This past Christmas I bought my father a few tools by Craftsman. I have been a long time fan of Craftsman tools, and really have no complaints over their quality. In the 20 or so years utilizing their tools, I've probably only needed their lifetime warranty a half dozen times, tops. Even then, the failure was often due to my "misuse" of the tool.
You can understand my disappointment this holiday season when I discovered that the vast majority of the new stuff coming out was all made in China. Aside from your most basic hand tools, such as wrenches and hammers, everything seems to be made in China.
From my standpoint, as a hobbyist, I simply can't justify spending the money on Snap-on tools, so here I am, stuck with the China tools. It happened long ago with most power tools, with Milwaukee being one of the last remaining, bought out by some foreign corporation in the last 5-10 years, and quickly moved a large portion of their manufacturing also to China.
I still prefer to buy American when I can, yet with every passing year it seems to get more and more difficult. I keep hearing of companies bringing manufacturing back, such as a recent LCD TV manufactured here in Metro Detroit, and Apple announcing the manufacture of some of their future computers here. That said, how is it something as simple as tools can't remain here? I feel it has more to do with profit margins than anything else.
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