Made in America

Liberty Tabletop describes itself as “America’s Flatware Company” and is proud that its products are made in the U.S.A.  They’re leading a campaign to encourage citizens to Buy American and have posted a video on their web site.  Following is the text from the video:

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American manufacturing has been an icon for over a century.

Accounting for nearly $6 Trillion dollars and 35% of America’s economy, American manufacturing provides over 12 million jobs, and that doesn’t even include related workforce positions like truck drivers and warehouse employees. In fact providing support services for manufacturing accounts for about one in every six jobs private sector jobs in the US.

Cheap products, imported from overseas, which so many Americans have bought in recent decades have not only cost jobs, and seen millions of overseas workers slave away in horrific conditions on unlivable wages, but are a big factor in the the shipping industry contributing to almost 5% of the whole world’s pollution.

Every time an American citizen buys an imported product, our trade deficit widens. Forbes calls it the ‘destroyer of jobs’. Every year, because we import more than we export, 3% of our economy and wealth is lost overseas. That doesn’t sound like much, but it soon adds up. Over the last 39 years we’ve lost 8 TRILLION dollars. All of that translates into lower wages, lower profits, weaker markets and more unemployment at home when we don’t support American made products.

There’s more than just the money we’ve lost forever, though. The health and safety of foreign workers is much less of a consideration in many developing manufacturing economies. Not only the health and safety of the workers though, your health and safety is put at risk too. We’ve seen radioactive steel and poisonous drywall as well as poisonous flooring imported to the US in recent decades. Our home-grown manufacturers share your values, and obey our laws, and are subject to some of the strictest, and most rigorous rules in the developed world. I know which spoon I’d rather feed my baby with!

Companies like Liberty Tabletop are bringing manufacturing home, and more and more Americans are happy to buy quality products, that support our jobs, the environment, our health and safety, and offer a genuine living wage to employees.

It may sometimes cost a little more to buy American, but when you take into account the huge boost to all of our incomes from a faster-growing economy, the creation of better jobs, and a reduction in the hugely expensive erosion of our environment, it may just be cheaper in the long run, and help America lead the world in living standards once again.

And, at the end of the day, our skillfully manufactured products are something we can all be proud of — and we can go back to the days when you bought something and it lasted a lifetime or longer, like our flatware.