Thursday Thoughts

If I was CEO of either Target or Kmart, or any one of the (few) competitors of Wal-Mart, I would use the current political climate and take my store in a different direction.

Wal-Mart’s ability to give us low prices is based on its size and willingness to use foreign products, which can be manufactured in many second and third world nations for much cheaper than America can make the same product. By leveraging its size and its access to these incredibly inexpensive items, it can force local manufacturers into deals that then force those manufacturers to look at ways to lower their own costs—which usually winds up being downsizing or outsourcing. Either of these choices takes money away from both the American workers (they are out of a job) and the American economy (both through job-loss and trade inequities).

I would do the opposite. As head of Target (say), I would shift my store focus to using as many American company products as possible and trying to especially pursue those items made IN America. Those items that were not made in America, I would clearly label in my stores. I would then change my advertising focus to say, in essence, “Our prices are higher than Wal-Mart’s, but all of our products are made in America. We focus on things made in America by American workers and American companies.”

With the hot-bed issues of patriotism, nationalism, and the fear of outsourcing work offshore to other nations, I think this message would sell. If it does sell, the resulting purchases would help boost the American economy by keeping jobs and money inside the United States.

Unless America can figure out a way to replace the blue-collar jobs it is losing, Americans are looking at even leaner times ahead. As China, in particular, moves into the first-nation status and exerts more power in the global economy, America's economy will get weaker. Any nation or area that can take American jobs and do them cheaper and faster will get increasingly more work from companies looking to compete. The cycle will continue until we are, like many former world-leading nations in Europe, marginalized and forced to enter unions of nations to bolster our economic strength.

Or, we can do everything in our power to bring those nations along at an even faster clip. The faster those nation’s economies expand and grow, the more quickly they reach the same manufacturing costs as are in America and the prices stabilize and competition returns. But I don’t see that happening any time soon!