My sister found these among my mom's old things

[BrotherIvan]

37. Thanks for asking

But I promised my partners I wouldn't let my politics mix with our business I shoot my mouth off a lot on here and I would hate for it to affect our company as now people depend upon us for their livelihood. But I do love getting to put into practice what I believe when it comes to living wages and workers being treated well. Happy, talented people make my job a lot easier. I'm not super interested in business per se and sort of fell into it when my industry (film) was union busted by reality television. I have no wish nor the endurance to run a sweatshop or be a greedy miser. I just wouldn't show up for that.

It's just been so eye-opening to see how small companies like ours, you put all of your effort into making a great product because that is what will help your company to grow. We depend on repeat customers to spread the word. And plus, I would not be willing to put so much effort into something I didn't believe in 100%. It makes it so much easier to talk to customers and say we make the finest product you can buy, literally. I don't have to be some used car salesman, I just show the product and it sells itself because we don't cut any corners.

When it's a bigger company, their entire focus is on eking out the most profit, so all their creativity goes toward cutting costs. Very shortly, just as with Made in Japan, goods from China will seem superior because all the factories and fabric mills are moving to Pakistan and Bangladesh. We had one of our major fabric suppliers, who used to sell gorgeous fabric from Korea, change to Pakistan without warning. The quality sunk so low, we could no longer buy from them. It's happening all over, so just wait until you see the next couple of years. It's going to get very bad in our race to acquire more and more junk.

So buying from a small company is not only the right thing to do, you will likely get a far superior product. A small company can't survive if they make crap. And I love putting "Made in the USA" on our labels!