Thread: Is it even possible to support "locally produced" these days?

I think that globalizatiion is just unavoidable. I read that the increase of productivity in US has been coming not as much from increased efficiency but from outsourcing production, effectively reducing the amount of US labour that is involved, basically just a strange formula.
Of course, when you're buying from american company you are supporting an american company no matter where their production is. AFIK they pay taxes on their profits to the US government and if they are publicly traded their stock is owned by US entities, so presumably it's good for US.
Plus supporting China is also good for US since that's where US borrows money from (actually depending on your politics and short or long term views you may consider it a bad thing).

But yeah, the world is changing no matter what and what you support as a consumer is not so simple.
Personally I'd rather support depending on the way of conducting business and not so much what nationals are involved in it. If a chinese, or mexican person can do a given job better than an american I'd rather he be rewarded for it.
The same way as I choose my friends based on their character not based on say their nationality, political views, or religion.

As far as food goes there is a lot of farmland just outside the bay area. If you are willing to take a drive and are not to shy you can likely find fresh milk, eggs, veggies and fruit directly from the farmer.

Sounds like you need to take a trip either up north of the Bay or down south. You can get good wines from either Sonoma County or on the Central Coast. How's that for locally made? The best wines on Earth?

If you want industry, you'll have to move inland a bit...The Bay area of CA is too restrictive and expensive to promote industry. Fresno and Los Angeles seems to be two areas that promote industry in CA.

Always been a fan of CA-wines, so I'm happy to be close. In the local shops I can buy a fair bit of CA-grown stuff, and for the fruits and veggies there's a nice farmer's market close by.

But for the outsourced production: It's all well and good that somebody in the US is the major stock owner. That'll mean there's enough money coming in there with a few admins and accountants and lawyers happy to do the work, but I'd have thought that a flagship (or at least, what I perceive to be, I can be wrong there) product marketed with a rich American heritage is produced in the US. It doesn't just keep the money coming in on the top of the pyramid, but keeps a few blue collar guys & gals in a job.

I can understand that the American autmotive industry dug its own grave, with rising labour costs and other regions catching up left and right. It would be nice if the American workers can be competitive when it comes to productivity. The decline of production of goods is, in my view, an issue for economic health.

edit: Globalization is also a daily reality. I'm in a project working with some guys here in California, India, China and the UK.

Originally Posted by Hillie

The decline of production of goods is, in my view, an issue for economic health.

I don't think it's that simple. Who do you think wields more economic power - the 30,000 employees of Goldman-Sachs, or the 100,000 employees of General Motors? Blue collar jobs are fine, but given the opportunity I bet the most blue collar workers would rather have a white collar job instead. I tend to be pretty cynical, but I'd say the only 'blue collar' jobs that are important for economic health are the military (I know they're not thought of that way, but on socioeconomic scale they seem to fit that category better).

What it comes to food i'm with JMS here. Local food is still easily available.
Everything else is more complicated. We can't stop globalization, but i will at least try to avoid products that are made in far East. I would rather see jobs staying in EU and USA than us becoming only market area for third world factories.

Not that i had reason to complain of goods made in India, China or Pakistan. I think they have skills and technology to produce stuff of high quality as well but why should they bother? They produce low quality junk products as long as we are willing to buy it.

Yes when it comes to foodstuffs it's easy to buy U.S grown. Most areas have farmers markets or farms not that far off. Of course alot of produce this time of the year comes from South America.

As far as durable items (that's joke) I'm not sure what's still made in the U.S anymore. I know there are some specialty items made here, some textile and clothing and other boutique and high end things. Jewelry can still be found and regional stuff like American Indian made Jewelry and carpets can be found though there are counterfeits.

Originally Posted by gugi

I don't think it's that simple. Who do you think wields more economic power - the 30,000 employees of Goldman-Sachs, or the 100,000 employees of General Motors? Blue collar jobs are fine, but given the opportunity I bet the most blue collar workers would rather have a white collar job instead. I tend to be pretty cynical, but I'd say the only 'blue collar' jobs that are important for economic health are the military (I know they're not thought of that way, but on socioeconomic scale they seem to fit that category better).

So what you're saying is that it's OK if the entire blue collar workforce transitions from a taxpaying to a taxreceiving group by becoming military? I hope I misunderstood you. It's a little like a communist scenario: Either you get all the perks because you're a higher level party-member, or you'll take shit from some government commander.

I think there should be a healthy blue collar group in some form of production as well as farming and in a bigger scale a healthy form of both import and export. The blue collar group of course contributes to the latter.

The total picture is not very black & white, but more many shades of grey.

Originally Posted by Sailor

Not that i had reason to complain of goods made in India, China or Pakistan. I think they have skills and technology to produce stuff of high quality as well but why should they bother? They produce low quality junk products as long as we are willing to buy it.

No, they produce the quality that's requested. Going back to my toaster: I can pick up something that costs only a few dollars and comes from China, but its quality will be much lower than the Kitchenaid one I picked up earlier this week, which comes from China as well, but is nicely built.

I am actually pleasantly surprised that many Nokia phones are built in Finland, which of course is not a cheap country for labour.







Bruce, I don't care so much about buying local for the sake of buying local. In your neck of the woods, there's nothing but snow cones in the white and yellow variants these days, so of course you'll get food brought in from all over the place. But I would prefer supporting a local source (and not just neighbourhood, even supporting a MI car plant from CA is more local to me than buying something produced in Asia) over something far away.

Originally Posted by Hillie

So what you're saying is that it's OK if the entire blue collar workforce transitions from a taxpaying to a taxreceiving group by becoming military? I hope I misunderstood you.

No, I'm saying that an economy in which the vast majority of the workforce is white collar and the blue collar jobs are outsourced seems pretty viable too. As long as you keep the nationalistic envy in check with an army (analogous to police enforcing the laws within national borders).

A couple of centuries ago the way to improvement was outsourcing the supply of raw materials and trading up for an industrial job. May be the analogue in our time is outsourcing the industry.

My great grandparents worked their land that was it. My grandparents had low skill jobs that paid money (my grandfather was a mason, my grandmother paved roads). My parents and their friends had jobs in industry. My and my friends' jobs are almost entirely removed from production of anything material. A lot of changes over about 100 years.

The thing is that hoeing the land once used to be a good job. Then assembling cars used to be a good job. Nowadays being an engineer is a good job. These things just don't stay static, so supporting today something that is based on a model that worked 30 years ago may not be the best.

In any case this is just an attempt to look at it rationally. I am perfectly aware that in reality irrational factors very often trump rational ones, but it's not a bad idea to understand the driving forces.