Buy products made in the country if you want to help your community and neighbors...

Interesting information from ABC News shows and its recent series about "Made in America"...

• In the 1960s, nine out of 10 products in America were made here. Now 50 percent of products sold in America come from foreign countries.
• If every American spent $64 more per year for U.S. products specifically, 200,000 jobs could be created.
• The number of Americans working in manufacturing is at a 70-year low.
• There were 55,000 U.S. factories that closed during the Bush years. Jobs gone, tax-base also gone.
• In some Chinese factories, workers make $14 per day.
• Leo Gerard, president of the U.S. Steelworkers Union, noted that low-priced goods meant poison in children's toys, lead in steel, and other conditions that actually lead to high costs in other ways.
• There is only one lightbulb brand now made in America and its major obstacle is getting on the shelves of places like Wal-Mart.
• There is no American factory that makes wind turbines from start to finish. (My comment: That could be a great opening for a factory in a place like Medicine Bow, Wyo., which should also seek out an inventor of the prototype of a portable wind turbine/solar energy unit for rooftops, back-door steps and in "energy" gardens that hooks to portable heating and air conditioning units for individual homes, and manufacture those, too.)
• After 25 years of record trade deficits, America went from the top producer to the top creditor nation.
• The ABC News segment, with Diane Sawyer and David Muir, went to an average American family's home to find out how much within their home was actually American-made. After checking the entire livingroom, all that was left that was made in America was one flower vase (and the kitchen sink in the kitchen). Then the news show went about redecorating the house with American-made products only, finding just as many good bargains nationally. The new bedroom set cost was $1,699 as compared to the previous bedroom set cost of foreign-made products at $1,758.
• Senator John McCain was on ABC This Week on Sunday, still touting the unfair and unequal idea of "free trade." There is no such thing as equal free trade, because wages, product safety and standards, work conditions, economy are all different depending upon where a person lives and works. It comes down to where a consumer wants to invest or send their money. Some might want to help workers in foreign countries as a response of generosity and humanitarianism in hopes of lifting up the workers there. But if a person wants their own local and national economy to be good and sound, with fair wages to workers, the best way is to buy locally.