Vote with your Dollar! The importance of Shopping Local

It's only natural for people to try to save their hard earned money and get a good deal. We earn less money than our parents did, we work harder and our money doesn't buy as much as it used too. 

The problem is the majority of companies that sell cheaper products here in North America are able to do so because they outsourced their manufacturing overseas. The reason; because labor is much cheaper and therefore increases their profit margin. It's not that they didn't make a significant profit before, it's because they want more profit.

Some large brand name clothing manufacturers would argue that it's because we no longer have enough local sewers to meet the demand, and in order to compete, they outsource the work. That may be true, but if they didn't do it in the first place, we wouldn't have a manufacturing shortage nor an unemployment problem that has left thousands of people homeless. Its because they went overseas that the majority of local manufacturing companies went out of business, leaving 2.7 Million Americans unemployed and this is only between 2001-2004, that total is much higher now. In Canada, between 2002-2008 350,000 Canadians also lost their jobs and again it was due to an increase of outsourced jobs, now that number is much higher as well, and these jobs haven't returned.   

So who do you blame? Sure we can blame the government, after all they agreed to the so called free trade deals like: NAFTA, TILMA, CETA and CAFTA. You know several large corporations were involved in getting these deals done, because none of them represented the best interests of the people.

Here's an article that points out 10 reasons why NAFTA: Is Bad for Mexico; Bad for Canada & Bad for the US.

That's hardly ethical... Yes, I will be the first to say: everyone needs to work, but it should be a fair deal that doesn't jeopardize or trade the rights and freedoms of those in one country for another. So you may get a deal today, but in reality, what's the real cost? Are you conscious of where your food, water, clothes, shoes, jewelry, cars or energy comes from? If not, you should be.

You're buying power is significant and extremely influential, your love of shopping or necessity to shop; whether you are male or female affects your: community, environment, your local economy and the ability for families, artisans and locally owned and operated businesses to survive.

When you buy local, 70% or more of what you spend in an independently owned local store returns to your community via wages, rent and taxes. Taxes that help pay for essential services, medical, law enforcement, roads and education. With a large corporation that manufactures overseas 35% or less actually stays in your community. That's a huge difference, no wonder we are facing recessions and hyperinflation, we are being stripped of our jobs, buying power and big business isn't giving enough back.

Here is a list of 10 large corporations that have made Billions of untaxed profit overseas. These tax dollars would contribute to the economic development of the United States. Instead they prefer to hoard the money and let their country fall further into debt and let regular citizens and small businesses flip the bill.

Much like an ecosystem, it's interdependent, and supporting your local economy is necessary for it to thrive and survive. How does this affect you? Well, it could affect your job, your ability to purchase food, pay your mortgage or even your ability to get a good paying job.

Lets look at some of the facts from Industry Canada's Key Small Business Statistics report from July 2010.

Small businesses account for 2/3rd's of all the jobs in:

• Healthcare 89%
• Construction 75%
• Forestry 74%
• Food and Accommodation 66%
• Professional Services 75%

To top it off: Accommodation and Food, Construction, Manufacturing, Professional Services and Wholesale Trade Account for 68% of all jobs in small companies. Small local businesses also collect Billions of tax dollars per year for the government. Despite this, small businesses don't get the same tax breaks and tax incentives that the government gives their larger competitors.

It goes to show, locally owned and operated business owners are directly responsible for the majority of the jobs and economic growth in local communities due to big businesses outsourcing our jobs and manufacturing overseas. 

In this post, I'm primarily using Canada as an example, it doesn't matter if you live in the United States, Mexico or any other country in Europe, Africa, South America or Asia: people need to support businesses that are local. Their contributions and importance are largely underestimated and are essential to your community. 

If we don't support local, by shopping local we are in fact sabotaging our own economy and even our own success.

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Y-Green's Top 10 Green Inventions!

10) Waste to Energy Power Plants – By, Dynamis Technology : Incinerating garbage to create energy isn’t a very environmentally friendly process and toxins in garbage dumps leach dangerous chemicals into our water supply. This inspired Roger Kolb and Don Kerr to invent the Dynamis technology power plant. This ingenious technology can help eliminate the world’s garbage from landfills and garbage dumps by converting waste into energy. Currently 86 of these power plants are in operation and all together process 97,000 tons of garbage per day, to produce enough power for 388,000 homes. Air-test results concluded that the levels of carbon monoxide, mercury and dioxins produced by these waste-to-energy plants are well below American, European and Canadian standards. If these finding are true, Dynamis's waste-to-energy technology will safely eliminate garbage and provide us with usable energy at the same time.

9)  Plastic-to-Oil Converting Machine - By, Blest Corporation : What if we could reconstitute plastic back into oil? Well, Japanese born Akinori Ito, CEO of Blest Corporation says it can! I admit, I was hesitant to believe such a thing, but it appears that Blest’s Plastic-to-Oil Converting machine is the real deal. This invention could help clean up our oceans and garbage dumps of plastics and safely re-use the plastic to fuel your car. Akinori Ito says his machine can convert 1kg of plastic into 1 liter of oil. After seeing the video explaining this process I am convinced that converting plastic back to oil is a great alternative to conventional recycling methods… Perhaps we can end garbage sooner than we thought?

8) Sail E-Way- By, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) : The Sail E-Way concept is an electric solar wind sail that will measure approximately 40 kilometers across and supply the fastest man-made spacecraft with enough power to potentially reach a speed of 50 km per second. JAXA is now flight-testing the Nano Sail-D and IKAROS, the prototypes of these photon-propelled solar sails. With this type of space propulsion innovation at our fingertips, we might be able to boldly sail where no man has sailed before.

7) Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) – By, Xenesys Inc. : Xenesys’ Ocean Thermal Energy Converter is capable of supplying electricity 365 days a year and can be effectively utilized in over 90 countries worldwide. The power generation capacity is estimated at 1 Trillion kW's of clean, renewable energy per year at a rate of $1.00 per kWh. This still needs to be built, but once it is, the OTEC power plant will be a good addition to our renewable energy future.

6) Solar Lens Tower Power plants – by, International Automated Systems (IAUS) : These Solar Towers use a thin-film lens to focus the sun's energy to produce super-heated steam for power generation. The panels are inexpensive, efficient, require very little maintenance and operate on heat. This energy can be stored then used to create steam when there is no sun to produce even more energy. This unique process costs significantly less than batteries and offers an effective solution to provide solar power 24 hours a day 7 days a week. IAUS's thin-film solar lens can be produced at a fraction of the cost of traditional photovoltaic solar panels. This makes IAUS the 1st solar power technology with the ability to compete head-on with gas, coal and it's available to use, right now. 

5) Ecosphere Ozonix - By, Ecosphere Technologies Inc. : Ecosphere Ozonix technology is an advanced oxidation process that kills bacteria, eliminates chemicals and treats contaminated water without the use of harmful chemicals. It combines ozone, hydrodynamic cavitation, acoustic cavitation and electro-chemical decomposition to safely recycle municipal, petroleum, agricultural and mining industrial waste-waters and turn it back into clean water. Ecosphere has proven they have the ability to clean waste water, but we must never allow corporations to use it as an excuse to continue irresponsible business practices. Despite what other companies do, Ecosphere's invention will help mitigate the effects of municipal water contamination and with its patented process of recycling water will also help clean up the environmental damage from the mining, oil and petroleum industries, restoring polluted water back to safe levels. 

4) Solar Roads – By, Scott and Julie Brusaw, Solar Roadways : This Invention has great potential and is currently in the development stages. Once the technology is perfected and the cost to produce these panels is lowered, these solar roads could effectively replace many outdoor asphalt and concrete surfaces. Their goal is to transform outdoor drivable surfaces such as roads, highways and driveways into energy producing solar panels that can be driven upon. In the future these solar roadways could produce a vast amount of electricity and provide entire cities with enough energy that would replace coal burning and nuclear power plants. 

3) Air Car – By, Guy Negre- Inventor and CEO of MDI : The original Air-Car was invented back in 1932, but back then it couldn’t compete with gas powered vehicles, so it was shelved and never produced. Now! Over 70 years later, Inventor Guy Negre, CEO of MDI has vastly improved this technology to a point where the Air Car can now do more than simply compete. It has the potential to replace the combustion engine altogether. Mr. Negre has also made a licensing deal with Tata Motors in India to produce and sell the car for around $10,000 per car. The Air-Car is powered by a compressed-air motor and can maintain speeds of 35 miles per hour, for over 200 miles on one tank of compressed air. Not impressed yet! It also has the ability to reach speeds of 90 miles per hour by using small amounts of gas to heat and compress more air and increase its range to 1000 miles per tank. This makes MDI’s Air-Car a viable alternative mode of transportation that is less expensive and great for the environment.

2) Wireless Power Transfer Device – By, WiTricity : WiTricity has successfully modified Nicola Tesla’s wireless energy patent to create its own wireless energy transfer technology. WiTricities wireless energy transfer system can transfer power safely, efficiently and without wires to power or recharge any and all your electrically powered devices. This invention has huge potential and could help revolutionize the way energy is transferred from place to place, imagine a world without wires, that was Nicola Tesla’s dream. Now! Thanks to WiTricity, this dream could happen within our lifetime and provide the world with safe wireless electricity.

1) Vertical Farming – By, Architect Ken Yeang and Dr. Dickson Despommier : Unlike traditional farming, farming inside earthquake and storm proofed skyscrapers can produce crops year-round and dramatically increase the amount of food grown per year worldwide on a massive scale. It can do this because vertical farming provides a controlled environment that can be built as self supporting structures, independent of weather and protected from most extreme weather events. Currently, many parts of the world are facing flooding, drought or other man-made or natural disasters. This has caused a significant decrease in the production of grain, causing a significant increase in the cost of the food and an increase of starvation. This makes vertical, local, organically grown farming not only a necessity, but a social, moral and ethical responsibility. Vertical farming is the best way to help provide people worldwide with healthy, nutritious food and help put an end to malnutrition and starvation. Life is precious and has a value that can’t be measured, we need to protect it the best we can. I’m confident that with human ingenuity, proper management and combining traditional and organic farming practices, vertical farming can help feed the world. This is why I chose Vertical Farming as my #1 Green Invention!