When the buying gets tough, we use these facts as reminders of why we’re doing this:
- As of November 30, 2011, approximately 1,204,102 jobless Americans have lost their unemployment benefits and are now backsliding into poverty.
- Mexican GM workers earn enough to buy a pound of apples in 30 minutes of work, while US GM workers earn as much in 5 minutes.
- According to labor organizations in Hong Kong, up to $365 million is withheld by managers who restrict workers’ pay or don’t pay at all.
- More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S.
- Gross domestic product in China grew at a 9.6% annualized rate in the third quarter of 2010. GDP in the U.S. during that same period was a mere 2.6%.
- An amendment to the bill authorizing military spending for 2011 now requires that all solar equipment purchased by the Department of Defense be manufactured in the United States.
- The huge US trade deficit leads to massive, unsustainable borrowing from other countries. Debt isn’t good for you and it isn’t good for America.
Happy 2011!
To those of you who are wondering, no, we did not forget about our pledge to buy 100% American made products this year. In this blog we’d like to chronicle our first week of shopping.
GROCERIES – We were able to purchase a wide range of grocery items made in America, including bread, cereal, meat, vegetables, and fruits, at Fareway and Hy-Vee. The only item that we were prevented from buying was bananas. We’re currently looking into Hawaiian banana crops.
TOILETRIES – We were able to purchase TRESemmé Moisture Rich shampoo at Fareway grocery store, which proudly features a “Made in America” label.
BEVERAGES – Unfortunately, we were unable to purchase Crown Royal liquor or Canadian LTD, due to the fact that they are both made in Canada.
Last weekend held many events in store for us, one of which was traveling to the local shopping mall to obtain Christmas presents for our loved ones. Drifting in and out of the shops, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of the annual calendar rotunda. Said booth was a collection of several hundred themed calendars complete with entertaining pictures to commemorate each month of the 2011 year.
As our eyes grazed the covers of “Cute Kittens,” “The Mountains of Colorado,” and “Studs in Spurs,” we were suddenly smitten by a calendar heroically named “Americana.”
Mill streams! Horses! People wearing old-timey hats! We were exultant in what was surely our next major purchase – a calendar to celebrate the good ol’ US of A!
Well, that was until we flipped it over.
Epic FAIL.
