The first item I selected at the grocery store last night was a bunch of fresh tulips with a banner “Grown in California”.

As I was preparing dinner, I turned on the ABC Nightly News. David Muir reported from the newly renovated Renaissance Hotel at Times Square that Marriott Hotel brands were all switching their guest room towels from imports to “MADE IN AMERICA” – without adding a penny of cost to Marriott hotel operations.

Consumers Drive Job Creation

My tulip purchase helped to make and maintain a job for a Californian. Marriott Hotels’ towel decision has created 150 manufacturing jobs in Georgia.

Those manufacturing jobs will create additional opportunities from cotton farmers to the local diner.

Marriott Hotels’ action is not just good for American workers – it’s classic American marketing. They’ve created a differentiator.

A differentiator is anything that will separate Marriott from the competition– i.e. will cause the consumer to pause — give their offering a second look.

Guests will tell their friends how good they felt wrapping themselves in Made-in-America towels at a Marriott property.

That good feeling — backed up with an effective advertising and free media campaign will garner Marriott brands additional customers this vacation season. http://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/manufacturing/towels-us-marriott-hotels-made-in-usa/

The more effective the strategy is for Marriott, the more quickly their competitors will “catch the wave” of Made in America towels.

Every Presidential Candidate Promises Jobs

According to recent polls, the number one issue in the 2016 Presidential Election is THE ECONOMY.

Every candidate is promising to produce jobs – lots of jobs.

But none of them have explained how they are going to do it.

Maybe we should elect David Muir? Unlike all the leading Presidential candidates, he understands that a dynamic economy is a balance of consumption and production!

The American economy grows, generates real new Gross Domestic Product (GDP) when it creates a demand for American made goods instead of imports. pace at which the economy grows is determined by how fast those dollar bills change hands between producers and consumers within the circle of the US economy.

When consumer goods are imported into the United States rather than manufactured in America, the American economy shrinks because dollars exchange hands between consumers in the United States and producers in other countries.

In Short: Importing consumer goods exports American jobs, wages and consumer dollars.

The Result is a Slowing US Economy

Demand makes economies grow.

In the years after the Second World War Mississippi enjoyed a flourishing textile industry. They grew cotton and turned it into textiles and clothing that we all bought.

In the 1980s and 1990s textile manufacturing jobs in Mississippi began a steady migration to China and other “developing” countries – where wages were lower.

The Congressional Research Service estimates that by 2005 three quarters of the nation’s textile and clothing jobs had been off-shored.

In Mississippi, riverboat gambling became the replacement industry. “Service sector” jobs – waiters, maids, and croupiers – command much lower wages than more highly skilled manufacturing jobs.

Less clothing manufacturing meant less demand for Mississippi cotton. Cotton farmers earn less and employ fewer workers to grow, harvest and gin the cotton.

The result: Fewer jobs, lower paying jobs and reduced profits — a reduction in national consumer demand for “Made-in- Mississippi” — weakened the Mississippi economy.

Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the United States – with more than 20 percent of their population living below the poverty line.

In 2016 – Plug the Job Leak

Stop the bleeding!

Between 1998 and 2013 fully one third of the manufacturing jobs in the United States disappeared. This extraordinary job loss is magnified by the fact that the US population grew by twelve percent in the same period – widening the gap between good paying jobs and available workers.

Some of the job losses are due to innovation and obsolesce but most can be traced directly to the export of American jobs.

The pattern is continuing in 2015.

Nabisco announced that it is sending 600 unionized jobs from Chicago to Mexico to save $46 million dollars in “costs”.

Bring Oreo Cookies Back to Chicago

The sisterhood of American moms and grandmothers can stop this outrage by refusing to buy the product.

The most powerful weapon Americans possess against job loss is purchasing power.

Just like the union workers who are being shelved by Nabisco – all of us can “go on strike” – boycott Oreos made in Mexico!

I want my grandkid’s Oreos baked by a profit-sharing baker in Chicago.

I’ll pay a little more for bedding manufactured by a profit-sharing seamstress in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

It is a mystery to me that Presidential candidates don’t point to the relationship between “buy American” and “growing” American jobs?

Someone get Hillary and Donald a plate of Chicago baked Oreos!