I'm always disheartened when I read things like this. I sell product around the world but I live in Thailand (though I am English), and I think we have a spectacular dialogue with customers and repeat business. Yet many times when someone asks where we're based you can hear the crestfallen sigh part way around the world. If someone said xyz company, or individual xyz from a certain country I could understand it, but why label a country? When I lived in England I used to order green tea extract from China by the pallet. I hear American (there's a large ex-pat community here) people particularly (though not exclusively) complaining about Chinese product (much like I remember as a kid, adults in England complaining about "made in Taiwan"). My experience with Chinese manufacturers has always been excellent. If you want something cheap then that's what you get. If you want a quality product then you can have that too, but to get excellent, nearly free, and made your home country all together is a very tall order, at least with the economic differences we have in the world at present. I too have a very biased opinion about generalities here (from when I tried to start a business with a friend that would help local people), and was frustrated with the difference in our thinking, but I've learned that it's not a blanket I can apply to everyone before I've even met them.
I don't mean to make this sound like a rant, so I apologise if it comes across as less than cordial, but I just hope in this day and age when we're going through such a difficult shift together, we could put the nationalism behind us and focus on making things better as sovereign beings. Thank you for your time. Be well. Paul From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 04 December 2009 17:07 To: [email protected] Subject: silver-digest Digest V2009 #768 Some countries export products that do not match their claims and are made with dangerous shortcuts. OR they just plain lie. So, I avoid anything marketed from India, Italy, Thailand, and Mexico. These countries are noted for deceptive marketing strategies or plain just mismarking stuff. Thailand sells a lot of silver jewelry with 925 stamped on it but turns out always to be silver plated over a base metal. So, I'll pass on this dubious stuff.
