3/15/2012 1:42 PM
Edited Date/Time: 4/21/2016 10:21 AM
A strong area with lots of depth would be the manufacturing of bikes and how certain companies approach it. Domestic companies keeping things inhouse, which creates living-wage manufacturing jobs (Intense, Ventana, Foes, Ellsworth, etc.) vs companies that outsource manufacturing overseas. Bikes made offshore can be just as good or even better than domestic ones, but you need to think about where the money goes. The only jobs created here are sales, marketing and a handful of design/engineering positions. All the skilled labor jobs that don't require a 4-year degree go to Taiwan. Wage taxes are collected and spent where the worker lives, not where the company is owned. Your dollar is not fully reinvested in the community when you buy an outsourced bike. It in fact goes to another country which already owns a huge amount of our national debt anyway.
The big question: are we willing to pay a little more up front so that we can provide living-wage jobs and encourage entrepreneurs to invest in the manufacturing sector again? Our country has been sold out from under us to squeeze just a few more percentage points of profit margin. If we all agree to support domestically produced products, everyone wins in the end. More people working means more taxes collected AND more people spending their wages. How there aren't regulations to reward domestic production is mind blowing. We need things, things have to be made, people need jobs, doesn't seem to effing complicated. I'm not a genius and this isn't rocket surgery, the powers that be just need to realize that if they're willing to except a 5-10% cut in initial margin, then eventually everything will be more prosperous, because there will be more potential consumers with more disposable income.