Posted on 07/17/2013 9:53:21 AM PDT by ToxicMich
Josh Miller never gave much thought to where his car, bed or toothpaste came from until an aluminum plant in his hometown of Ravenswood, West Virginia, shut down about four years ago.
The closure left 650 people without a job, including Miller's father-in-law, in a town of roughly 3,800, triggering a familiar pattern. The unemployment rate in Jackson County more than doubled, businesses shuttered and Ravenswood's quaint downtown became a ghost town.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
There used to be a garment factory or shoe factory in many small towns across the US. That would be a start.
Walmart’s founder (Sam Walton) served in the Berlin airlift. He learned inventory control and product logistics there, and used these things when he opened his retail stores.
He was quite patriotic and tried to sell all “Made in America” merchandise for awhile. But, he had to quit. The shelves were getting emptier and emptier as more and more USA factories closed down.
Alas.
Here in Pittsburgh, a local sports-talk host, in the dog days of July when the Pirates had fallen far out of contention but Steelers training camp had not yet begun...spent his entire 3 hour show interviewing the son of the man who invented the Wiffle Ball.
Was actually quite a fascinating conversation.
Part of the problem is that Sam tied to force US companies to compete with foreign countries at foreign county prices. Instead of explaining that the extra dollar you pay for that shirt is going to go to a US worker, he wanted the US company to sell at below profit.
The horror!!
What good do low prices do you if you have no job. Like I said, he could have explained that his prices were higher because it was being used to keep Americans working.
“Welfare and gubmint employee leeches. We seem to have the biggest share of the world market on that one.”
May I suggest lawyers, lawsuits, and prisons - America is in a league of its own.
Low prices are probably most important to people who are trying to live on savings or unemployment benefits while they find work. Even so, most Americans have jobs and they like Wal-Mart because shopping there saves them money, so they can get more bang for their buck. I don't know why some people have a problem with that. I suspect Sam would never have been caught telling his customers they had to pay higher prices to support some union or a company that couldn't compete.
Maybe you could ask big government to force all Americans to pay higher prices for all goods, not just those found at Wal-Mart, so that there would be more jobs. It's our collective duty, after all.
Are you just dense? Yes, I would pay higher prices to keep Americans working rather than some Chinese in a foreign sweatshop.
The customers patronize Walmart mostly because it offers low prices. Whenever Walmart has tried moving to higher price points the customers start shopping elsewhere.
I've talked to several well-connected folks at the remaining clothing factories to see what stands between them and reverting to US production. They all say the same thing: at the current price point and volume of mass-market clothing they could not afford to pay a US workforce, even with extensive automation. Moreover, the work force a the boutique plant is all Latino (read illegal), so they are really not on the same playing field. It is really frustrating. Unless you sell a product that you can make quickly in high volume with a small work force and can sell for many times what it costs to make it, you can't make it in the USA.
I talked to a guy years ago who was a buyer of men’s clothing for Sears. He said that Sears bought a dress shirt for $2 and sold them for $30. I have no idea what the overhead was for the store at the mall. A lot, I’ll bet.
Made in USA and Fair Trade Certified might be the best one could do to start such a store! Perhaps a co-op with a group of small investors could be started to get such a store off the ground...a single store front with an internet mail order business to start off with.
Really? That’s the stuff I find that’s made in China. The American made stuff I own is on the high end. I think this is one of those cognitive bias things, you find what you look for in the world. I buy quality regardless of country of origin, and find quite a bit of it is made here. If you think only crap is made here guess what kind of stuff you find made here. It’s all about what you’re looking for.
The same Jos. A. Banks now routinely advertises "any two suits in our store for $179!" So without adjusting for the considerable inflation in the interim, the Jos. A. Banks price point of 2013 is as much as 10% BELOW the price point of 1984. This isn't market forces at work. It is the result of the market being bypassed by companies employing slave labor.
Exactly. JAB is probably making more while selling for less than they were 30 years ago. All because they shamelessly exploit slave labor in some 3rd world country.
There are still many boutique industries in the USA manufacturing small amounts of upmarket products like firearms, timepieces and furniture. But I was referring to mass-market consumer goods that you would find in a typical store. You can find some US-made plastics like storage containers, hoses and sheet plastic products. There are still US-made metal castings to be found in the sporting goods, automotive and housewares section. But I challenge you to find ANY US-made clothing, shoes, small appliances, branded toys or electronics. You probably can’t. Those are the items that make up the bulk of sales in any store. Not many stores have a business model that rides on sheet plastics and seasonal lawn care products.
Those workers didn't go into the back office or the board room when they left JAB. They went into dead-end service jobs or the unemployment line.
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