Not Buying American Anymore

Rossmann is doing some good work bringing awareness to this issue. A lot of people on this forum dabble in a lot of different spheres and I suspect most have been affected by what he describes on a semi-regular basis.

It is strange that so many Brazilians choose to buy products in less regulated and protectionist Paraguay, why would so many Brazilian Drs choose to be educated in a "right-wing narco state". Why is there less inequality in unregulated Paraguay?

What advantage is conveyed to people who travel from Floripa to CDE just to avoid the wonderful consumer protections offered in Brazil? Why would they do such a thing when given the opportunity to vote with their feet?

How does paying twice as much for a car advantage the average Brazilian? Does it make it more affordable for them? Why do "poor" Paraguayans drive Mercedes and BMW when Brazilians choose Renault for the same price?

No, it's aggravating because it uses almost no evidence to blame group A for something groups B, C, and D through Z are guilty of. In fact, the primary evidence presented weirdly isn't from Group A at all.

It's a nonsensical rant, dressed up in proper English format and syntax.

It’s both. From the article

> If I start buying European and they start behaving like the US does now, then this rant will just as easily apply to them.

> All this points to a very clear trend, at least for me, that the US is openly an oligarchy.

I read it as don't support oligarchies.

I guess it could be extended to any country with similari behavior.

Take the attitude to selling your data at state, country level "just because".

If US citizens love being scr@@d over good for them....

It could be about the later, but I'd have to research more to make such a general claim.

Who's "we"? The "buy American" crowd has always been super niche and a very small minority.

I'm not making a point only to buy local. I'm making a point not to buy American today, if things don't improve.

The rest of the world absolutely has always had some who consider where their stuff is coming from and some who don't - same as the US.

In Brazil consumer protections law are federal laws, not state laws, so there is no different levels of consumer protection between states

He doesn't seem to realize they aren't American either.

Is there a reason you think that might not count? Obviously the point of not buying X is to avoid supporting X for long-term moral and practical reasons, despite the product's convenience/cheapness/quality/whatever.

The author seems to think american companies are anti-consumer. That would certainly include Apple, no matter where a given product is made. Iphones are locked down due to decisions made by Apple execs and employees living and woking in the US, regardless where they are fabricated. It's the lockdown that matters, not where the factory is located.

I don't see why you would even think the geographical location of the manufacturing plant matters.

consumerism is for the benefit of the corporations, not the consumer. it's to get people to consume more. being pro-consumer leads to things like warranty, forcing me to make my products last longer which leads to people buying less.

There are multiple agencies that were created initially to protect consumers. The FTC, CFPB, USDA, FDA, EPA, (arguably the FCC fits here to, but it's a stretch). The issue with each of these agencies is their power has been eroded and redirected over the years. That's because their regulations when done correctly directly and negatively impact monied interests.

Donors hating these agencies means that no political party really fully supports them or funds them fully when they get power.

> If someone were to revive such a movement or if some politicians were to attach themselves to it then I think it would be hugely popular.

Senator Elizabeth Warren's whole schtick was, and still is, pro-consumer. She practically built the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with her own two hands. Sadly the CFPB has now been hamstrung by DOGE and the Trump admin; it's been stripped of much of its capacity to enforce its rules, conduct investigations and protect consumers.

Biden was one of the most consumer friendly presidents in a while. He did away with a lot of nonsense fees, forced airlines to be more transparent, among other things.

Approval rate doesn't seem to be much of a concern for modern western politicians. The current administrations in the US and some other western countries have abysmally low approval ratings and they're still in power. (This is not a value judgment of the administrations or people who voted for them, just an observation).

I think Steinbeck’s quip about temporarily embarrassed millionaires has a parallel in how Americans perceive their consumerism: Americans don’t see themselves as a consumer culture, even though we are one.

A ton of people own iPhones, drive Fords and Chevrolets, and buy a lot of local produce. Anybody lucky enough to own a house also own a locally-produced one.

Would you call iPhones chinese and not american? No matter, I think obviously people would consider them american, and importantly, the way they function and respect or trample consumer rights is decided by american citizens.

Maybe the US doesn't make much per se, but it certainly decides and influences much.

US produces a lot of digital goods. A lot of high quality digital goods to be precise, which makes this a tragedy. I want so much to just buy Apple products and have the best setup for music production, but I just can't because of what I laid out in the post.

> After Trump goes away, they will work towards preventing a single leader from working against their interests again.

I read it like "let's try to create a more tame Trump", and not like "let's elect leaders that represent the people's interest just as well as ours".

And his direct example, Reason, is Swedish!

When I reached the part about watching a lot of Louis Rossmann videos it made more sense. I have to be careful with my words because there are a lot of Louis Rossmann fans on HN. Rossmann is a very charismatic influencer who speaks with a confident and soothing tone and positions himself as someone just telling the facts for the benefits of his viewers. I've written before about how he tends to jump to conclusions, launch videos based on rumors, ignore facts that contradict juicy controversies, and stir the pot while positioning himself as the only rational source for a subject.

Note that I'm not saying Louis Rossmann is always wrong, nor that I disagree with him on everything, nor that I dislike the good things he does, nor any of the other numerous straw-man arguments that people come up with when you bring up issues with his influencer activity. However, he's the type of influencer who seems to lure in people who let their guard down and stop thinking critically for themselves, which opens the door to articles like this one where the conclusion isn't entirely rational but it feels rational after watching Louis Rossmann talk about it for hours and hours.

Conflating America, the country, with American companies, ignoring all of the non-American companies doing the same practices, and then bringing up a non-American company as the lone supporting example is all consistent with the dynamic I'm describing. The conclusion is assumed to be correct, because it's correct in the world of Louis Rossmann, but putting it to words outside of the YouTube influencer bubble falls apart on any critical thinking.

No, it's not about the companies, it's about the government that allows those companies to behave the way they do. Which is why the article is about the US and not about Walmart or Dow Chemical.

Companies will almost always look for ways to extract maximum profit even if it comes at the expense of others' wellbeing. So it is up to government to protect its citizens by regulations that prevent, for example, polluting water supplies, the air we breathe, etc., or from taking advantage of consumers, defrauding them, etc.

If government decides to roll back many of those regulations (like gutting the CFPB), then companies are free to engage in those destructive practices.

You can blame the companies, sure -- but mostly I blame the government (and those who voted for that government) because it's their job to keep companies in check, and instead of doing that, they're in bed with the companies, and even directly profiting from them (also known as corruption, which oligarchies do very well).

You can go about tackling consumerism in many ways. I believe the way that makes the most sense is to start with the largest market. Make it better there, it'll set an example for the rest of the world. Because Americans pride themselves in being the leaders of the free world. Well, that leadership comes with responsibilities, and while yes anti-consumer practices aren't exclusive to US companies, by not being able to care less about their consumers the US is setting a terrible precedent, which we need to address as consumers.

Framework, Pebble, DynaVap, ... those companies deserve to be boycotted just because the are US American?

BMW also bravely took the PR hit of going first for renting bits of the car to you (like the heated seats).

I won't lie that I had HN partially in mind when I wrote the post. It honestly started as a way for me to vent, but I thought what the hell, lemme post there, it prolly won't even survive the New page without getting flagged. Didn't really think it would hit front page (but I really was expecting it to get flagged which it eventually did).

In their defense, they can only choose between this or that, and both of them are quite shitty, in the US.

I'd start my response to your comment with Cambridge Analytica and go from there to all the ways that the people can be manipulated into a fabricated consensus by the powers that be.

Yes, but the author doesn't explain why they don't blame citizens. It's reasonable to make the argument that citizens have very little power to fix certain problems. E.g. I haven't had the option of a candidate willing to fix (actually fix) this problem, at any level of government, in my lifetime.

That's disastrous and not the point of the post. I don't want to see the American economy gone, I want to see it serve the very people that makes it the behemoth it is.

Would you be willing to share a link to that vacuum cleaner? I would like to leave Dyson behind forever.

"Free market with open competition" works when countries play fair. China doesn't play fair. What you propose is to decimate the car industry (your example) and be dependent on foreign actors. Extrapolate that to every industry, and now you have a shell of a country. Late-stage capitalism is equally bad as a "free-for-all" market.

It's not a threat. It's a message and a warning. Keep treating customers like crap, they will start to pick up on the scam.

You got hung in a detail, which is peripheral to the central argument of the post.

If you care to treat the whole post as naive, maybe you should also try to make your point as to why all the other arguments are naive as well?

Thanks for the encouraging words. It really means a lot.

Yeah it feels like people default to assuming we bash on US for sport, that we enjoy it's shortcomings and would also enjoy seeing it burn to the ground. It's not. I wished I didn't have to write these kinds of stuff. I wish I only focused on my area of interest which is philosophy of consciousness. But we have to write these harsh criticism because we want to see things just because we don't wanna see it burn to the ground, but flourish and be ever more inviting for collaboration. It's illogical to think otherwise because it's counterproductive to share knowledge with an actor we'd aim to neutralize.

But when slack can change terms, when Microsoft can push spyware and nobody is accountable for anything, when what's the point of a transaction? These all feels like scams. If I'm going to get scammed I prefer not to buy anything at all.