My friend Dorothy Mahfood sent me a viral email that makes me dare to hope Americans are finally waking up and fighting back.
The message was simple: Buy American.
This is not a new idea; it’s an oldie – but a goodie.
And this time, it calls for specific action during a specific time period.
Here’s what it says, in part:
Why do you need the government to suspend (China’s) trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA!!
Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says ‘Made in China ‘ or ‘PRC’ (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.
Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.
THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that’s a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor…fast!!
Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on May 1st and continue it until June 1st. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8 percent of their American exports.
From the list of people Dorothy had sent the email to, and the long list of those who previously received it, my guess is that a lot of people are hearing about the boycott. I hope everyone takes the trouble to do what the message asks: check to see if something you are about to buy was made in China, and if it was, skip it.
And there was something else I read this morning that made me think Americans might finally be fighting back. Here’s the paragraph that got my attention:
Almost half of Americans in a recent survey said they had cut back spending or canceled vacation plans due to high gas prices, according to the Royal Bank of Canada, which released its latest U.S. Consumer Outlook Index on Thursday. As energy prices have pushed up transportation costs across the board, a fifth of Americans have scaled back plans because of high air fares, RBC said.
I can’t say for sure that consumer cutbacks had anything to do with it, but oil prices were down this week.
The best way to fight price gouging is to do without. It’s as simple as that.
It’s called the free market, and the price gougers have been preaching it for decades.
It’s about time Americans adopted this “free-market” principle to end the abuses of the global corporations and greedy speculators.
