We Americans are some really strange people. We complain constantly about the loss of American jobs, and we know who to blame for those lost jobs. 1st of all we blame politicians because of the policies that they've put in place, policies that encourages employers to take jobs overseas and in fact rewards them for doing so. Then we blame the big businessmen themselves. We blame businesspeople because want save money on labor costs and the cost of doing business and moving jobs overseas is one way to do that. We hate that they are getting rich by stealing American jobs. The truth is that they are getting richer and richer while the working men and women keep getting poorer. Then we add labor unions to the group of culprits. These big unions, with their demands for ever increasing wages, improvements in working conditions and workplace safety, and their desire for retirement plans and health care benefits have held a gun to the business owners heads and driven those businesses into the ground, leaving the owners no choice but to leave or go broke.
The one group we seem not to think of when were assigning blame is ourselves, we the American consumers. We want to buy things cheaply, the cheaper we can buy stuff, the more stuff we can buy. We love pulling up in front of some big giant store, walk half a mile to get to the door, enter into a massive warehouse that uses street signs and maps to help us from getting lost and marvel floor to ceiling shelves down countless aisles, filled with every imaginable item, including groceries, all at the lowest possible prices, and we don’t give a damn that 85% of those items have the words made in China somewhere on their packaging. We seem unable to make the connection that every time we pick up one of those packages, take it to the checkout, pay for it and take it home that we have helped to destroy another American job. Once upon a time in America, jobs were plentiful, they paid well, and when we went to the store we bought products that our neighbors made. Those days are gone and may never come back. Unless, we bring them back!
Will we talk with each other we say that we would like to buy something that was once made in America but we just can't find it and have no choice but to buy foreign made goods. The fact is we don't really look. Were quite content to walk into Wal-Mart or Kmart or Target and grab whatever is handy. And for the most part those handy are items were made in China or Taiwan or Bangladesh or Vietnam or Cambodia or, you get the picture. If we really wanted to buy American made goods, they are available; it just takes a little work to find them. Nearly every item that we buy in the discount stores, items that were made in China or other places other than the United States, we could find an American made substitute. I hate using the word substitute because the items that we buy in the discount stores I mentioned are substitutes for American made products. We have become so used to buying foreign-made items that we think something made in America is a novelty.
If we want to see American jobs come back to America. If we want to see American industry revived. If we want to see our neighbors going back to work, earning a decent wage, buying a home they can afford, raising a family, paying taxes so that our schools and our cities can function, then we must start buying American-made products. It sounds pretty simple, but it's a little complicated. Finding the products we want may take a few minutes while we do an online search. But, we can find the product, where that product is made, and where that product is sold. Its possible that you may find everything that you're looking for in a store just down the street from you, or you may have to buy it online and wait a couple of days for it to arrive at your door, and just so you know, it may cost just a little bit more.
Bringing back the America that many of us used to know, the America that many of us grew up in, the America where we were educated, and whose factories many of us worked in may cost a few extra dollars. I say, “It’s worth it, let's make the effort let's find those American-made products, and let's buy them. Let's show the rest of the world what America is, has always been, and always will be. Lets become the Americans we used to be self-reliant, dependent on our own ingenuity, and who stood up shoulder to shoulder against the rest of the world.”
LETS START TODAY
Each day in my blog, I will be providing a web address for a company or companies that make American products. Over time, I hope that, with your help, the database of American-made products gets so large, and that as our database grows, so does our desire to buy those products, those American made products!
It gives me joy and fills me with excitement to think that we, Americans setting in our own homes can join together and rebuild America.
Peace
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