New Balance - Still Made in the USA

Here's a video from New Balance that tells their story. I hope New Balance is able to fend off the multinational corporations and our own government from taking these these jobs away from honest, decent and hardworking Americans.

A Christmas Card

Newell Rubbermaid moves Vice Grip to China

The venerable American icon- Vise-Grip

Well, one by one American manufacturers are selling the American manufacturing base to a communist owned and run society. Vise-Grip, an icon to every mechanic, homeowner, farmer and American repairman that ever worked on anything is closing it's doors in Dewitt, Nebraska where they have manufactured these amazing locking grip wonderments since 1938.

A man named Bill Peterson invented this handy tool and patented it in 1924. There have been many impostors along the way. Craftsman tried their best to have someone else manufacture a line of locking jaw pliers but they just didn't measure up to the real thing.

Newell Rubbermaid purchased Irwin tool in 2003 and it was probably already decided at that time when they would draw out the dagger and put it in the backs of the American workers and consumers. Newell Rubbermaid acquired Irwin tools so they could put another factory on their long list of acquisitions and closings in the mistaken notion of increasing their bottom line.

This is the what is known as "Branding". A company like Newell Rubbermaid buys up a famous brand product like Vice-Grip, shuts the down the American factory, lays off hundreds of people and moves the manufacturing to China. There the product is produced with inferior raw materials and a streamlined manufacturing process that produces and inferior product. They ship it back from China in a new fancy bubble package and sell the product as if nothing has changed until customers realize that this is not the quality product they were accustomed to. A few years later after diminishing sales because of an inferior product and customer backlash, the company then sells the name off to someone else but the product is still made in China with inferior materials and customers eventually stop purchasing the product. After a short time they sell the name off to another holding company looking for a quick profit but by then Vise-Grip is only a memory talked about at coffee breaks at the repair shop or the barn where farmer Joe talks with the neighbor about the price of corn and that old tractor still sitting there.


The plant closing in Dewitt, Nebraska will be just in time for elections. I'm sure the townspeople that have worked there for so many years will now be voting for globalization and handing China our manufacturing base. That's a security plan that is sure to win. Corporate bean counters have no idea about America and the Americans that built it. One day we will have the last laugh on them and we will be standing over them with our feet across their throats.

Here are the "Brands" that Newell Rubbermaid now sell.

Cleaning and organizing- Rubbermaid, Levelor, Kirch

Home and Family- Calphalon, Goody, Graco

Tools and hardware- Irwin, Irwin Vice-Grip, Lenox, Bernzomatic, Bulldog Hardware, Shurline, Amerock

Office Supplies- Sharpie, Parker, Papermate, Waterman, Rolodex, Dymo, Expo

From the cover of the Newell Rubbermaid 2007 shareholder report:


Our transformation is accelerating
We will generate sustainable growth
by building a consumer-driven branding company;
increase productivity and efficiency by
optimizing our supply chain and leveraging One
Newell Rubbermaid; and change our culture
to foster a globally collaborative organization
that produces best-in-class results.

Watch what happens next...



Yeah, what happens next is American manufacturing is further reduced and the people and traditions that made this country great are ignored and their jobs are sent to communist China for 30 pieces of silver.

Look, no one ever said that we must buy everything we own from American manufacturers. It has never been possible to do. I'm saying that we need to send the message to corporate bean counters that we aren't going to take this lying down anymore. Companies that just take good paying jobs with benefits and ship them overseas to make pennies on their stock is self defeating, dishonest and despicable. I have no problem with buying products from countries that are our allies and treat their workers like human beings but for goodness sakes they're handing our manufacturing base over to people that would destroy and enslave us. What's wrong with this picture?

You should not buy any products from this company and you should write to them to voice your opposition and disgust with their corporate irresponsibility.

Newell Rubbermaid
10B Glenlake Parkway,
Suite 300Atlanta, GA 30328
(770) 407-3800

or at their website

Newell Rubbermaid feedback

American Made Hand Tools

Snap-on USA

Over the last few weeks I have found new friends over at My Tractor Forum. It's a forum that discusses everything that has to do with tractors. I myself own three tractors and I have been a mechanic for most of my life. I don't work on tractors for a living so I ask advise from some of the more experienced fellows and ladies over at the Tractor forum.

Now when I do have to use tools to make make repairs or do maintenance I use my Made in the USA hand tools. I have a collection of tools from different manufacturers but they are all Made in the USA. I have Snap-on, Craftsman, S-K and Mac tools some Willams wrenches I inherited from my Father who taught me to be a mechanic. The Craftsman hand tools are made by the Danaher Tool Group as long as it says Craftsman and not Sears on the tool itself. Most Craftsman power tools are imported. It would be hard to determine which ones are Made in the USA so just look the tool over before you buy to see if it's a cheap Chinese import.

I have a roll around Snap-on tool box that I bought when I was an auto mechanic. I worked in a Cadillac/Rolls Royce dealer for a number of years after I got off active duty from the Navy. After that I went on to work for the railroad repairing and maintaining locomotives and passenger coaches so I know the feel of a wrench or socket that's going to do the job or not. I've owned some Japanese tools over the years but they didn't last. I advise my trainees not to waste their time and money buying tools made in China.

There are other American made tools that are of very high quality so let's hear some stories and suggestions from my friends at My Tractor Forum.com and anyone else.