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One thing you can do to help bring back American jobs is look for goods made in America when you shop. People are tired of going into stores and seeing nothing but stuff from China! This holiday season your family, relatives and friends will appreciate it even more when you give an American-made gift.

Here are some resources and American-made gift ideas:

See all kinds of American-made products at USAb2C.com. From their website:

America’s largest Internet Mall for American Made Products including American Made Toys, Tools, Shirts, Clothes, Baby, Shoes, Slippers, Towels, American Made Jeans, Boots, Bikinis, Electronics, Clocks, Bird Feeders, Furniture, Books, China, Backpacks, Socks, Dolls, Hats, Apparel, Tablecloths, Blankets, Pet

Products Made In The USA – America

Over 6,000 American Made Products!!

New Balance: “New Balance is the only athletic shoe company that continues to prove high-quality athletic footwear can be produced competitively in the United States. We are committed to American workers. More than 80% of these shoes are assembled in the U.S., helping New Balance to employ over 1,200 U.S. manufacturing workers.”

Loggerhead Apparel: “Loggerhead Apparel will provide top-quality, American-grown, South Carolina-made clothing at a fair price. Ten percent of the revenue gained from the sale of all Loggerhead Apparel shirts will be donated directly to local causes supporting the conservation and protection of the Loggerhead.

In addition to supporting the Loggerhead, Loggerhead Apparel will also support the local textile industry, because no part of the production process will take place outside of the United States.”

Diamond Gusset Jeans: “Genuine. Original. Always 100% American made. Diamond Gusset Jeans. Celebrating our 25th year.” See Looking For America.

Step2 Toys: “The Step2® Company, LLC, headquartered in Streetsboro, Ohio, is the largest American manufacturer of preschool and toddler toys and the world’s largest rotational molder of plastics.” See their Creative Play Plus blog.

Okabashi Shoes: “At Okabashi we believe that technology and design can be utilized to deliver a great product to the consumer at a great value, without shifting U.S. jobs overseas. Okabashis are proudly made in the United States in Buford, GA and shipped worldwide from there.”

American-made iPhone accessories from Insanely Great: “Based in Menlo Park, California, Insanely Great Products, Inc. was created to design and build great products in America.” There’s more, here is a bit, and go read the rest:

We believe that a mistake has been made the last few decades in outsourcing too reflexively when many parts and complete products also can be made locally in the United States. It has become conventional wisdom to outsource just about every manufactured part, with the idea of U.S. manufacturing somehow viewed as practically quaint, a part of our legacy, rather than our future as a country. As happens with so many trends, we believe this one has overshot the mark, and we plan to develop an infrastructure of small, agile, distributed manufacturing units, able to rapidly meet changing demands and provide mass customization that makes at least a beginning step in starting a new trend.

Small, intelligent and agile manufacturing in America just might be what it takes to create a new source of employment to begin to reverse the outflow of manufacturing jobs.

John Briggs blogs on Made in America topics and U.S. companies at simplyamericandotnet — “Putting our Extended American Family Back to Work”

Note: I flat-out stole a lot of this info from the manufacturethis blog. I feel no shame for it.

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Johnson also is a fellow at the Commonweal Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Renewal of the California Dream.

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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project.

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Follow Dave Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcjohnson

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) recently attended the High Point Market in High Point, NC. Held twice a year, High Point Market is the largest home furnishings industry trade show in the world, attracting over 80,000 buyers and interior design professionals from around the globe.
This year, for the first time ever, the market included a 16,000 square foot Made in America Pavilion which showcased 30 companies that manufacture their products exclusively in the USA.

Excellent debate on CNBC featuring the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s Scott Paul about the currency manipulation bill.

America is being played.

The U.S. allowed China to join the club of trading partners in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 under the condition that China observe club rules.

Over the past decade, however, China has profited immeasurably by ignoring, flouting and circumventing the rules barring market-distorting practices. Among the most destructive of these violations is China’s deliberate undervaluing of its currency, which makes Chinese exports to the United States artificially cheap and U.S. exports to China artificially expensive.

This nurtures Chinese industry and poisons American manufacturing.

In the trade contest with China, the referees have been absent or silent or completely craven on the issue of currency undervaluation, even as it kills U.S. factories and jobs. American workers need a trade rule enforcer. With unemployment above 9 percent, the situation is desperate. American workers can’t be played anymore.

Just last week, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a non-partisan think tank, issued a report showing that the trade deficit with China cost the United States 2.8 million jobs since the WTO allowed China into the trading club. Every congressional district in the U.S. lost jobs as Chinese exports to the United States overwhelmed U.S. exports to China. (more…)

Last Thursday, President Obama suggested that voters give Congress an earful on the horrible state of the economy. He was right to do that. There is plenty that Congress can do to spur private sector job creation that would not swell our federal budget deficit.

Taken together, these steps would provide a significant boost to the productive sector of the American economy. Creating one manufacturing job will support four or five other jobs in the economy, which is why it makes sense to adopt a coordinated manufacturing policy which would include the following steps:

• Establish a national infrastructure bank to leverage capital for large-scale transportation and energy projects.

• Reshape the tax code in a revenue neutral way to provide incentives for job creation and inward investment. (more…)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Zachary Karabell’s June 9 article, “How Can Americans Get China to Do What They Want? For Starters, Shut Up,” promotes a dangerous approach that allows China to freely continue its mercantilist economic policies without even the threat of repercussions. It amounts to nothing less than appeasement and the continued loss of American jobs.

Mr. Karabell will have to forgive me for not shutting up. When a single country accounts for over 70 percent of our annual trade deficit in non-oil goods and they do it by illegally subsidizing industry, dumping at below market prices, and devaluing their currency to artificially make their exports cheaper and ours more expensive, I fail to see the logic in sitting idly by while our economy is decimated and China reaps the benefits.

(MORE: The End of Cheap Labor in China)

History tells us that China only reacts with meaningful reforms when we demonstrate our willingness to correct market distortions. Faced with a similar situation in 2005, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted 67-33 to penalize China for its currency manipulation. Within weeks, China began what turned out to be a 21 percent appreciation of the yuan until it resumed its peg to the dollar in 2008.

(more…)

In a special July 4 guest column, Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing says one way we can all show our patriotism and boost the economy is to do our best to buy American-made products.

Enjoy the fireworks today and thank our Founding Fathers for the freedom we enjoy. While you are at it, thank them for making manufacturing a central part of the American idea.

Paul Revere was a patriot; he was also a manufacturer. In fact, the company bearing his name still operates today, now in upstate New York. Alexander Hamilton is well known as our nation’s first Treasury secretary, but few Americans know that he also wrote our nation’s first manufacturing policy in 1791. (more…)

Efforts by those who never want to hear someone say, “Bye-bye American manufacturing,” converged coincidentally to make June Buy American month.

First, at the forceful urging of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Smithsonian on June 8 opened an all-American-made gift shop in the National Museum of American History. Three days later, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio introduced legislation requiring federal agencies to buy only 100 percent American-made flags.

Then, at the Netroots Nation 2011 conference in Minneapolis, Minn. this week, the AFL-CIO will serve American union-made beer, including Schell’s, brewed in Minnesota by members of my union, the United Steelworkers (USW). The Alliance for American Manufacturing will host at Netroots an American-made fashion show at which it will serve USW-member made Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain bars.  And the BlueGreen Alliance is distributing to Netroots attendees mercury-free, USW-made, energy-efficient, non-curly cue Oshram Sylvania halogen light bulbs. (more…)

By Steven Capozzola
Media Director, Alliance for American Manufacturing

Hey everyone: QUICK TRIVIA QUESTION: Where are iPads and iPhones manufactured?…

Need we even tell you the answer? Aren’t all of you quite obviously aware that these omnipresent, hi-tech gizmos are “Made in China?”

Brace yourself: In an interview on ABC This Week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., stated that iPads and iPhones are manufactured in the United States.

Apparently, McCain was trying to make the point that the U.S. makes cool hi-tech goods and just needs free trade agreements to gain more overseas market access.

Unfortunately, the good Senator is wrong on several counts:

1. In addition to iPads and iPhones, China manufactures a tremendous amount of hi-tech equipment.  Those products are NOT made in USA. (more…)