Ethical Purchases

Do you buy American cars. I have one foreign car and one American truck. I have resolved that I will no longer buy foreign vehicles. I believe that we all have to start walking the walk.

For someone like myself who is an advocate of fair trade not free trade to buy a foreign car is the height of hypicorcy.

We all talk about the long term threat the growth of China presents to our economy. Yet we all buy products from China. Ipods are made in China. Clothes, toys, the list is endless. When you have children is is nearly impossible not to buy from China. A friend of mine went a year without doing so. It was very difficult.

I believe that we need to make purchases with an eye toward rewarding business behavior we respect.

That is not easy to do when things are hard and we need to make decisions based on price as the first, second, and third choice. This is why I believe in fair trade and tariffs when neccesary but that is an arguemnt for another day.

We should consider how a company treats it's employees in the same way. Companies that rank well in best companies to work for should be companies we give business too. Last weekend on CBS there was a piece about The Container Store a chain of stores for just what it says. Importantly the company states that they have a a focus on the employee more than the customer reasoning that a happy employee is a better employee and thus will bring about better customer experience.

Costco is another company that is consistently rated higher than its competitors. 85 percent of Costco employees have health insurance compared with less than 50 percent of it's competitors. Higher wages are also a factor. How do these companies do this and not only survive and succeed but excel. Clearly a company can pay it's employees a good wage and treat them with respect and make a profit.

We as consumers can do all we can to reward these companies with our purchases.

If money talks we all have the ability to speak. Too often we choose not to.