he answer to this question should be simple, YES, YES, YES!!!!!!
I recently saw Chrysler’s new advertisement for the 2011 Jeep and it inspired me.
“The Jeep Grand Cherokee advertising campaign is reminiscent of a time when America was known for its craftsmanship and a sense 
of personal pride in creating a quality product,” says Oliver Francois, Lead Marketing Executive at Chrysler Group LLC.
The new tag line is “The things we make, make us,” with a focus on pride in U.S. manufacturing and engineering.
I know that this topic may not seem typical for a construction company news letter, although our industry is definitely an industry of making things. But I felt compelled to encourage everyone to think about how we (as a country) can recapture our nation’s place as being leaders of innovation and manufacturing.
Warren Buffet is quoted as saying “The U.S. trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal budget or consumer debt and could lead to domestic turmoil.” If our industrial sector is weak, then we have very little national security.
As a country we need to look at all possibilities to increase our manufacturing – such as:
- For US companies that choose to ship production (jobs) oversees, perhaps an import tariff on everything they bring back into this country would be appropriate.
- Consumers need to buy less foreign products. In the beginning this might be challenging due to a lack of US made products, but in time could improve. To sell more American products we need a coordinated plan to promote the “buy American” ethic and increase our “national sense of community.” The loudest cry will be that US products cost too much, but we must stop and ask ourselves how much we are, as a nation, paying for all those lost jobs due to our buying less expensive foreign products.
- Breakdown foreign governments trade barriers or match those barriers buying suspending imports from those countries that do not enter into an equal trade practice with the U.S.
The United States of America is a great country, and I am proud and honored to be a citizen. Our country’s troubles did not occur overnight nor will our troubles disappear quickly or without effort. Generations before us persevered through many tough times to make life better for us, and it is now our generations’ time to persevere and forge a path of hope and prosperity for the future.
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Have You Heard...?
The Empire State Building in New York City consists of over 10 million bricks, and it takes an average person twenty minutes to walk the entire circumference of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
Construction seems to be one way for a civilization to speak to future generations, and most well built construction sites last for hundreds of years – just think of the buildings and bridges that people will find from our culture thousands of years from now.
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Cartoon of the Month
