Why we have to buy our own products

Sava Matavich wrote on Nov. 13 a suggestion for helping our economy. "I want people buying plasma TVs, the newest cell phones..." That is a promising thought, but in those specific examples it does not help us because the money for those items goes straight to South Korea, China or Japan.

Some financial analyst said a "bright spot" in economic news was that Wal-Mart sales were up. No, that's not good news; that just means more of our hard-earned money was sent overseas.

A key place wealth is created is in the 'value added' phase of manufacturing. Countries do not get rich just selling stuff that other countries made. Just because the car salesman or the Best Buy associate makes a profit on your purchase doesn't mean that's good for our economy. The vast, vast bulk of the real wealth created when that car, TV set, sofa, or whatever was manufactured, goes to South Korea, Japan or whatever the country of origin is (you might be surprised by how much furniture is made in China - have a look at the tag under your sofa).

In the short term, one thing we as consumers can do is to make an effort to buy American made products. This country's wealth was built on decades of manufacturing - we produced steel, cars, TV sets, and even mousetraps. What do we produce now?

The long-term thing we need to do is start producing in America and buying what we produce instead of borrowing money we don't have to buy from China. GM recently has cut it's pay for a typical auto-assembler from $28 to $14. That sounded harsh a few years ago, but I'll bet there are plenty of very skilled workers now who'll take the $14. We have a shot competing at $14. It's going to take a long time to build ourselves back up, but we can do it because we have to.

Jim Horton

Naperville