at how "made in" is defined.
Consumer goods are produced all over the world. American businesses have always had to compete for market share with other businesses both domestic and international. Since we have a small portion of the world's population, (about 4.5%) and we manufacturer almost 20% of the worlds goods, It means that lots of goods are being produced in places other than the USA.
In some ways that's not a bad thing. It means that 95% of the potential customers for goods we produce are in other countries. Other places will be better at producing certain types of goods than we are. These may even be things we use to be good at making. It means that the types of consumer goods we produce will have to change over time. We will have to pick our spots.
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None of the images on this web site are owned by us. Please notify us if you own any of these images and wish then removed. We will remove them immediately.
All of the companies listed on this site have been researched to determine if their products are made in the USA. To the best of our knowledge this is true. Please let us know. 7/17/11
