Yes. Walmart which advertises the flag and PRO AMERICA to sell anything has EVERYTHING made abroad. Including the flags. Meanwhile they bankrupt America by sending jobs overseas and pay their employees subsistence wages.
If you want to know how the New World Order will be for workers, consider WalMart as the test run corporation. That is not a joke folks.
NOW, to answer your question in detail about flags being made abroad.
Thank heavens Betsy Ross isn't here to see things today. More than 200 years ago, the Philadelphia seamstress helped create the first American flag. Legend says she impressed Washington by fashioning a five-pointed star with a single snip of her scissors.
Old Glory, like most products, has gone global. The vast majority of American flags are still made in the USA. But after 911, when patriotism caused demand for flags to skyrocket, foreign manufacturers saw opportunity. Appealing to price-conscious shoppers, they outfitted thousands with hand-held flags.
The U.S. imported $7.9 million worth of American flags in 2002, according to the Census Bureau. Some of those flags have left consumers baffled. "We've actually gotten questions from people who had 53-star flags ... and they wondered if there was a special significance to that," says Joyce Doody, director of membership services at the National Flag Foundation, a patriotic education association in Pittsburgh. "We presume that they were made in another country."
Most imported flags come from China, about $5 million worth last year, but Taiwan and Korea have also made hundreds of thousands in recent years. Shanghai Flag & Tent Works exported $1 million worth of merchandise to the United States last year, with American flags accounting for about 80?f the total. They control one-third of the Chinese-made flag market in the US.
That's not a huge amount considering American companies already turn out more than 100 million flags of all types each year. Probably less than 5 ?f American flags sold are made overseas, says the director of sales and marketing for the Valley Forge Flag Co. The company is one of the top providers of flag products to the US government.
Yet Chinese-made American flags account for about 20?f American flags sold at the United States Flag Store, says Kevin Hickey, vice president of marketing.
The company sells thousands of small, vinyl flags seen at parades and on cars. Nearly all are made overseas: The Chinese do a better job with small flags, Mr. Hickey says, while those made in America tend to fall apart.
Until recently, the most American flags ever imported in a single year was about 2.5 million, according to government data. Then came 911. In 2001, nearly 113 million American flags, worth nearly $52 million, were imported because US manufacturers could not keep up with demand, and the wait for an American-made flag was often several months.
Since then imports have tapered off but not disappeared completely because foreign-made flags are considerably cheaper. Foreign-made flags are about 30 ?heaper. China is fast improving its technology, and with lower labor costs, foreign-made flags will probably remain less expensive than US-made ones..
While maintaining confidence in their product, companies like Valley Forge recognize the threat of globalization to American manufacturers. "I wouldn't be so pompous as to say that we don't worry about it," says Egervary, pointing to the recent formation of the Flag Manufacturers Association of America.
The association aims to advance the industry by setting manufacturing standards, FMAA president Robert Waller Jr. states in an e-mail. "These steps, in turn, will educate consumers about the quality, variety, and value of a domestically manufactured United States flag."
In addition to developing a sort of "seal of approval," FMAA aims to ensure that all flags have a prominently located "Made in" label, Egervary says, adding that, if provided with adequate information, people "will make the right choice."
Answered By: Noor al Haqiqa - 5/24/2007 |