As quickly as Thanksgiving has come up on us, I suppose it should be no shock to find a couple reminders of the holiday season hitting my e-mail box today. It’s even better when they tie in with the manufacturing theme I’ve had of late.
I’m sure I have discussed this a time or two before, but the advocacy group Patriot Voices (the group founded by former Senator and two-time Presidential candidate Rick Santorum) has asked people over the last five years to pledge to buy American for the holiday season. This year they made a different appeal based on the election:
For many years, we have been talking about how supporting the American worker and manufacturing will grow the economy in a way that benefits everyone. We all saw Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by being a champion of these issues.
As we enter the Christmas season, millions of hard-working American families in the manufacturing industry or in communities impacted by that industry are struggling to make ends meet.
Rather than wait for Donald Trump to take office and implement new policies, we are going to do what we have done each Christmas for the past four years – ask you to take the Made In the USA Christmas Challenge below and lift up these workers!
Did you know that a large percentage of our Christmas gift dollars go overseas? For every $1 we spend in the USA on manufacturing, $1.81 will be added to the economy. That is a great deal!
Over the time between my receipt of the e-mail and me writing this piece, they have eclipsed 3,000 people taking the pledge. If you figure each can find $100 worth of American-made items they wouldn’t strive for otherwise, hey, that’s $300,000 more for deserving American companies. (They also stress the idea of patronizing small businesses, particularly this coming Saturday.)
Now it’s unfortunate that an outfit I once blogged for called American Certified is no longer around because this was right up their alley. (Hard to believe that was over two years ago now. A lot has changed since then.) But it just so happened that the group that qualifies for frequent flyer miles from my website, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, came out today with their annual Made in America Gift Guide that features one or more companies from all 50 states, and among them is a company from the Eastern Shore:
Maryland: Carlos Santana, Dave Navarro and Neal Schon are among the artists who have partnered with Paul Reed Smith Guitars, which manufactures high-quality instruments at its factory in Stevensville.
They are popular with the local musicians, too.
Needless to say, Scott Paul (the AAM President, who I frequently quote) added his own thoughts on the project:
We know it isn’t always easy to find American-made items at the mall or the big box stores. But by making sure there are at least a few American-made things on your list, you’ll help create jobs and support American workers.
As he noted this comes out in time for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and the rest of the season.
And speaking of Cyber Monday, I am going to shift gears so abruptly it leaves transmission pieces all over the road. Christmas is roughly the halfway point between baseball seasons and you know I’m jonesing from about September 10 on. (And you would be buying American, even if a percentage of the players come from other nations.)
Interesting to see the Lakewood ticket deal, as these seats will be in what used to be general admission (the old bleachers.)
So as people prepare to shop for their friends and loved ones, just keep these simple things in mind. If you can do it, you may as well buy American. Those people who really believed in what Donald Trump said will certainly tell you that next year your selection of American products will be “yuuuge.”