Today in an article on Fox News, Small Business Center there was a fascinating article titled, “Does Made in the U.S.A. Spell R.I.P?” The article told the tale of an established and profitable, New York City based, wholesale apparel company that saw a growing market of buyers who wanted their garments made right here in the good old United States.
Seeing an opportunity to exit China, where they are currently manufacturing product, they built a solid business plan to set up a factory in New York, give jobs to Americans and help start the U.S. Economic wheels turning once again. Sounds like a winner right? Wrong. Financial institutions, holding tight to their liquidity, aren’t willing to lend them the funds required to get the factory off the ground.
It seems like we are caught in a giant, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” situation. There are no jobs, and small business owners can’t get the cash needed to create them. It is a horrible cycle of production in the United States being down, and not being able to access the tools necessary to build it back up again.
This story is one that is happening to small business owners across the country. Doesn’t it make sense to bring jobs back to U.S. Workers? If our economy hinges on reducing the above 9 percent unemployment rate, then continuing to outsource American jobs overseas, simply stated hurts everyone’s bottom line. Perhaps over the short term it eases costs and increases profits, but over the long haul the damage done to the U.S. Economy will be substantial.
Now, I am all for supporting emerging markets and creating growth and opportunity for people globally, especially those who would otherwise have none. The garment manufacturing industry, while there are definitely horror stories of how people throughout these emerging markets are forced into slave labor. There are also stories of hope, and how manufacturing jobs in emerging countries have helped people to find work, build homes and economies that would have been impossible without the factories presence there.
I firmly believe we can strike a balance here. We are to the point where balancing domestic and global growth is a must. Folks in the United States are in bad shape, building homes and building the economy here has almost come to a screeching halt. While there are tax incentives to producing product in the U.S., perhaps we should be doing more to encourage stateside production and to bring jobs back home.
And, if a company wants set up a factory and manufacture here and hire workers here to work within that factory, why would anyone inhibit that from happening?
