How low should the Average American Income be?

[Igel]

67. Needs are a tough call.

But wants? Want less. Pay for your politics.

I wanted a kitchen appliance a number of years back. I had a choice as to where the one I bought was made. I chose to pay $80 or $90 more to support one country's economy over another. It was a want.


Even food is a "need" consisting of a lot of wants. I like tomatoes. The ones I buy are mostly grown in Mexico. I can either shop around to find US grown ones or do without them. I don't "need" tomatoes. I've tried growing them where I live, and how others manage it I don't know--I find the growing season short and the bug population large.

Having a home-grown manufacturing or agricultural industry is often emergent. A lot of people make small decisions that add up to a large decision. If I find US-made t-shirts and buy them, it goes to that company's bottom line. If their sales increase they may ask customers why they prefer that brand? "US made." It will hurt sales of their competitors, who will ask why sales are down and get the answer, "Not US made." Production will shift. But since most people want a lot of inexpensive stuff made abroad and have consistently voted that way with their $ for more than 40 years, we got what we showed we wanted. We say one thing and do another. The "Buy American" campaigns we used to have failed because US-made was a lower-priority want than getting stuff.

The brand computer I buy (those few times I buy a computer) is as US-sourced and US-assembled as I can find. It's struggling because it's a bit more expensive for what you get. Most of my friends think this is foolish. Then they complain about US manufacturing jobs going overseas where costs are less because they pay workers less. I point out the discrepancy and they say that the US brand is more expensive, why pay more? "Why does US-made cost more?" And the answer is "US companies are greedy." Price for them is apparently unrelated to cost. But if you ask why overseas-made stuff costs less, they'll say it's because costs are lower, not that foreign companies are less greedy. Resolve that bit of double-think and you resolve a lot of the problem--either we buy US-made or we stop complaining about predictable and completely rational outcomes resulting from rational choices.