New Balance shoes is the LAST and ONLY US shoe manufacturer. They provide jobs to Americans. Their plants support local economies. All the other shoe manufacturers have picked up and gone to China or Vietnam to increase profits for the executives. An inspiring story on New Balance's commitment to the US (on Dan Rather reports, here is an older story: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-07-28/business/35267547_1_new-balance-free-trade-agreement-footwear )
The trade deficit is killing our country and the excuse is "it will create more jobs." Per the Alliance for American Manufacturing "Our surging
trade deficit with China is one of the key obstacles on the path to a true jobs
recovery for American workers...Yet no one in Washington is likely to even notice the fact that the July trade deficit
with China was an all-time record." The trade deficit with China (over 30 billion) is costing American jobs and creating a new Chinese "middle class" in which the Chinese government protects its own industries. It's like true love- it has to be a two way street or it does not exist. The US fails to acknowledge that China does not play by the same rules. They trade to create their own markets insisting that US companies partner with Chinese companies in order to trade, all with an eye towards eventually cutting off the US connection once they learn how to make the product themselves. Best explained by an industry quote:
"The United States where free-market advocates deride the role of government, the Chinese state has played a central role in creating, supporting and expanding businesses here. In addition to privatization, cheap government loans and massive government-funded infrastructure projects drove China’s boom. The Chinese government also required foreign companies to create joint ventures with Chinese firms that, fairly or unfairly, allowed local companies to learn valuable manufacturing and business practices."
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2011/11/03/will-made-in-america-sell-in-china/
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with an emerging Chinese middle class but that is a benefit for the Chinese. So very little of their "middle class" prosperity crosses back over in the trade divide. We need to focus on reinvigorating our American middle class and creating jobs. The key is studying history as opposed to being naive optimists with a culture that does not share our same values of fair play and equal opportunity. The facts are since the Reagan era push for free trade we have created a growing and widening trade deficit and lost countless industries and jobs as they moved overseas. We have lost the skillset and knowledge those industries carried, most importantly we have lost a demographic of job production of which our country took pride. Profits to Wall Street executives do not stimulate the economy or provide opportunity in the same large scale way like Main Street healthy local economies & communities do. The key to this whole debate is that with every new trade agreement push (currently TPP), analysts cite projected job growth but never report back on the grim realities of the trade agreements preceding (Congress should be required to get a history lesson on the previous trade agreements passed before voting on new ones).
It is time to stop this downward spiral and focus on our own economy.
Take a stand. Buy New Balance and let's invest in those who invest in our own country. Mimi Coffey
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