americansworking.com Blog

The article is posted here. Here is a quote from the article.”U.S. gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced, grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent from January through March after a 2.5 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported in Washington today.”

Although the article did not blame the US GDP as the reason, it does stand to reason that if we made more products here instead of importing them our GNP would be higher and the trade deficit lower right?

Look at this report, yes it is booring. It shows the wages paid for the same type of work done in 32 countries. This report was compiled by U.S. Department of Labor. It shows both ends of the spectrum of pay. Look at Norway compared to Mexico. Looks like the US is in the upper two thirds, not bad except we are expected to compete with those on the bottom. I don’t think this report looks at other cost of doing business either, which I’m sure would drive the US and modern countries way up

My wife and I often are at odds over CEO pay, endorsment pay, and the like. We both are pro-business (very much so in fact). My wife works in big business moving lots and lots of money, some people in her industry make a lot of money. They work hard and they are good at what they do and most of us can’t understand what they do because they trained and worked at it for years. So when I tell my wife did you see the news what so and so made last year, that’s crazy. So of course my wife tells me “no one is ever over paid”. Of course in private business she is right, if they get someone dumb enough to give them that amount of money why should they not take it right. So my argument is yes, you are right, but they won’t get a dime from me. And they won’t get any of my money, because I refuse to spend money on some products.

So my point is trying to apply some balance to the trade imbalance we find ourselves in. Can we blame a CEO for making his products in China were they have people to work for next to nothing? Would you if you were in those shoes? I might if I felt I would go out of business if I did not. But the bottem line is the bottem line. If the CEO finds a market for certain goods he/she will make and bring those products to market. If enough of us don’t express an interest in products that are made in the USA, why would they risk a large investment to bring those products to market. It is their money they are risking, not ours. So lets create that market. Lets tell them that we would rather keep some jobs and our money home, it is our money until we spend it. Vote with your money.

I’m not anti Chinese or anything like that. I just think there is a bigger picture out there. Yes cheap Chinese goods allow us to own more, but I think that cheap purchase comes with some long term cost. We continue to loose our factories and infastructure to produce. We send out more money then we bring in (and lets face it we also borrow the money we send out). We owe are children more then a cheap DVD player. We should not put ourselves in a postition to need anyone but ourselves. We have already lost so much industry we can’t sped money at home on many things, for example computers, TV’s, most electronics. Those jobs are gone and it would take a huge need/reason to bring them home. Lets start the reason before we have the absolute need.