By: John Katz, Editor, The American Dossier
According to a Department of Labor report released on Friday job gains were widely spread across the economy, especially in the construction, health-care, retail, and hospitality sectors.
The New Yorker notes that "wages are still rising at an annual rate of more than three percent, while consumer price inflation is falling, because of cheaper energy prices."
In spite of this positive growth we are being warned to proceed with caution. Some prominent economists, such as former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, have even warned about a possible recession.
What is one thing we could do to help ourselves even over speculation of a possible recession?
According to Jim Stuber, the founder of Made In America Again (MIAA), we need to buy American.
I've gotten to know Jim through a monthly Christian men’s breakfast. A little bit about Jim, he has worked in public policy, law and entrepreneurship. In 2017 Jim wrote a book, What if Things Were Made in America Again.
In this book, Jim explains how the U.S. adopted faulty free trade theories, globalization occurred and China entered the global market, taking some $16 trillion and six million jobs out of the U.S. economy as we ran chronic trade in goods deficits.
Jim challenges us to consider the moral implications of our foreign purchases, beginning with the foreign workers, reporting that ”Your smart phone was made in a labor camp, your clothes were made in a sweatshop, and your fish were caught on a slave ship.”
Just as important, closing factories and moving jobs overseas has devastated families and communities across America: Jim questions the morality of “volunteering” ordinary Americans to the projects of low price or curing poverty abroad.
Based on his book, Jim has founded a non-profit organization called Made in America Again. Their mission is to create awareness and build healthy American communities through consumers buying things made in those communities.
His specific goal for MIAA is to bring home $500 billion in consumer spending, enough to balance trade, create six million jobs, take the slack out of the economy and get a virtuous circle going again.
Jim has kindly agreed to share his insights from time to time.
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