Gavin, Burma and Liberia are not FFU using countries. That is old news. These countries have never officially metricated, due to political instability. But have metricated due to their neighbours being metric and all trade is done in metric. Those machines that are still imperial are those left over from by-gone years. Nothing new is imperial.
The US is the only country not completely metric. And despite not trying, the US is 40 % metric, due to a large amount of imports of metric products and those US companies that have to use metric because the market is metric. Euric ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gavin Young" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, 2004-03-01 15:36 Subject: [USMA:29044] Allowing metric only labeling on USA consumer products - letter to Ralph Nader > Here is a copy of a letter I sent to Ralph Nader on 2004/02/28 regarding allow > metric only labeling. If you want to send the same letter to Ralph Nader or > others, feel free to do so. > > The USA should speed its conversion to metric for a number of reasons and > information about those reasons may be found at my website at > http://www.xprt.net/~hightech/metric.htm . Of particular importance is the need > to ammend the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) to allow Metric-Only > Labeling by businesses who desire such for their products. There are many USA > businesses, especially ones where exports are a huge portion of their business, > who wish to discontinue mentioning the old fashioned (including US Customary > Units) on their labels. In 10 years the EU will no longer allow imports to > contain the imperial units (including US Customary Units) on the labels, even > if the labels also indicate the metric units. Allowing USA businesses to use > only metric units on their packages will make it easier for businesses to > adjust when all of their exports to the EU require such labels. > > All USA schools (to my knowledge) have been teaching metric to their students > for decades now and thus most people in the USA should be familiar with metric. > However most people in the USA have not had much opportunity outside of school > to make use of metric (except when they buy liters of soda pop and a few other > consumer goods). Allowing metric only labeling on all consumer goods would make > it easier for USA citizens to retain their knowledge of metric and ease the USA > transistion to metric. I believe that many members of the U.S. Metric > Association ( http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/ ) and even many businesses > would likely support Ralph Nader for President if Ralph Nader campaigned on > urging ammending the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) to allow Metric- > Only Labeling. Some fans of metric had even planned on voting for Howard Dean > because Howard Dean made a comment saying he is a fan of metric. > > Gavin Young > http://www.xprt.net/~hightech , http://www.renewableelectricity.com, > http://www.electric-automobile.com > >
