• ms.lane@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Outside of Software, I can’t think of anything I buy that’s American.

    I can think of American made versions of a bunch of the things I buy and the American made versions as always worse. Even American companies like 3M mostly manufacture in Europe since they can get good quality there unlike USA.

    • mriswith@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Sadly, a bunch of things people buy are American owned but sold under a more local brand name, especially food or snack items, but also many other things.

      For example: A scary amount of Europeans don’t know that Mondelēz International is an American company. It was started by Kraft, famous for their “processed cheese product”. And they own brands like Cadbury, Milka, Toblerone, Marabou/Freia, etc.

      Coca-Cola also own a lot of “local” flavoured drinks.

      • Annoyed_🦀 @lemmy.zip
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        15 hours ago

        At least coca-cola have the courtesy of making the ownership known so brand loyalist can support the billionaire they like, while i can easily identify who to boycott.

      • BruceLee@sopuli.xyz
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        15 hours ago

        Mondelēz might be international but productions are local. They have plenty of manufactures all accords France, Belgium and Netherlands, to stick with the ones I know.

          • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            Often not, no - it’s a big problem that these huge multinationals have is repatriating their foreign cash.

            Apple used to have somewhere around 5x more cash in Ireland than they did in USA, because taxes.

            • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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              7 hours ago

              Interesting, I hadn’t thought of that.

              Although I would argue that such “unrealized” profits would still count as being given overseas, since the money is not available to the european economy any more, no?

              They just keep it parked in some kind of inflation proof financial construct until needed (at which point they might have to pay taxes on however much of it they need to withdraw, but still).

              • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                They just keep it parked in some kind of inflation proof financial construct until needed

                Sometimes, othertimes they use it to just buy out european/australian/japanese/etc entities - since it’s hard to repatriate, they can use that as a sort of justification where some shareholders (Hedge Funds that want dividends now) might object.