Buy Local or Buy Best?

I do not think that any money spent putting food on a families plate or providing a roof over their head is wasted. Even if the goods because of the local economy is a little higher. So yes the general publics interest can be served if products bought are produced locally as long as the products meet specs. As the general public will not have to absorb the cost of these people on welfare.

this is more belong to a political quize.

from view of private, one would like to buy the cheapest commercial products with a good quality. but from view of patroit, one should buy state made products.

Are you a shelfish or patroit?

This is a good question, but any company that does not have to compete for business has no incentive to do better.

Competition helps companies produce better products. At the other extreme you might want to look at some of the commodities produced in the Soviet Union before their collapse. Apart for a few rare things like Stoli vodka, there was little interest in those products in the West.

Of course things are not as simple as that because we have an unlevel playing field world wide. Labor rates are not the same around the world, so countries that have a very low labor rate can under price the local companies abroad that produce the same product. Governments attempt to intervene by attaching tariffs to imports from such nations, but those nations can also retaliate by attaching tariffs on goods sent in to their countries. Striking a balance is very tricky.

All in all it is a two-edge sword.

The company must deliver a product that can compete with the competition.

If buying local means buying less quality than no, if the components are almost equal then yes buy local.

I think in most countries the best quality stuff is exported and the crap stuff sold on the shelf (at the export price). I try and avoid buying local stuff especially clothing items. They are rubbish. I also don't support parallel imported stuff (grey products) or the shops that sell it. It is cheaper for me to import even books from overseas than to buy it local. SA is one rip-off country when it comes to prices.

I'm old enough to remember when "Buy American" meant to buy the best. I also lived through "Made in Japan" as a joke because the quality was so poor for the junk produced. Later "Made in Japan" was the mark of quality. I now find I have lived through "Made in China" as junk stuff, and that is now moving to quality. Quickly. So as our manufacturing capabilities deteriorated from the late 70's through today, we now find, that we cannot find, "made in America" at all. Worse, for far too many products, there are no American manufacturers (American companies but not their facilities) here locally. To rebuild America means to rebuild our manufacturing base. To re-learn what we no longer know how to do. Manufacturing generates wealth. Wealth generates the ability to do things. Like pay off our deficits and rebuild our once great infrastructure. Consider the Roman ruins - great no more.

I use CR4 to educate myself about articles i deal with daily but don't always fully understand. I am a customs broker dealing with imports and exports every day. Here now is a subject I know a little bit about.

Two points I would like to mention about the USA's buy American plan.

1. The plan violates a number of trade agreements the U.S. has with other countries, mainly Canada and Mexico.
2. A trade war will have disasterous effects on the world economy and especially in countries that import heavily in the raw material and/or food and energy sectors.

On a more personal level I would say to the U.S. that if you don't want to buy our (Canadian) steel or other raw materials, maybe you don't want to buy our oil or natural gas either? I hear there are several other countries willing to sell you theirs and even more countries willing to buy ours. See how quickly a trade war starts?

Obama's approach of not erecting populist protectionist barrier and continue to respect international trade agreements is sensible. Populist protectionism would make situation worse. World today is more seamlessly knit global village than ever before. Any protectionism will end in disastrous slippery down slope of tit for tat. Long term efficiency depends on letting people specializing in the things they do best irrespective which part of globe they belong.

It is time to recall an important lesson for great depression history. American Act of 1930, more commonly known as the Smoot-Hawley tariff, that entrenched the protectionism in US tariff provoked a wave of foreign retaliation that plunged the world deeper into the Great Depression. The act did nothing to foster cooperation among nations in either the economic or political realm during a perilous era in international relations. It quickly became a symbol of the "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies of the 1930s. Such policies, which were adopted by many countries during this time, contributed to a drastic contraction of international trade. To this day, the phrase "Smoot-Hawley" remains a watchword for the perils of protectionism

several points of this stand out to me:

The US talks capitalism but this is a global depression if the incentives are not world wide there will be war because the have not's will have nothing to lose and a hope of gain. The issues are everyones the only way buy American makes sense is if American products are the best value.

As for the "incentives" the corrupt the banks have not changed, they just pocketed the first round.

A real incentive would be funding for new production start ups and infrastructure expansion and repair. The US could use a public transportation system and up to date employee owned manufacturing plants. The four trillion already out the door could have been invested into the infrastructure of the US and multiplied in value exponentially. As for now I have yet to see a return on investment for the public, only the privileged.

The time I would pay more for local products is when other's products are dumped on the market by artificially lowering costs by subsidizing exports.

Brad

America's economy was built on the principles of Adam Smith and his book "The Wealth of Nations". In it, he explains that nations get rich by trading with other nations. The UAW rep asked congress "So whats wrong with protectionism anyway?" The short answer is "Protectionism interfears with the trade with other nations, and will ultimately remove wealth from the economy".

During the period of NAFTA, the wealth of all the nations in the northern hemisphere grew dramatically. (citation available upon request) It wasn't NAFTA which caused the economic collapse which we see happening right now, but it "might" be NAFTA which will stop it from getting any worse.