Buying Products Made in the USA

I have to say, I  personally think one of the biggest problems with our economy right now is the lack of products being made in the USA.  I just don't get it.  How can a country survive if we make and sell nothing we make here.  It completely contradicts the whole foundation on what this country was built on, literally.  It's almost impossible to find anything on the shelf anymore that says "Made in the USA."  Do a search and I'm sure you'll find the suppliers are limited.  And how does that affect our economy??  Well I'll tell you.  It cuts out a huge amount of jobs that used to belong to American's just to save a few bucks.  I can name quite a few sell-out brands right of the top of my head of products that used to be exclusively made in the USA and in order to compete, they jumped on the bandwagon and shipped production off to China.  Levi's, Craftsman, Wrangler, and Converse just to name a few.  And yes, these are also a few of the companies that you can still buy a few of their products that are still made in the USA, but the numbers are getting fewer and fewer.  These are brand names that the average American looks at and has pride in.  These are brands that for almost a century helped to build America by providing US jobs along with the supplies it needed to exist.  Now for the first time in decades, you can find "Made in China or Taiwan" stamps on the back of even the most expensive Craftsman hand tools.  Don't even get me started on the power tools.  And it seems to me that the prices has stayed the same or gone up, but the quality and reliability has dropped severely!  And for what??  It just cost 1000's of US jobs of which now have no income to then purchase their overpriced foreign-made merchandise. 

Being in the flooring industry, I'm proud to say that a lot of the manufacturers of flooring are still US companies that provide US made products from US supplies.  Although, I'm seeing more and more products come with that frightening "Made in China" label.  But I would say those are actually the minority.  Flooring is a rare breed, I must say in regards to that.  Manufacturers like Mannington, Armstrong, Congoleum, Mohawk, and Shaw still produce a huge amount of products that are made here in the good ol' US of A.  Mannington pretty much supplies the jobs of an entire town called Salem, NJ.  And Armstrong, the same with Lancaster, PA.  Mohawk and Shaw provide the work for Dalton, GA.  They are what GM, Ford, and Chrysler are to Detroit.  Now with that being said, I'm proud to say that our store does a great job trying not to sell you foreign made products if there are similar products that are made in the US.  There a few other retailers out there, however, (whose name ends in Liquidators), that would prefer to sell you these cheap foreign made products and lead you to believe its high quality goods at a very low price.  For example, I had a customer today bring me a wood flooring product that had a Swedish brand name, had writing in Spanish on the sides, said Made in China on the bottom, and was bought in the USA.  Go figure!  When is the world going to start supporting these US manufacturers that still believe that American's make and sell the best products in the world.  Is it worth saving a buck for an inferior product??  I've started making it a habit to flip over the package of everything I buy.  If there two products on the shelf, one made here and the other made elsewhere, guess which one I'm buying, and even in this economy, I'll usually PAY MORE FOR IT!  DO YOU HEAR THAT BUSINESSES OF THE WORLD????