Tuesday, June 8, 2010

One More for the Column: ONCE MADE IN AMERICA

A ban on plastic bags will benefit us all (well maybe not ALL)

California is set to be the first state in the nation to outlaw plastic shopping bags - and charge shoppers at least 5 cents for paper ones. The bill, which passed the state Assembly 41-27 and is expected to pass the state Senate by the end of its session, goes further than even San Francisco's ban. It would prohibit grocery stores from offering plastic bags beginning in January 2012 and extend the prohibition to convenience stores, drugstores and smaller businesses by July 2013.

 
   I speak only of what I know, and being a small family business for over 60 years you see lots of changes, some for the better some for the worst.  Industry in the North East was once booming, shoes, leather, textiles, fishing, to name but a few. We made something.  Hire and trian good people who want to learn a trade, pay a good wage with benefits, support the community, that has been the goal of the small, non-union, private business person.
    I also do realize that some industries will not be coming back and some are gone because it is the age of global warming, clean air, clean earth.........good, I want those things too.  Not all people are suited for college but are still capable of  getting a good paying job in the private sector and supporting their families.

    Finally time to get to the point:  Before the recession our company made and wired panels for machinery that made the plastic bags.

   Our company has moved on and plastic will probably go the way of the leather industry,  but many people who made the machines are unemployed and the jobs are gone and soon ALL that machinery will be made overseas and ALL of the jobs will be lost. 

3 comments:

  1. Cause and effect

    ReplyDelete
  2. It wasn't all that long ago that many folks owned shopping carts. I remember vividly an elderly lady walking along towing a two-wheeled cart loaded with groceries. My mother often took an arm-basket to the grocery and used that instead of paper bags that frequently split and spilled the contents.

    It's an example of what goes around, comes around.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It just seems to me that we are getting dumber and dumber with each passing year. Now if we are concerned about the rain forests, we move away from paper bags toward plastic sacks. But we can’t have plastic sacks because people toss them into the oceans and man eating sharks choke on them. I have come to the conclusion that WE are the problem. Wealth, for individuals, isn’t what we earn—it is what we keep (save) of what we earn. Instead of encouraging people to save, the government taxes them on savings.

    Wealth for nations is what we produce (and sell to others). What does America produce? Not much. There is something terribly wrong with this picture: government doing everything it can to drive you out of business. Why? Where is the sense in punishing successful small business owners for no other reason than they are successful?

    Honestly, I hate what our government has become.

    ReplyDelete

all comments will be signed to be published