Farr West Lingerie

Thanks to the folks over at Style Bistro for a post about 10 lingerie brands that are made in the U.S.A. Great to see Made in USA can be sexy!

According to a recent Reuters report a number of factors are driving more companies away from Asia,  including rising wages, surging fuel prices, and the complexity of transporting goods across the Pacific.

According to Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist at the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI- “What you’re starting to see is the economics shifting more into the United States’ favor regarding sourcing from the United States versus sourcing from a low-cost country.”

One of the biggest reasons why is the subpar economic growth in the United States versus in Asia is helping its manufacturers to close the cost gap on their foreign rivals. China’s inflation rate hit 5.5 percent in May, well ahead of the United States’ 3.6 percent headline rate. With Chinese wages rising at 15 to 20 percent per year, the labor costs of manufacturing in the two countries could pull even by 2015, as we reported a few months ago. Rising oil prices, which drive up the cost of shipping goods by boat or plane, are also eating in to China’s edge.

Automation also helps tilt the balance toward the United States. For example, at Master Lock in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, they can produce 24,000 locks a day with about one-sixth the number of workers needed by the company’s Chinese suppliers and rivals because of better machines and efficiency.

Mark Andol outside of his store

A big shout out to Mark Andol in Elma, New York. If you haven’t heard of Mark, he is the owner of the “Made in America Store,” in upstate New York that has attracted quite a bit of buzz recently.

Mark’s story goes back a few years. You see, his welding company nearly went out of business after losing a major contract to sell steel posts. His company was selling them for $17. China was selling them for $14. From 2007 to 2010, he had to lay off nearly half of his 70-person work force.

His retail store has over 30,000 items for sale.  His team spends about 25 hours on each item making sure that every component, down to the glue in the packaging, is 100 percent American. Keep up the good work Mark and team!

Of course, you didn’t need a million dollar study from BCG to know this. If America were to make the tax structure more advantageous and eliminate healthcare and other costs, we would be far and away the first choice amongst executives. If you added a true valuation for the Yuan, versus the artificial valuation that their policy makers have been trying to maintain for years, the results would be even more dramatic.

Let's hope the famed astronaut ice cream sold at the Smithsonian isn't made in China too!

Not surprisingly, it was learned by an Associated Press reporter this week that most of the cheap trinkets on the shelves of the gift shop of the Smithsonian are made in China…Well, duh, there is a reason why that George Washington bobblehead breaks the minute his head shakes twice.

To help alleviate the problem Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va.  has introduced a bill that would require all items sold in any of the Smithsonian’s 30 stores, located in 19 museums and galleries and its zoo, to be made in the United States. If the Smithsonian were to violate the terms of the legislation, it would lose its federal funding.

According to the Associated Press article, a Smithsonian spokeswoman said the average gift shop visitor buys two items and spends $20. If these items were to be made in America the cost would be about twice as much, making them too costly for most visitors and hurting the museum’s profit margins. Last year, the museum gift shop at the Smithsonian made an astounding $9 Million.

We believe that Representative Rahall is well intentioned but is barking up the wrong tree. We do not want to produce cheap trinkets and tchochkes in America. What we need to do is create the high paying jobs of tomorrow that will keep the country thriving, not jobs producing goods that belong in an episode of NBC’s Outsourced, that pay minimum wage. Keep the plastic Teddy Roosevelt keychain manufacturing in China, and lets create some companies that TR would be truly proud of here at home.

Is something like this in the works from Sams Clan? Many of you have asked this same question to us in the past. We intend to have badges that our users can place on their site up soon.

ABC News Helps the U.S. Air Force Keep the Lights On!

Courtesy of the good folks over at ABC News, as part of their ongoing  ”Made in America” project, we have the following tidbit–

The U.S. Air Force is under orders to buy American-made products for construction projects, but the Air Force was having trouble finding certain goods such as  light bulbs made in America. Sylvania in St. Marys, Pa., is the only place still making light bulbs in the U.S. The company churned out old fashioned incandescent light bulbs for 100 years until the government announced it was phasing them out because they weren’t energy efficient.

Workers feared they’d be out of a job if they didn’t come up with a new idea quickly. Their creation, the Sylvania SuperSaver, is a halogen bulb in the old fashioned shape. The new product not only saves energy, but also jobs. If it was not for the new bulb 700 people might have been out of work…

and our boys serving overseas would be doing some late night reading in the dark!

Polaris now has its crack at reviving Indian Motorcycles

Over the past week, Indian Motorcycles of North Carolina, the latest re-start of the famed brand from the early 20th Century, was purchased by Polaris. This is the same Polaris who is a well known manufacturer of rugged ATVs and Snowmobiles, along with their own brand of touring motorcycles, called “Victory.” Polaris executives have said they hope to re-launch Indian in 18 to 24 months, which includes moving the manufacturing from Kings Mountain, N.C., to Spirit Lake, Iowa. Indian engines will be made at a Polaris plant in Osceola, Wisconsin. That plant was scheduled to close but now will remain open with about 60 jobs. Let’s hope this is the true jump-start that one of our country’s most storied brands needs.