Karla News

Is Anything Made in America Anymore?

In years past imports were exotic, expensive and harder to find in areas of the United States. Now you can walk in to nearly any home in America and the products you find are all from foreign markets. Check your coffee maker and you’ll find it is probably made in China. Products you find in every day life are probably made in China, Korea, and Mexico. The American dream is being realized by many foreigners that have came to the states to live the American dream. The problem now is that many of our businesses are now foreign owned and many companies are outsourcing American jobs overseas for cheaper production. What does that mean for the United States? Outsourcing our work industry effects our unemployment rate. When factories, telemarketing companies and even collection departments are suddenly outsourced to foreign markets those lost jobs directly effect the economy.

In rural areas in the Midwest the young adults finishing high school or college are not staying in their home areas to work and raise families but heading to the cities to seek work. The United States dependency on foreign oil is driving up the prices of gasoline and diesel which in turn effects other markets such as groceries, machinery, and simply eating out at a restaurant. The product costs more to haul so the trucker has to charge more to move freight which the stores than mark up the product and the consumer pays more for the same product. The United States has stored oil and our own oil to harvest but still we rely on foreign oil.

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The United States has a diverse population of multi talented people but instead of developing products here in the states we import products that could be made here in our own country. After speaking with people in Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Evansdale, Iowa I wasn’t surprised to hear that most people felt that to many jobs in America were being outsourced. What did surprise me was the comments made that it was either getting cheaper labor over seas or paying four times higher for the same product. I was given the impression that Americans were considered lazy and didn’t want to work or they felt that wages were to high to support products made in the United States. If more products were made in the United States more people would have jobs, a steady income and communities would thrive with the income that would in return be spent in their own neighborhoods.

Mom and Pop operations have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Huge stores like super Walmart and Target have put the nail in small individual stores because they can’t compete with the mass purchasing by huge chains. Main streets in various towns all over the country have slowly been turned into ghost towns of empty store fronts. Importing has become the death of the American dream.