Contact Info:
Contact: buyamericanchallenge@gmail.com
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About this blog:
This blog was established to increase discussion and raise awareness about the extreme importance of individual Americans choosing to buy American goods and services whenever possible. It also serves as a challenge to every American that cares about the future of our country to wake up and realize that we need to change our buying habits, and change them now!
The Problem
Most Americans realize that far too many of the goods consumed in the United States are made outside of our borders, but what a lot of people do not recognize is that when we send our dollars overseas we are giving away American jobs; we are throwing away our nation’s prosperity.
The time for Americans to wake up is now. Unemployment is as high as it has been since the Great Depression. The U.S. is running the biggest budget deficits in history. Now there are a lot of reasons for the current economic turmoil our country is experiencing, but the most fundamental is that Americans don’t have access to good jobs, and they don’t have access to good jobs because we don’t make nearly as many things in this country as we used to. Way too much of what we buy comes from outside our borders.
If you think that things can’t get worse, think again. Right now our country is hurting economically, but for the most part Americans still feel safe, and we still have our cherished freedoms intact. But if foreign countries, like China, decide to stop buying up our debt, things could get very bad for us very fast. Inflation would skyrocket, and our ability to maintain our military might and geopolitical strength would be diminished considerably. We don’t want to be in that spot wondering how we got there. Some of us have no intention of sitting around hoping that things will get better. We’re going to do something about it ourselves!
The Solution
The good news is that there is absolutely no reason to think that America’s current condition of sub-par job creation and chronic trade deficits is a permanent one that cannot be reversed. It most certainly can be reversed. But that will only happen when the American consumer demands it by committing to buy goods made in the U.S.A. whenever possible.
This is not a problem that is going to be solved by government. It is going to be solved by millions of individual Americans thinking about how their country will be impacted when they spend their hard-earned dollars. Too many of us have just given up on buying American, but we have to change that.
That means every single one of us has a role to play in this. We can start investing in the future of our country today by trying buying American-made goods whenever look to make a purchase.
Once we start doing that, then we need to talk about it. We need to discuss why we are choosing to buy American with our friends, family, and coworkers. And then, we need to ask people join us in buying American.
A few years ago, many people might not have understood the importance buying American because not all Americans were feeling the squeeze of our country’s enormous trade deficit and the problems that it causes. But today, people get it. They know there are very few good jobs available and lots of people that need work. We see it in our communities every day.
The Role of Buy American Challenge
- Clarify What Buy American Means – Right now it’s very unclear what buy American actually means. Are we talking about buying just American-made goods? What if a particular item you need is simply not made in America? What about if a good is made in America by a foreign-owned company? What about an American-made finished goods with foreign-made parts? It is a complicated question. This blog will simplify and clarify what buy American means so that average Americans can quickly and easily wrap their minds around it. See the guidelines of the Buy American Challenge for more about that.
- Establish Standard and Practical Buy American Rules – As you might imagine, being committed to buying American can be a challenge. The strictest definition of buy American means buying only American-made goods, with all American-made components, produced by American-owned companies. But nobody could stay on a program that strict in this day and age. Are you going to go without a cell phone if none are made in the U.S.A.? Are you going to avoid buying a car because they all have foreign-made computer chips in them? Of course not. But that shouldn’t keep you from trying to buy American whenever it is possible to do so. This blog will establish basic rules about what it means to buy American. This will allow those who choose to buy American whenever possible to be committed to it without feeling they need to deprive themselves of modern necessities. Because the buy American rules are realistic, you can commit to buying American and staying on the Buy American Challenge recommended guidelines without feeling deprivation.
- Teach People How to Buy American – You might want to start buying American right away, but you don’t really know how yet. This blog will teach you how to actually go about buying American so that you will have the skills to start doing it on your own. Some of the skills you will need include knowing how to identify if certain goods are made in the U.S.A. and how to use the internet to locate hard-to-find American-made items.
- Provide Useful Tips and Suggestions – This blog will make practical suggestions about what American-made products can be substituted for consumer goods that are produced outside the United States. It will also make suggestions about the best places to shop for specific American-made items.
- Answer Questions – This blog will be a place for people to go to get questions answered about buying American. It will also be a useful place for people to get advice on where to find certain American-made items.
- Provide a Place to Share Buy American Stories – This blog will be a place where people can go to share their buy American stories and talk about the impact it is having on their lives and communities.
- Discuss News Relating to Unemployment, Job Creation, Trade Deficit, etc. – While we discuss buying American in a practical sense, this blog will also discuss news, trends, and expert opinion relating to the issues that are prompting a buy American revival, primarily the high rate of unemployment, the enormous budget deficit, and the gigantic trade deficit.
- Emphasize the Causal Link Between Buying American Goods and Creating American Jobs – Finally, this blog will highlight certain companies that produce their goods in the U.S. It will also highlight the number of American jobs that these companies would create if more Americans were committed to buying American. Take New Balance running shoes for example. They still make running shoes in the U.S., although not all their shoes are made here. We would like to know how many American jobs would be created at New Balance if 10% of the population was committed to buying American, prompting them to stop buying foreign-made brands and start buying American-made New Balance. This will help people to understand that buying American goods really does mean investing in your country and creating jobs.
Point of Clarification on the Meaning of “Buy American”
This blog is about individual Americans making their own personal choices to buy more American-made goods. This blog has nothing to do with “Buy American” provisions of legislation that can require government-funded projects to use only American-made materials. Although these two concepts sound the same, they are very different. Individual Americans choosing to buy more goods made in the U.S. does not impact our trade policy. It does not require a change in law or any action at all on the part of government. It has to do with the choices that individuals make in their purchasing decisions. We should be able to agree that creating American jobs, supporting American businesses, and closing the trade deficit simply by Americans shifting their purchasing habits would be a good thing for our country. This blog is about encouraging this practice and providing a place where people can discuss it, nothing more.
This Blog is 100% Non-partisan (and really 100% non-partisan)
The great thing about buying American is that it is completely non-partisan. We all want to create more American jobs, we all want our country to prosper, and we all want to leave our country better off for our children. Buying American helps to accomplish all these things. We all stand to benefit from buying American.
The Buy American Challenge Vision
This blog is not going to erase a $500 billion trade deficit that has been growing steadily for four decades, but it might just help a few people who are inclined to want to buy American goods, to actually do it. At the very least, this blog will move forward a discussion about what it means to buy American, how to actually do it, why buying American is a challenge worth taking, and what the implications are if we just give up on buying American altogether. Although the challenge of reversing this trend may seem insurmountable, and pointless to even try, there is plenty of reason to feel optimistic. The American people have solved problems as big as this one in the past. There is no reason to think we can’t solve this one as well. But we better get working on it immediately. Hopefully this blog can play a small part in bringing about the change we need.
Please take the Buy American Challenge today!
Your challenge is one that will be contagious as thousands of communities have been devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs. My community and my family are no exception. At one point I was the only one in all of my extended family who had a full time job. Did you experience this recession personally in your work and community? What has compelled you to lead this challenge?
Rachel,
First, I thank you for saying I am “leading this challenge.” What started out for me as an exciting idea to get folks to challenging themselves and others to buy American has felt more like me staying up late writing posts that no one reads or cares about. It’s very nice to see someone else (outside my immediate family) thinks the idea is a good one.
I started to take buying American seriously, and writing about it, for a number of reasons, but none directly related to me being impacted by the recession. I have been blessed with a good-paying, stable job, thank God; although several of my family members have struggled through the poor economy.
I got serious when I was taking a class on U.S. national security threats, and one of the biggest threats was a dramatic decrease in U.S. world power because of our falling dollar, which is brought on by trade deficits. The whole thing seemed pretty inevitable. Not necessarily in the next decade, but in the next 50 years.
So I thought, dam, there should be more of a push to get people to buy American. That is the one thing that anybody can take ownership of and do to keep the U.S. strong economically, and therefore safe. It’s also extremely important right now because we need American jobs. So I started this up and haven’t looked back.
Thanks again for the post.
Randy
I found you on the Forbes website. Thanks for your support on the subject. We built two small company out of a passion and the catalyst being my fiance loosing his job. We commited to the core value of our furniture company being handcrafted but also 100% Made In America. Our suppliers and raw materials – all American.
Please visit our website in the About Us section. I think you will find that I have so much passion for the impact supporting small businesses can have on our economy. Particularly when the business is commited to being all Made in the USA.
There is such a trickle down affect to making even one purchase from us – and right now we are very small.
Randy:
We forget how powerful our dollar is. Great site.
—Tami
Thanks Tami!
Randy
Very interesting show, I for one am tired of seeing tags clothing saying “Made in Thaiwan”.
David Muir your next challenge is America’s biggest employer, Walmart, walk their aisle’s and see what foreign made? bet you’ll need a big cart.
Next check out Disney World, Disney Land and the Disney Stores?
Now it’s time to take on the big guns.
Hello,
I came across your blog doing research for my own! In an effort to protect my son from potential toxins like lead in the many Made in China toys and baby products, I began searching for American made products. This lead to the idea of my “Made in USA Challenge”. I am trying to find American made goods in everyday mall stores. I am hoping to learn more about the economic, safety, environmental and human rights implications of buying goods from third world countries. I’m hoping to ultimately find a way to help consumers find ways to shop ethically in stores were already frequent, or are easily accessible. I commend you for your challenge and all the work you have done with it! I would love to talk to you more about any resources or advice you have to share as I begin my challenge.
Thanks!
Sarah
madeinusachallenge.com
[…] out Julia’s choices. Randy Erwin of Buy American Challenge figures if the average American household reduced its foreign-made purchases by 25 percent we […]
Randy, cheers for making a stand and encouraging others to do the same. A globalized economy has had some benefits, but has come with some horrible unintended consequences. And globalization is also based on the fantasy of limitless fossil fuels to power the production, import, and export of all these goods. Global production of petroleum peaked in 2005, so in the not so distant future importing will no longer be the least expensive option. It is vital that we turn our focus back to our own domestic growers and manufacturers now, that we change our consumer habits and prepare our domestic and local economies for the times ahead.
Randy, Very impressive! I just discovered your blog. For a long, long time I have been drumming your song up here in Wisconsin. To give you an idea of the extent we have become “stupid” as Americans; (Not dumb but stupified by our complacent attitude towards what we buy). In 1969 when I moved to this town, there was a world-wide boot company (two companies actually) doing great businesses here.
Every single shoe and boot was hand crafted by myself (for two years) and about 100 other employees at the time. Great products!
Since then Chippewa Shoe Company eventually closed but it left Mason Shoe to thrive, sort of…. Today you could go into the retail store here in town and be hard pressed to find even ONE pair of boots or shoes make in this country. Nearly everything comes from China. And here is the real problem…… WE LET IT HAPPEN!! As consumers we simply kept on buying these products as companies slowly and methodically slipped more and more under our noses. Same look, same brand names but made overseas. As the need and greed for profits rose the need for workers to make products here lessened until the Mason Shoe Company closed its doors, fired all the employees and had the entire line made by the Chineese. They simply cut through all the virtues of hometown business and went staight to a retail outlets and walahhhh. Here were sit with all those people out of work while the company has the reputation of it’s history still selling the product as we go along our merry way still buying the same stuff even though it is now crap. Whenever I hear politicians talk about “creating jobs” it makes me sick. Are they all that ignorant to the fact that there are millions of jobs here at home just waiting to be “recreated’. Just think…….. if for just two months, if we could stop buying those Chineese shoes, tee shirts, toys, trinkets, pens and appliances along with the endless list of junk sold at retail stores in the USA. If everything we purchases was from home. The demand would be absolutely incredible. those lucky little American business who DO make those products would instantly run out of stock and need to hire more staff. Other people would see this and start competitive businesses overnight to cash in on the demand. This would cause huge drops in Chineese product sales causing retailers to dump these products at first but if we keep it up and hang in there, they would be forced to stock the shelves with goods made by ourselves… finally, and we would simply get all those jobs back that we let slip away. Manufacturers would also be forced to bring the plants back here for the sheer sake of staying busuness. I really think that we as Americans have the ultimate power to create all the jobs this country could ever need simply by insisting that if there is a way to make it here…. it gets done. So keep up the good work everyone. It really might seem like it is impossible sometimes, I know. But to make a point… our TV sreens are only a picture made up of millions of tiny lights. If each separate light would co-operate with the others for a moment in time… the entire picture would completely change…. and stay that way.
It will take some co-operation to get this country back to work again but its all in our own hand now. Hang in there.
Hi. My name is Suzy Allman, and I’m the founder of a plush toy company called CharlieDog and Friends (www.charliedogandfriends.com). I’ve read this blog with great interest, as a consumer, but also as a manufacturer who’s had a very poor experience with my American contracted factory.
When we first started a year ago, we thought that Made in America is a natural fit for a company whose mission is to help America’s homeless pets. But trying to find a factory willing to work with us proved nearly impossible, so (like virtually every plush toy company) we sent our first orders to China.
But we were inspired by the political conventions during the 2012 elections (yes really) and decided to give “Made in America” another try. The results were disastrous and almost devastating for our company.
The single America-based plush toymaking factory, and the only one willing to make our toys, did such a poor job with our order — bad quality, miserably slow production — that we returned the entire order of plush toys. Customer service was sporadic and inconsistent and sometimes I wondered if there were actually people working in the factory, or if they were in fact sending our order overseas to be made in China. And although we were promised delivery for our customers in time for Christmas, we did receive the toys — on Christmas Eve, at four o’clock in the evening. The day after Christmas I was taping up the entire order to be returned to Phoenix.
Aaaaand so now it’s fair to say we won’t be placing a second order with this company.
We took out an ad on Craigslist for seamstresses, and are having the toys made by hand in homes across Westchester County — a “virtual” factory of our own.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s fair to automatically equate China-made products with “crap”, as the above-poster does. The quality of China-made products can be, and often is, superior to American-made products. Believe me, on that Christmas Eve as I looked at loose threads hanging from poorly-made toys, I would have given anything to have those toys made in China, and delivered months earlier.
My hope is that as demand for American products rises, competition between manufacturers will increase and lead to better service and quality. It has to. I believe strongly in Made in America, but American factories have to do their part, too.
Nobody expects American factories to pay $.50/hour, and maybe they can’t compete with Asia on price (although that gap, too, is closing and I believe some things will actually save you money if they’re made in America).
But we CAN compete, and should, in the area of customer service and quality. There’s no excuse for poorly-made goods. There is just NO excuse for bad customer service and timely delivery of an order.
Anyway, as I write this I’m waiting for the re-delivery of those stuffed dogs I ordered way back in the fall of last year, the Order that Wrecked Christmas. I can’t wait to send them to my customers. :0)
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I’m a U.S. how might I get onboard?
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God Bless AMERICA
This still means Made in America if you don’t like it then leave and take your made in. China with you KP.
Double your prices this will bring people to look at the quality of the means American quality can’t be beaten.
whsl.net all made in USA