Buy American - Bring Jobs Back Home.

Throughout my career in the fashion industry, many, including members of my own family, challenged me on the overseas production of apparel. My answer is the same now, as it was years ago. If fashion companies produced clothing in the United States, you would not be able to afford it. I don’t necessarily think overseas production is a good thing, when we have a perfectly good workforce here in America, but the honest to goodness truth is labor is much less expensive overseas and that effects the consumer retail price. We can complain about overseas labor and we complain about high retail prices. Take your pick.

Even though the above may be true, many people that I have come across have vowed to make a practice of buying American made. In today’s economic climate, I think this is even more important to do so, taking into consideration the oil we buy from those who want to see our demise and the toys we purchase that are made with harmful chemicals. But they are not the only reasons to buy American. Lately, the American economy has been built on “credit” and not the production of goods and services. And let’s face it; the production of goods and services is making many nations such as China a very rich and powerful country. In a sense, we (Americans) have taken ourselves out of the production and manufacturing game. What do we actually produce? What is actually made here?

In regards to the credit industry, they too are outsourcing American jobs overseas in attempts to “save money” and bring home a benefit to the American consumer. I experienced this personally when I had a serious question about my Capital One account and had to explain it someone who’s second language was English. It was indeed very frustrating to express my issue to someone who didn’t speak my language, but then maybe that is whole point of credit card companies outsourcing customer service-they really don’t want to hear our challenges and complaints.

But now America finds itself in a very precarious situation. Our unemployment is staggering, closing in on 4 million people. Large states such as California are facing bankruptcy. Our nation’s infrastructure is crumbling and the banks are losing assets. Now, let’s just take credit card companies for example, who are outsourcing jobs. Many of these companies are receiving tax payer bailout money, for them to pay salaries to non-Americans overseas. Here’s a suggestion, if they care that much for the American consumer, take back those overseas jobs and employ a portion of that 4 million unemployed. Why not employ those taxpayers who are giving you bail out money? You see, this is the problem. We have outsourced so much we are not giving opportunity to employ the people who live here, and all for the sake of making a profit. And it is then, why we wonder why our economy is in shambles. We have pretty much pimped ourselves out to the rest of the world and now have very little to show for it. We need to bring American ingenuity, manufacturing and jobs back home.