A Popular and Growing Trend

During the age of globalization and seemingly never-ending global growth, politicians, policymakers, and others believed that ever-expanding cooperation, ever-larger alliances, and the ever-increasing flow of goods and services across borders were not only good things, but would continue largely unabated.

However, in the wake of the financial crisis and the disappointing economic conditions that have been seen in various regions, economies, and industries, attitudes have begun to shift. Instead of thinking about the greater good, people are focusing on how they can maintain or boost their share of what they they see as a fixed or shrinking pie.

In the U.S. and elsewhere, such perspectives have spawned efforts that essentially favor (and protect) the interests of those on the inside at the expense of those on the outside. The following reports highlight two aspects of what I expect to be a popular and growing trend:

1. At the national level

“‘Buy American’ Gets New Emphasis” (USA Today)

Roger Simmermaker walks the walk when it comes to buying U.S.-made products, and that walk often is made in New Balance shoes.

New Balance is one of the few American manufacturers of athletic shoes, so it only makes sense that Simmermaker, 46, author of “How Americans Can Buy American,” wears that brand.

With Monday being Labor Day, a U.S. unemployment rate of 9.1% and a creeping dread about the economy, Simmermaker is part of a renewed movement to persuade American consumers to buy products made in the U.S. to advance economic growth and keep people working.

For too long, movement leaders say, consumers have ignored where products are made and simply chased what they believe is the most inexpensive price — ultimately enriching countries like China and keeping workers there employed.

“It’s important to understand that workers in China don’t pay taxes to America,” Simmermaker said “Only American workers do. And American companies typically pay twice as much in taxes to the U.S. Treasury compared with foreign-owned companies.”

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Renewed emphasis on Made in the U.S.

ABC’s Good Morning America’s anchor, Diane Sawyer, began a “Made in America” pledge this year, saying if every American spent an extra $3.33 on U.S.-made goods, it would create almost 10,000 new jobs in the country. She urged viewers to pledge to buy American and asked individuals to inventory their home to see what percentage of the goods were made in the U.S.

Sawyer’s campaign brought even more attention to Simmermaker’s and others’ efforts to publicize the importance purchasing American-made goods. Simmermaker and other Buy American advocates started getting more inquiries.

Some of those came to Julie Reiser, who along with her husband, Adam, founded the Delray Beach, Fla., company, Made in the USA Certified. The company certifies “Made in the USA” claims that materials and manufacturing are domestic.

Reiser said the poor economy has led many Americans, including herself, to question mass consumerism and why we as a nation have collected so much stuff over the decades. The next question is why so much of that stuff is made in China and other foreign countries.

“Buying something that is made in the USA is something to be proud of,” said Reiser. “It always makes the consumer feel good, that they’re helping out the economy by keeping the money at home and helping protect jobs here.”

2. At the local level

“The Optimistic Futurist: Local Gifts Card Boost Economy, Jobs” (Salisbury Post)

With the economy in the dump, and faith in national decisionmakers at an all-time low, is it time to take local action to create jobs and protect local employers — can a community do well, by doing good?

Some communities think they can, and are proving it. In these communities, the entrepreneurs and local small business people, in partnership with a small local or regional bank or credit union have created “Local Gift Cards.” These cards are branded to be used to buy goods and services from locally owned businesses only — not the big box stores and other business that ship money out of the community.

In Dane County, Wisc., a group of local business people started the Dane County Buy Local gift card program. They got a group of locally owned businesses to agree to both sell and accept the cards, and got the local bank to create and process them. The cards are basically just like any other debit card — but they have a “Buy Local Dane County” logo. It took only two months from agreement on the plan until it was possible to have the cards in the hands of customers.

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In Chattanooga, Tenn., the Buy It Downtown program started in 2007 by Buy it Local, LLC, in cooperation with the local downtown partnership. A group of 16 businesses agreed to participate by selling and redeeming the Buy It Downtown cards. Now the local gift card has more than 90 participating merchants and has created a multimillion dollar impact on the local economy, directing hundreds of thousands of dollars each to individual merchants. In its first year, the cards facilitated more than $100,000 in business to local business but then has experienced double- and triple-digit growth, even throughout the economic recession. Business owners realized that the customers often used the cards to pay for only a portion of a purchase, resulting in leveraging an additional 40 percent in business beyond the face value of the card to the local business, plus the impact on the community resulting from recycling the dollars locally. Since its initial card program development, Buy it Local has created Buy it*Cards, a program and system it provides to other local areas to create their own local gift card program and track the results, as well on its unique web-based system.

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This kind of program has a significant impact on the local economy because each dollar that stays in a local community and is spent locally keeps changing hands in a way that raises the economy of that community. The landscape company buys a new mower from a locally owned company; the mower seller buys printing from the locally owned printing shop; that person buys locally grown flowers for his wife from the local florist — and they all have a bit more to put into the church collection basket, or to hire their unemployed neighbor.