Excellent information Pat, I just sent a letter to my US representatives copying the US Commerce information. ' Mike Payne ----- Original Message ----- From: Pat Naughtin To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Friday, 05 September 2008 01:04 Subject: [USMA:41664] USA Department of Commerce and NIST
Dear All, I just re-found this quotation at http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/Metric/5463.cfm and I thought that it might be worthwhile to remind you of USA Department of Commerce and NIST thinking from 1994. Why do U.S. exports have to be metric? Many of our products that are still not metric are not readily exportable. In effect, we are imposing a trade barrier on our own goods.International standards and the regulations of regional trading blocs require metric units for measurements because the metric system is the international standard of measurement. More importantly, customers in other nations have grown up with the metric system of measurement. Foreign customers are familiar with and expect—usually prefer—products made to metric measures. They are neither familiar nor comfortable with U.S. pints and ounces and inches and pounds. On the shelves of shops in other nations, our inch-pound products are at a disadvantage. In today's highly competitive world markets, any disadvantage quickly translates to lost sales and fewer exports. This inevitably leads to less domestic economic growth, fewer new jobs, and a lower standard of living than we could otherwise enjoy. By the way, I have written on costs of non-metrication at http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CostOfNonMetrication.pdf Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/ for more metrication information, contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter/ to subscribe.
