These are my thoughts and opinions on many topics. My passions are the stock market and helping abandoned and orphaned animals. In this world, it seems most things don't make much sense to me anymore. This is my feeble attempt to share all of the above. The blogs will include items that might make you shake my head as well as give you my take on why they happen. Enjoy.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Buy American

This post was spurred on by a conversation with an old friend of mine regarding "Buy American" and some other topics. It is edited to remove the names, but the content is still applicable. Enjoy.

I'm with you and other Americans that people want to support companies based in the USA and that shows that Americans still have a heart. In that same token, Americans need to be unencumbered with regulations, fees, taxes, unions, etc. that don't allow us to reach our full potential.

Americans are by far the most productive people on the planet. We need to get the unions and government out of the way to let businesses do their best and lessen costs so we can compete worldwide. We can still dominate in industrial production, we just need to be unshackled from the horrific chains of the tax code, regulations, and having to pay for those able bodied folks that frankly choose not to participate in the workforce.

Who would want to pay more for the same quality of anything? We CAN do better for cheaper....if the government would just get out of the way. Another fact is that if you have walked through a US auto plant you would have noticed that ALL of the process machines are made in Japan or Germany. It is hypocritical just to scratch the surface. The US manufacturing companies have been buying the best quality product for THEIR needs for 30+ years, way longer than the average American as Americans were very loyal to "American Made" up until say the end of the 1980s.

The unionized American manufacturing organizations need to be reconstructed from the very top, down to the lowest worker to have fairer compensation packages. We can still pay higher wages than the world by far, but we have to be honest with ourselves. Union labor contracts need to be abolished, that would create competition for jobs, motivate workers to produce or be replaced with someone who will....just like everyone else. Manufacturing workers need to negotiate their wages like all others do, including myself, that would eliminate the "lowest common denominator" culture in the manufacturing plants, that is, I am only going to do the minimum that I am allowed to get away with. It even goes deeper in that culture in that people who DO perform are discouraged, threatened, or worse if they keep working so hard. That is abysmal.

What's left of American manufacturing had better wake up and recreate itself. Use the technology that we have to become more productive than the world, in fact create better technology, hire motivated, productive people who take pride in their work, and practice what they preach such as buying their goods, machines, etc. from American companies with those same values.

I'm done here.

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