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In today’s world, the phrase “buy American” is something that is tiring to the ears of many. We see it on TV, we read about it in the newspapers, and it has even become some sort of slogan in some quarters with many people not really knowing what it truly means and the benefit inherent in it.

Buying American simply means to buy made in USA products by the people of the United States. Buying American is more than just a show of patriotism, rather it has a lot of benefit for everyone.

The first of this is that it ensures that manufacturing industries are able to continue functioning and provide more jobs for our teeming youthful population. Purchasing American-made products ensures that industries stay in business and the manufacturing sector continues to grow thereby reducing unemployment.

Secondly, to buy made in USA products ensures that quality goods are continuously in circulation. As everyone has come to understand that many products made outside the country are more than half of the time inferior because of the fact that manufacturers can mass produce at a cheaper quality outside the country, a situation which regulations in the United States will forbid.

Lastly, to buy made in USA products puts more money in the pockets of American families and investors. It means that more American businesses can open and enjoy the patronage that they deserve. And as anyone knows, a key attraction for any investor is the presence of a market. If American people can come together to increase the demand for made-in-America products, then we would see a huge turnaround in the growth of business investments and household income.

How to recognize an import (even if it says ‘Made in America”)

It is not unusual to find a product that says “Made in America” with a big American flag but on close observation it may carry another statement saying its parts are sourced from another country. Misleading labeling such as this are far too common as many manufacturers are either trying to skip the barrier of regulations or appealing to consumers. But whatever the case may be, you have the right to know if you are genuinely purchasing a made in America product.

As a consumer willing to buy American, you need to pay close attention to labeling despite the American flag that may be boldly placed on these products. Many products may carry the flag and the statement, but on close observation, they may carry a label that reads “Country of Origin”; a requirement by the regulatory agencies. This label will often be in a conspicuous place where by casually handling the product, you will easily see it. For instance, when buying a new refrigerator, you can easily see the country of origin of the manufacturer on the wall of the interior. If you are buying a gas grill, you may see this on the back of the metal frame. But you must keep in mind that for a truly made in America product, it is not required.

In conclusion, as a consumer and patriot, the choice to grow our community and economy by buying American lies in part with you. When next you go to the store, pay attention to that made in America label. It might after all not be truly made in America.

Mother’s Day is right around the corner, and no matter if you prefer to get it over with quickly or if you like to make a big event out of it, one thing is certain, you will be thinking about gifts for Mother’s Day this week.

The best Mothers Day gifts are, of course, the ones from the heart. That can mean something homemade, special and unique, something that your mother really loves, maybe collectibles and such, something expensive and breathtaking if your budget permits, or even just chocolate novelties and a small trinket.

You can find endless gift ideas for Mother’s Day online, but whatever you may end up choosing, it’s good to keep in mind that in the majority of cases, you are the gift – you coming home with a big smile and a big hug is what really makes Mother’s Day special. The gesture of gift-giving is more important than the actual gift when it comes to these kinds of holidays. Nevertheless, while we do know this deep inside, it always seems like a struggle to make up your mind on what to buy or make for your mother on this special occasion. Some people prepare days or even weeks in advance, and have their gift sorted out when the moment comes, others just enter panic mode the morning of, and purchase whatever is more convenient at the time.

For both aforementioned categories, at the Buy American Campaign, we want to remind you of another special mother in our lives, our motherland. Mother’s Day is more than getting a flower bouquet for your mom on Sunday, it’s a national celebration where we as a whole honor motherhood, and take a step back to recognize the undeniable influence American mothers have had and will continue to have on our society. For this reason, instead of debating what are the best Mothers Day gifts, which is kind of silly taking into consideration that people and relationships are so unique and diverse, we feel like it’s more important to say that the best gifts for Mothers Day are those made in the USA.

When talking about a special celebration like the one happening this upcoming weekend, our team always tends to shift their attention to the consumer’s behavior, and we often times feel obligated to speak up for what we feel is right. So, even if events like these usually come with a dose of frenzy that frequently leave us searching for the easiest solution, we want to remind readers that as a mother is the heart of the family so is manufacturing the heart of our economy.

In conclusion, even in cases where American-made products are not the most accessible due to various reasons, we encourage you to make the extra effort no matter the holiday, and buy your gifts, or the materials required to make your gift from right here, from home, from where the heart is.

If you’re looking for something to give on an upcoming birthday, anniversary, or any holiday, you should be looking at products which are made right here in America. American-made products make the perfect gift for any occasion, and you can find scores of amazing products made in America for any age range or interest. Let’s take a closer look at why American-made products make the perfect gifts.

American-made products are higher quality

Products made in America are high quality. You won’t have to worry about messy paint jobs, ill-fitting or even missing parts, or any of the other defects that are so common with foreign-made products. This is especially essential if you are buying a gift for a child or an infant, who should not be exposed to certain chemicals that are common in objects made overseas.

You can find truly unique American-made products

While American factories may produce hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies of certain products, that doesn’t mean you have to stick with big-name products made at American factories for your gifts. There are countless American companies and individual American creators who offer more unique products made right here, that you won’t be able to find anywhere else. Items from “indie” companies or handmade items are truly unique and will stand out even more to your gift recipient.

They encourage others to follow your lead

Everyone from your gift recipient to others at the birthday or holiday party will no doubt hear that your gift was from a company made in America. One of the great things about buying American products is that once people hear about others doing it, they want to join in as well. The simple action of buying a gift made by completely by American companies may spark a lasting trend among your family and friends of being more conscious about where the products they buy come from.

If you have an upcoming gift-giving occasion, whether it’s a birthday, holiday or other special event, take the time to find a truly special gift that was made right here in America.

In the world of TV and movie entertainment, the United States is king, with Hollywood serving as the unofficial capital of the entertainment world. Given this knowledge, it may come as a surprise to learn that the US is losing ground as a television manufacturer. More surprising still is just how rapid the decline has been. When the golden age of television started back in the 1950’s, there were anywhere between 90 and 150 TV manufacturers doing great business in this country, selling more than 11 million units per year.

American made television sets continued to be in high demand in the domestic market in the 1960’s, which was around the time when Japanese imports started showing up, albeit in small numbers. To put it in perspective, by the mid-60’s US manufacturers were making 3 million color TV’s per year as compared to the 100,000 being made in Japan. The Asian nations were off to a slow start, but they soon started to play catch-up rather quickly.

By the start of the 1970’s, imported TV’s were becoming more common, with many US manufacturers deciding to move their business overseas. Developing nations, such as South Korea and Taiwan, had factories already established, making it easy for American companies to move in and quickly grow their business because of the cheaper cost of doing business in that part of the world.

The 70’s was the heaviest period of decline for US television manufacturers, with just 3 – RCA, Zenith, and GTE-Sylvania – left in business when 1980 arrived. GTE-Sylvania got out of the consumer electronics business a few years later, dropping the number of American TV manufacturers down to just two. While RCA and Zenith still had about 40% of the US market share in 1982, roughly 68% of black and white TV’s and 13% of the color models were being imported from overseas.

The tide was turning, and it was not long before the remaining US television manufacturers were caught up in the tsunami. General Electric acquired and broke up RCA in 1986, leaving Zenith to fight the battle alone. They made it until 1995, which was when South Korean giant LG Electronics swooped in and bought Zenith out.

The dream of TV manufacturing in the United States stays alive, though, with the New York Times reporting in 1995 that Dutch company Phillips and Thompson Electronics out of France opted to make their TV’s in Indiana and Tennessee, respectively. Foxconn, a Taiwanese company which is responsible for making products for Apple is attempting to rid themselves of the bad press they have received concerning their labor practices by moving their manufacturing to Arizona.

Japanese  and South Korean manufacturers are still the leaders in the TV industry, accounting for roughly half of the flat-screen market. Now that you know which companies make which products and where, you may want to consider that that next time you buy. The best TV shows and movies in the world are made in the US, so wouldn’t it be great to see the TV manufacturing industry once again become huge in this country?

Ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the United States back in the early 1800’s manufacturing has played a major role in local communities all across the country. Many small towns and cities big and small where the factories began popping up started to grow by leaps and bounds. These large employers needed many people to perform the work and often this meant people were attracted from places outside of the location where the factory was built.

For the most part, this was a huge positive in that it made it possible for families to be able to support themselves since many of these jobs paid very good wages for the time. With the townspeople having money to spend other businesses soon popped up all around the factory. This added to the workforce and that brought more money to tax coffers, which made it possible for the local government to be able to provide services that benefited the people of the town.

As time went by factories large and small became heavily ingrained into the fabric of the local communities in which they were built. Depending on how long the factory was around and what type of industry it was part of you would often have several generations of families working at the local factory. This lasted through most of the decades throughout the 1900’s and as the arrival of the 21st century.

Advantages and Disadvantages of having large single employers to a community

While you might think that having a company that employs a large percentage of the residences in the community that surrounds it would be all good. The truth is there are some bad things that can be expected along with a long list of advantages. We will start with the list of the advantages and end with some of the disadvantages that for some community leaders were too great of sacrifice which caused them to reconsider courting one of the large businesses to locate their factory in their town.

Advantages

• Payscale for factory jobs is considered fairly high
• Tax collections bring a large amount of revenue to the local town
• The extra funds allow the town to provide more services to the people
• Large factories tend to attract a large number of support businesses
• The more businesses you add the more jobs that are available for the people

Disadvantages

• In the event of a downturn and the factory closes down it could leave the town devastated
• Increased traffic could lead to a number of different issues in the areas around the factory
• Too fast of growth could put a strain on a number of different services

One of the ways community leaders can help to lessen the impact that a large single employer could have on its community is to be proactive when it comes to community planning. This way they would be better prepared to deal with any negatives that would arise.

For the community as a whole one way to help the local American factories and the people that they employ is to “Buy American Made”. As long as they continue to be profitable they are far less likely than to shut down the factory which we all know how devastating that has been to many towns and cities all across the US.

The economic downturn in the United States caused manufacturing to decline as companies looked for cheaper sources for the products that they were selling to their customers. Unfortunately, when US companies are sourcing the manufacturing of their products overseas, the United States is the only loser in the whole deal.

It is not surprising that as the downturn continued more and more US-based companies were finding more and more cost-effective sources for their products from manufacturers that were located outside of the United States. This included countries like China and India. The business environment at the time was definitely not pro-business and that was one of the primary reasons why it lasted for so long.

Overseas Manufacturers benefited

Whether we are talking about companies sourcing overseas companies to supply them with the products that they sell or US manufacturers moving their production operations to locations outside of the United States. Either way, the United States economy and the American people lose out as the jobs were eliminated and the factories started to close down.

Fortunately, not all is totally lost, we still have a fairly robust manufacturing sector and as we continue to see the improvement, we can all do our part by insisting on purchasing more domestically produced products. This will go a long way to help convince the companies to expand their domestic investment.

Why should we buy American?

Buy American should be much more than just a saying. It is more about taking pride in the United States and what it means to be an American. In the end, we all benefit when companies choose to do business inside the United States. This means to source the products that they sell from manufacturing companies in the USA and when possible manufacture their products in facilities within the United States.

We need to promote “Made in the USA”

In order to help reverse the trend of too many overseas products being bought in the United States, we need more people to promote the idea that American Made is worth the money that you are paying. One of the reasons why there are so many foreign made products filling the store shelves of US-based companies is that they can find the products that people are demanding from overseas manufacturers at a lower price even though the quality is usually much less.

There is a big push to help improve the business environment here in the United States and if it works as it is intended there could be a big reversal in the trend that caused so many companies to turn to the overseas manufacturers in the first place. If this whole effort comes to fruition and our manufacturing industry is able to recover the millions of jobs that were lost, this will be a huge benefit for the American people as a whole.

There was a time when there was pride in American manufacturing and more of the merchandize that you found on the store shelves all across the country were made in factories somewhere in America. With most of the jobs filled by locals who were hired by the companies that built the factories.

Unfortunately, there was a huge shift in the landscape of the business world and companies or their shareholders decided it was costing too much to operate the large factories and employ a large workforce. This meant that the companies had to find cheaper ways to get their products made. For many companies that meant no longer were they making their products, instead that turned to overseas manufacturers and they basically became importers of foreign goods.

The tide is beginning to change

While it took a little bit of time to get rolling, there was a grassroots movement several years ago that was looking to break the cycle of foreign products filling the store shelves. Now, we see more and more factories starting to pop up and more American Made is starting to break through once again.

One small difference is very apparent, the factories that are being opened are not your typical oversized structures, instead they are much smaller and more efficient. This makes it far more likely to be successful in producing American Made products.

Buy American Made

While some of the companies have started to comeback, it is high time that the American people begin demanding that more of the things that we buy in the stores are actually made here in America. If enough people begin speaking with their wallets and make their purchasing decisions more carefully and only look for those things with Made in America patches, then it just might be enough to encourage more companies to return to being manufacturers again.

So, remember the next time you are in the store and looking to buy something, you will want to look at the packaging to see where it was manufactured. This is because, even if the company that owns the brand is an American company, it does not mean that the product you are looking at was actually manufactured here in America.

It is up us to be sure that we all put more pressure on the companies to shift back to manufacturing in America first mentality. If the pressure is great enough by the consumer it just might be what it will take to push a company to make a decision to bring manufacturing back to American soil and employ American workers.

Please, help your country and American manufacturing by encouraging everyone you know to try to avoid buying anything not made in the United States.

Ever since the beginning of the economic downturn in 2008, the workforce has shed 1.2 million US manufacturing jobs. Some of the positions were lost when some manufacturing companies turned to automation and robotic equipment in order to take advantage of new technology. However, the majority of those losses were when businesses moved their manufacturing operation overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor or a better business climate.

With the loss of so many of these good-paying manufacturing and assembly jobs, there is a need for more open positions in lesser skilled jobs that do not require an advanced degree. Unfortunately, that also means that they are likely to be considerably less pay and other compensation. This was a double whammy to the local economies that often relied on the revenues generated by those higher paying jobs.

Alternative Jobs are available

Over the past decade since the official start of the economic downturn and the overall loss of the million-plus US manufacturing jobs, there has been an uptick in other sectors of the workforce. The service industry and healthcare have each seen increase jobs to help fill the gap that was left by the loss of so many manufacturing jobs.

Unfortunately, many of these jobs that were available were considered dead-end jobs that were not really career-defining like Walmart, janitor or flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant. These types of jobs were only taken in order to pay the bills in hopes to find something better or as a second or third job in order to make ends meet.

These non-manufacturing jobs that many of these people were forced to take when many of the US factories that closing and the jobs were being sent overseas where it was much cheaper to operate don’t offer anything in the way of moving up and getting ahead. You simply go to work every day and work hard and earn a paycheck and go home. Then you repeat the cycle over and over again for years and years.

While many of those manufacturing jobs will never come back, especially those that were lost to technology advancement and automation, but the ones that were lost when the business climate got too hard to continue to operate here in the United States and many companies shifted their manufacturing overseas. Those types of situations could be reversed and we could eventually see a resurgence in the US manufacturing jobs again.

Until then, we continue to see the only jobs that are available are the ones that people only stay doing for a short time while they wait for a much better opportunity to come along or the job happens to be a second or even third source of income.

Over the years, people have flocked to the United States of America in search of a new life and the chance to prosper. Some of those people arrived on these shores because of a desire to play a role in shaping the nation, while others came out of sheer desperation. Given that the potato famine was in full bloom in the mid 1800’s, it’s fair to suggest that the millions of people who arrived from Ireland between then and the 1920’s was more to do with desperation and starvation than anything else. That they ended up playing a major role in the rise in manufacturing is the US at that time is something that cannot be disputed.

As beloved as the Irish are in America today, the reality is that they were not made to feel particularly welcome when they first set foot on American soil. Most of the new arrivals were starving and impoverished and were essentially viewed as a lower class of people than the residents of the US. Many businesses hung signs clearly stating that they were not in the business of hiring the Irish, but things started to change when the Industrial Revolution made its way from Europe to this side of the pond.

Back in those days, manufacturing was something of a local affair, with goods made in households in every town, essentially serving the people who lived in the vicinity. Industrialization and the formation of corporations meant that expansion was possible, but the one thing holding back the process and Westward Expansion was a lack of healthy bodies willing to put in the work required. Given that the Irish were still very much down on their luck at this time, companies found that they could hire them for pennies on the dollar, working the Irish for long hours and for very little pay.

Transportation was the key to growth in the manufacturing industry, as well as many more besides. The building of canals and railroads began in earnest, and it was very often the Irish who provided the backbreaking labor for these huge endeavors. The arrival of the Industrial Revolution combined with the ability to quickly and efficiently transport cargo and people across the country meant that the manufacturing industry saw incredible growth in a relatively short period of time. None of it would have been possible without the immigrants, many of whom came from Ireland.

The Westward Expansion never really slowed down or hit a lull, simply because there were always fresh bodies and new laborers becoming available on a daily basis. The Irish, seeing the opportunity to work and thrive in their new home, continually used their money to bring over more family members so that they might all be given the same opportunity to have a better life. When you put on your green hat and down a pint of Guinness this St. Patrick’s Day, perhaps spare a moment to think about how prosperous this nation is now, and how the Irish played a major role in it getting there.

With the amount of domestically produced products continuing to fill the shelves of so many of local stores all across the country, you cannot help but hope that it is somehow helping families. One way it is definitely helping is that many factories located in small towns across the country employ several generations of families in the town.

For many of these families, there is a certain amount of pride knowing that the work that they do produce the products that their company sells are benefiting fellow American who are buying them for their own families to use. This pride in their work is exactly what keeps many people who work in the manufacturing industry going.

Keeping the money in America

The more and more that you see Made in America plastered on the labels of products in the stores that you shop in means that there more families across the country benefiting directly. This is because traditionally manufacturing jobs have been higher paying and means more money for the family budget for those working in the factories.

However, it does not stop there, when families have more money to spend they tend to use it by buying more things from the businesses in the area that they live. This is a definite boon for the local economy and the tax collections for the city and state.

The momentum continues to grow for Made in America

Despite the strong numbers of foreign-made products that still exist on shelves in many of the most popular retailers and discount stores, there is a glimmer of hope for Made in America. This is why we as American consumers should be putting more pressure on the American companies that sell these foreign made products to shift where they get their products from.

As we continue to speak louder with our wallets at the local store level the more the companies will see that they will definitely benefit their bottom line by staying closer to home when it comes to having their products made. This will also put pressure on them to consider moving manufacturing operations back to the United States from overseas.

Buying American Made Products must be more than just a saying

We here in America should all be interested in buying products that are made here in the United States as it helps to benefit everyone to some degree. When buying products that are made and sold in America we ensure that the people that are employed by the companies that make them are able to support their families and continue to support the community by spending money at the local businesses. As the local businesses flourish, they are able to expand and hire more locals and contribute more tax dollars to the local government and the addition to the workforce continues to infuse more money into the local economy.

So, we all should take the Buy American Made Products saying to heart and do our part.