Buy products "Made in the USA"

Sick of hearing that the economy is in a slump? Want to save a little money?

Simple math tells us that If all Americans began buying only American made goods and stopped buying foreign products, the US government would make so much money in taxes that the need for a federal income tax would disappear. Furthermore, it would create such a demand for US manufactured goods that unemployment (currently 6%) would disappear as well.

For example here's why:

It's been estimated that 50 percent of the sticker price of a new Cadillac goes for taxes. That includes the sales tax, Social Security and Medicare taxes of GM workers, federal and state income taxes withheld from wages, GM's corporate income tax and the property taxes GM pays. When you buy an American-made car, you are contributing to Social Security and Medicare, and to our national defense and national parks, and helping pay for the local police, public roads and public schools.

This is why exports are better than imports, why trade surpluses are better than trade deficits. When foreigners buy U.S.-made goods, half the price they pay underwrites the cost of our government. But when we buy foreign goods, we contribute taxes to the regimes in the countries where those goods are produced. Keep that in mind the next time you buy goods "Made in China."

Think about it...

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 a.m. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN INDONESIA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB. At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in.....AMERICA.....

Here's the plan:

1. As much as possible, stop buying foreign products. Make it a habit to start checking to see where your purchase is made. Look for "Made in the USA"
2. Forward this email to as many people as you can.
3. Watch the news for signs the economy is starting to boom.
4. Buy stocks and get rich.
5. Remember this: "If you continue to do what you've always done, you'll continue to get what you've always got" Forward this email!

[ December 10, 2002, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: AdoptedByGod ]

 

The poison fruit of free trade

Posted: October 28, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29442

In August, the U.S. merchandise trade deficit – the value of goods we import, less the value of the goods we export – hit $42.3 billion, an all-time record for any nation. Our merchandise trade deficit is now running at $507 billion a year, nearly 5 percent of America's Gross Domestic Product.

For every $1 billion in exports, Presidents Bush I and Clinton used to remind us, 20,000 jobs are created. A $507 billion trade deficit means 10 million production jobs lost to American workers. No, free trade is not free.

Watching television the other night, I saw my friend and colleague Larry Kudlow chuckling over the trade deficit. It means we get all those TV sets and cars other people make, laughed Larry. On another channel was a lengthy report about Hathaway Shirts closing its last U.S. plant, in Waterville, Maine.

That same day, Goodyear announced it is shutting down a Lincoln, Neb., plant and replacing its U.S. workers, who earn $18 an hour, with Mexican workers, who will earn $12.77 a day. By dumping the U.S. workers, Goodyear is slashing payroll by 91 percent.

Well, as ex-Budget Director Dick Darman said about U.S.-made computer chips, "If our guys can't hack it, let 'em go." That is the Spirit of the Caryle Group. And, yes, we have been letting them go.

A third of our steel is foreign made, an even larger share of our cars, half our machine tools and almost all our shoes, shirts, radios, televisions, cameras, telephones and VCRs. At Tyson's Corner, Mall of America and Southland shopping centers, U.S. consumers relish their range of choices. Do they know what it is costing their country?

Since U.S. trade surpluses disappeared in 1971, writes ex-GM executive Gus Stelzer, we have run $3.5 trillion in trade deficits, and the national debt has soared from $408 billion to $6 trillion.

Is there a link? You bet. You don't need a Ph.D. in economics to know that every product carries in its final sales price the full cost of the taxes imposed on the company that made that product.

Stelzer estimates that 50 percent of the sticker price of a new Cadillac goes for taxes. That includes the sales tax, Social Security and Medicare taxes of GM workers, federal and state income taxes withheld from wages, GM's corporate income tax and the property taxes GM pays. When you buy an American-made car, you are contributing to Social Security and Medicare, and to our national defense and national parks, and helping pay for the local police, public roads and public schools.

This is why exports are better than imports, why trade surpluses are better than trade deficits. When foreigners buy U.S.-made goods, half the price they pay underwrites the cost of our government. But when we buy foreign goods, we contribute taxes to the regimes in the countries where those goods are produced. Keep that in mind the next time you buy goods "Made in China."

Free-traders cheer that tariff rates have fallen to almost zero. What they do not understand is that all taxes are tariffs on production. "An income tax is a tariff, so are property, payroll, sales and every other tax," writes Stelzer. Why? Because all taxes are factored into the final sales price.

Now that tariffs have been virtually abolished, foreign-made goods carry almost no U.S. tax. But goods "Made in the USA" carry U.S. taxes of 50 percent of their price. Free trade thus makes a mockery of equal protection of the laws.

Free trade, writes Stelzer, "is the only competitive activity in which the rules are not the same for every competitor even though the lives of millions of people ... are involved. No other competitive activity would tolerate such immoral and unconstitutional double-dealing." This unjust system will one day kill U.S. manufacturing.

Once, our farms and factories produced virtually everything we consumed, and we had no income tax. Manufacturers were the geese that laid the golden eggs. Free trade is now slaughtering the geese.

While conservatives wear Adam Smith ties, they ignore his wisdom:

When the necessaries of life have been taxed in any country, it becomes proper to tax not only the necessaries of life imported from other countries, but all sorts of foreign goods which can come into competition with anything that is the produce of domestic industry.

Adam Smith believed in a level playing field.

Elite America no longer believes that, and because it doesn't, Middle America is losing its access ramp to the American Dream.

 

I agree...If we group together instead of whining and complaining and thinking that our individual opinions are the only ones that count, it would possible to make a difference.

Take the clothing industry for example...If Americans made a concerted effort to buy American clothing...think of how much money would stay here in the US! and thats just ONE type of product...

 

It's as global or domestic as you want it to be...Buy American! Support products that are comprised of the most US produced raw materials.

CONSUMERS are the ones that determine the supply, demand, price, and overall direction of any marketplace.

 

From the Federal Trade Commission web site:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/madeusa.htm

"The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is charged with preventing deception and unfairness in the marketplace. The FTC Act gives the Commission the power to bring law enforcement actions against false or misleading claims that a product is of U.S. origin. Traditionally, the Commission has required that a product advertised as Made in USA be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S. After a comprehensive review of Made in USA and other U.S. origin claims in product advertising and labeling, the Commission announced in December 1997 that it would retain the "all or virtually all" standard. The Commission also issued an Enforcement Policy Statement on U.S. Origin Claims to provide guidance to marketers who want to make an unqualified Made in USA claim under the "all or virtually all" standard and those who want to make a qualified Made in USA claim"