Big business says, "workers should learn to live on less." Americans say, "quit outsourcing our jobs." An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that most our us who work for a living want to see jobs come back here. A recent Center for American Progress article highlights those feelings.
While the AFL-CIO is right that we want to buy things Made in America, we often work against our own best interests. Three quarters of our economic activity every year is generated by consumers. Fat cats might control 85% of the wealth, but our huge numbers and the ability of the 99% to turn money over many times a year (velocity) makes our spending much more important.
That means you and I must take responsibility for how we spend our money. Stop shopping at retailers like Walmart that import cheap mechandice from overseas. These same retailers use their buying power to force manufactures to exploit their workers. Shop at responsible retailers.
Buy less stuff and pay attention to where it is made. BUY UNION, BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN. Not only will you be protecting your job and those of your neighbors, you'll have less cheap crap cluttering up your basement and garage. No need for garage sales every couple years. Most importantly, you will be doing your part for our economy. A great source of information about responsible shopping is the Label Letter, published by the AFL-CIO Union Label & Service Trades Department.
State and local taxes, like consumer income, gets pumped back into economy almost as fast as it is taken in. We need to tell our elected officials the same message. BUY UNION, BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN. They will listen, if we tell them it is a priority. Lobby your elected offcials. Hold their feet to the fire when they propose contract bidding standards; forcing them to make how they spend our taxes as important as how much much they spend.
How you spend your money matters and how your tax dollars are spend matters too. The jobs you save may be your own.
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