THE PATRIOTIC CONSUMER: How to Buy American...

THE PATRIOTIC CONSUMER: How to Buy American edited by Anne Grant and Web Burrell (Andrews & McMeel: $6.95; 218 pp . , paperback original). Grant and Burrell offer concerned shoppers lists of more than 150 products, grouped into four categories: “merchandise from companies 100% American made and owned”); American-owned with over 50% American parts and/or labor; American-owned with less than 50% American parts and/or labor; foreign-owned with foreign parts and/or labor. These lists contain some surprises, including how many items from a single company may fall under two or more headings. But many readers will resent the tone of the text, which implies that consumers are to blame for the state of the economy because they bought the cheaper and/or superior products of foreign manufacturers. The authors studiously ignore the leveraged buy-outs, corporate raiding and other financial shenanigans that destroyed many popular (and profitable) companies during the ‘80s.