Made in the USA: New Web Site Promotes American Products

Fox News ^ | 10/14/09 | Jamie Colby

[Wiz]

Well, some of the money ends up in the pocket of firm executives that would be happy to donate some of the profits as funds for the Republicans too. Do you want to see money end up into foreign that are stealing Americans’ job, just like the illiegal immigrants are doing in America?

[blackd77]

World War One was supposed to be over quickly. The ability to predict the nature of future conflicts accurately is rare. If this is used as an argument as to why it is acceptable to have no manufacturing here, I’d disagree with the sentiment. “Service economies” aren’t great. “Service economies” leaders take dictation from “manufacturing economy’s” leaders.

[jwparkerjr]

Wow, can I ever sympathize with your story! I had developed an application in the early 1980’s that was online and permitted real estate interests, appraisers particularly, track sales in nearly real time. At the time the only way of finding comps was to subscribe to a printed product that was very expensive and lagged the court house recordings by three or four months. I developed a system where we purchased the roll of microfilm of the days recordings in the clerk's office the next day, then went through and took off the info about RE transactions. This info was made search-able by any of several keys and the whole thing was available online, albeit at 300 baud or less in those days. The system was improved to include having online, available 24/7, the property appraisers records for all the properties in the county. In our case that was just over a million records. Quite an advancement for the day and time.

The people who published the printed system were none too happy and set about keeping us from getting or keeping customers, mostly with the tried and true method of undercutting us on pricing. When all else failed they put a mole on our team and then through a dishonest investor managed to get me out of the picture.

That was the bad news. The good news was that less than a week later one of the really big names in MLS online services contacted me and then hired me to replicate the system for them! Turned out also the guy in my old company who was supposed to replace me and my knowledge of the system wasn't as sharp as they thought. His first act was to format the data disk!

I am so depressed to hear the outcome of your work. I know how easily I could have been in the same boat.

It didn't all end up well though. The company that hired me was a family run company, absolutely the most wonderful place I EVER worked, and when the patriarch passed away unexpectedly there was a feeding frenzy to get the company and in the end it just sort of withered away. I came away with some 401-k money, etc. but soon frittered it away on another project I thought had great potential. That project ended up pretty much like yours. I guess the fates only give us one shot at success, at least in my case.

All is not lost though, I ended up being a full time pro freelance photographer and have never been happier! Also never more broke, but happy nonetheless. I'm getting old and it doesn't take as much to keep me happy these days.

[MARTIAL MONK]

In the early twentieth century Sears was the equivalent of today's Wal-Mart. The Sears catalog was ubiquitous. It was frequently said that there were two books in every southern household, the Bible and the Sears wish book. The growth in physical stores, where they were opening a new one every two days, would come later but the Sears - Roebuck catalog was the equivalent of the big boxes of today, driving many smaller retailers out of business.

There were numerous reasons for this. The transportation system was poor and the local selection minimal. Many people did not even know that the wonders that appeared in the Sears book even existed. The catalog gave them an eye on the world with illustrations. They would paw through each issue until it was dog-eared and when the new one came, the old would be recycled in the outhouse. No, the pictures of the nice young ladies in their undies wouldn't appear until later.

Sears soon discovered that they had unusual sales patterns. There would be a huge sales spurt on paydays and at harvest time and nothing in between. They found that they were literally sucking all of the money out of towns and regions, especially in the South. To combat this they began to establish small manufacturers there. A few, I think, they owned outright but most were existing manufacturers and/or startups that they financed and mentored. It was a huge and concerted effort to put dollars back in the South. There were hundreds of these manufacturers scattered throughout the region.

They would find a product that they needed, say...table lamps. They would then find an entrepreneur who wanted his own business. They would set him up and finance him and buy all of his lamps. They also controlled him. They would tell him what models to make and how to make them. They would dictate the materials and colors and styles. They controlled everything on the production line. The manufacturers were not allowed to sell to Sears competitors. The terms and conditions were harsh and it was a relentless push to cut costs.

Sears eventually found that they could get better pricing and more up-to-date products on the open market and began hedging on their own suppliers. The Sears plants began to disappear. I remember seeing newspaper articles about the remaining ones in the late 1960's. I think that they are all gone now.

[jwparkerjr]

re: God, I miss Traficant in Congress

Shows how topsey-turvey our world is today! It would have done society much more good to put Barney Frank in prison instead of Trafficant.

I don't think we'll ever see America what it was. We might be able to come close, but even that I fear is now beyond our reach. About the most we can hope for is to stop the headlong plunge into socialism and very quickly into communism.

I know that every generation, for as long as there have been generations, has felt its was likely the last, but this time I think we might really be the ones who see it happen.

[jwparkerjr]

Very nice history lesson. Hearing it all in one place is really neat. I knew most of the individual steps, but you've put it on a timeline that makes it really easy to understand. Outstanding!

Life is really mostly a pendulum swinging from side to side and I have to wonder if perhaps the time is coming for a return to that process. Like most things in life, we don't know when we've reached the point of diminishing returns until we're we've passed it, usually passed it by a great deal. Somehow we just don't seem to have a system of checks and balances that lets us keep track of where we are and what's coming up next. Seems like every problem we have comes from a solution that worked for a while, then was overtaken by our failure to recognize we had reached the point of diminishing return. And then of course the law of unintended consequences that just complicates matters.

Thank you for taking the time to post that info. I love learning and FreeRep is an important part of the process in my aging life!

[liberateUS]

Does it screen out Union Shops?

[jwparkerjr]

re: A “real” war in these times would be essentially over in the first 10 days

I realize that. I was simply pointing out much of our manufacturing capabilities have been shipped out of country. Even with the 10-day war we would be in deep doo-doo. Such an action would disrupt all sorts of things that two, almost three, generations have come to take for granted. It wouldn't even take a war for this to happen. There are several aspects of American life that are at the tipping point. If even one of them passes that point life will be unlike anything today's Americans have ever experienced.

Maybe I'm just an alarmist, but I have the feeling we are living on borrowed time. We are not solving any problems, simply taking pain pills for palliation. Until we begin doing things to cure the patient instead of addressing the symptoms we are hastening the day of our fall.

[jwparkerjr]

re: union shops

That was my first thought! I had mentioned it in the remarks but then took it out since it sounded like I was just being anti-union. Glad you brought it up! IMHO, the primary cause of the drop in quality of Made in America was the unions. I know they filled an important role at one time in America, but those times are gone. As I pointed out in another post this morning, it's a classic case of failing to recognize that the point of diminishing returns had been reached, and then left in the dust.

Seems to me the only people who fail to realize the damage unions have done to America are those in the unions. And even then there are those in the unions who full well how much damage is being done but put their own interests above all else.

[expat_panama]

Hmmm, is anyone really checking this out?  I mean let's take this tie factory.   Are they buying their cloth from India?   How about thread and dyes?   How many illegals on the payroll?  Did they buy their machinery and equipment from US companies?

Sounds like a scam to me...

[Impy]

Made in America Information Act, H.R. 754 in the 106th Congress.

http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d106query.html

It was a bill to establish a toll free number.

It passed the house with only 2 nays (Paul, Sanford)

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll534.xml

The Senate never acted on it.

I’m for free trade but it’s not a bad idea, it could be easily paid for by eliminating one of what I’m sure are many unnecessary government help lines on other subjects that exist solely to provide jobs for SEIU members.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Thanks for finding it. I used the link to Thomas that you provided and found that Traficant was indeed the lead sponsor of the bill. The 16 co-sponsors are listed here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d106,d106:19:./temp/~bdkRos:@@@P|/bss/d106query.html|
Most are Democrats from blue-collar districts, but there were some suburban Republicans as well (and, of course, as ypu mentioned, only Ron Paul and Mark Sanford voted against it on the floor).

[investigateworld]

BTTT