I usually use a food mill, but skipped it this year, so potatoes were not perfectly smooth.  No one seemed to mind!

I use lots of butter, which I grate into the potatoes, so it's all melted by the time I'm finished putting the potatoes through the food mill.

Then I add some cream cheese, same way, and finally, the cream, salt and pepper.

Yum.

What we have now is basically the same problem I just described to you above about Kona coffee, i.e., people who are blatantly capitalizing on the Kona name, without actually offering the consumer you the real deal. Labels and truth in advertising seem to mean nothing anymore.

I take great pride in Hawaii microbrews like Kona Brewing, because when I was working for House leadership in the state legislature 13 years ago, I managed to convince legislators over the course of two sessions (1999-2000) that microbrews could prove quite lucrative out here.

We ended the stranglehold and near-monopoly that Eagle Distributors (Budweiser) and Paradise Beverages (Miller Brewing Co.) had enjoyed in the Hawaii beer scene for decades, by extending the shelf life for imported beers and allowing for the local incorporation of small breweries that produced only a few thousand barrels per year.

Lots of countries give companies all sorts of tax breaks to keep employment and technology within their borders. Europe does it with Airbus. Massive government tax breaks and subsidies provided by the local Chinese governments have helped China become the manufacturing capital of the world. People in most states in America (and also countries in the world) would love Boeing to manufacture airplanes in their state.

I know people who work for these retail outlets and they are not making any time+1/2 wages. But they are being told they need to show up or they will get a demerit point on their records, or, in the worst case, be fired. These are companies that already wreak havoc on employees' lives by giving them terrible hours that change every week or two, making it impossible for them to have normal family time. And it wreaks havoc on people's health. I know this firsthand because my brother worked for Macy's for over a decade--as a manager--and after he and my sister-in-law had two kids, the company still wouldn't give him decent, reliable hours. He finally quit and found a good job for comparable salary with a much more humane schedule.

And then one store decided to open on Thursday night, and all the other stores, afraid that they would lose business to that store, decided they would be open that night, too.  And then it was Saturday night.  And before long, it was every night, and then it was Sunday.  Were more people shopping, or were pretty much the same number of people shopping over more hours?

I can't ever picture myself shopping on Thanksgiving, and I've never been a Black Friday shopper.  For one thing, I'm usually so beat from hosting Thanksgiving that I don't make it out of my pajamas and just want my turkey sandwich on good bread, with mayo and cold stuffing and lots of olives on the side.  And I hate crowds, can't stand the pushing and shoving.

I'm glad I have the choice not to be working on Thanksgiving, but I feel bad for those whose don't really have that choice, not if they want to keep their jobs.  I'm actually more likely to shop at a store that doesn't make its employees work on Thanksgiving than at one that does.  And I don't think I'm the only one who feels that way.

Here is an article that corroborates exactly what you said. link

"A while back, we thought we'd stick little American flags on the products made in America," said Frank Blake, chairman and chief executive of Home Depot. He said he had figured, based on the prevailing marketing wisdom, that customers would flock to the items. "But whatever segment really cares about it doesn't make much difference from a retail perspective."

Walmart, which centers its business on inexpensive items, started a program this year to increase its purchasing of American-made goods by $50 billion over the next 10 years. The company says that more than 150 projects are under way, with products ranging from socks to flat-screen TVs.

Walmart has an advantage that few other retailers can match: Because of its scale, it can push suppliers on cost. For example, it got the price on an American-made towel down to $9.47, or 50 cents less than a foreign-made towel previously for sale. (That $9.47 towel is a premium product at Walmart, where some towels sell for as little as $1.97.)

"We do have research that says, yes, it is an attractive proposition, customers will buy more because of the `Made in the U.S.,' " said Michelle Gloeckler, a Walmart executive who oversees the program. "We even have some research that says customers will pay more for made in the U.S., but we don't believe that they should have to."

Walmart's efforts go only so far. Asked if it would push suppliers to provide more apparel made domestically, executives said probably not, because of the labor costs associated with cutting and sewing.

"The wages in other countries are still lower than the absolute wages here, so products that lend themselves to more U.S. production are generally more highly automated," Ms. Gloeckler said.

That has drawn criticism from some suppliers. Price targets "barely cover the cost of the fabric required to make the garments, never mind the salaries and expenses of American workers," wrote Christopher Dal Piaz, president of the sportswear company SML Sport in New York, in a letter to the Walmart merchandising chief after a frustrating buying meeting. The machine-made products on which Walmart is focusing "do not build a new middle class," he wrote. (Walmart says the effort has drawn pledges from manufacturers to create more than 1,600 American jobs.)

The average price of a garment sold in the United States is $13.49, according to the NPD Group, an industry researcher. That low price is largely a result of sales at extremely low prices by huge retailers like Walmart, Target and H&M -- sales that are made possible by efficient supply chains and purchases of products from low-cost countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD.

Oh yeah.  Ouch Ouch Ouch.  lol.