Made in America! Sort of... well...

Hey everyone!

Just saw this ad put out by the Clinton campaign featuring the New England Shirt Company.

You can watch it here, but the pertinent portion is below.

"Donald Trump’s brand of shirts come from China, his suits from Mexico, his coats from India. Trump’s products have been made in 12 other countries because he says there’s no place in America that he can make them.

Well, there is. You know, Donald Trump says he’ll make America great again while he’s taking the shirts right off our backs.”

Before going on, let me say that it's great that New England Shirt Company was able to bring some manufacturing back to Fall River, Massachusetts, and that, as of this writing, approximately 70 people have jobs.

But before playing the "100% Made in America" card, maybe they shouldn't advertise the imported fabrics used on their website, or show the use of Brother brand sewing machines. For those wondering, Brother is a Japanese company whose sewing machines are produced in China. Oh, the irony! 

Now let's take a closer look the "Made in America" shirts. A Bing search for New England Shirt Company gave me this in the advertisement section:

That's one-hundred fifty dollars. Per shirt. Going to their website (as of this writing) does show one shirt on sale for the deep-discount price of eighty dollars. The average person either cannot afford, or is unwilling to pay, this much for a shirt. I'm above average, and I won't pay that much for a shirt.

Comparatively, going to Trump's web site gives links of the Donald J. Trump Collection to Amazon.

Huh. Nothing in a shirt over seventy dollars.

Just for a lark (or because I was bored), I took a look at my own clothing. Here is a rundown of the different countries I found:

• Bangladesh
• China
• Honduras
• Indonesia
• Korea
• Lesotho
• Mexico
• Viet Nam
• and one (count 'em, one) shirt made in U.S.A. But made with imported materials.

Maybe the true context should be "Trump’s products have been made in 12 other countries because he says there’s no place in America that he can make them competitively." After all, the entire purpose of a business is to make money, and a great way to make money is to have market share at a competitive price. How much of a market share do you think would be gained at one-hundred fifty dollars?

But let's face it. Globalization of manufacturing is here. The trend has been that way since the 90's, and as sad as we may think it is, it isn't going to go away.

So instead of spending our time worrying over where our shirts are made, let's be good stewards of our resources, and get the best ones we can afford. See you at JCPenney's!