Something You Should Know - Tightwads and Spendthrifts & Why We Love “Made in America”

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, something important to remember the next time you're in a pressure situation. Then, tight wads and spendthrifts. Why do they seem attracted to each other? The thing about tight wads and spendthrifts is they don't love being tight wads and spendthrifts. Why do they seem attracted to each other? The thing about tight wads and spendthrifts is they don't love being tight wads and spendthrifts. And so at first, it can be fun and exciting and interesting to get into a relationship with someone who has the opposite approach.

Starting point is 00:00:59 Also, a few simple ways to improve your overall sense of happiness. And there's a movement to bring manufacturing back to America. But do people really care about Made in America? People really care about Made in America. More than 80% of people surveyed say Made in America is important to them. And voters generally very much support Made in America efforts. All this today on Something You Should Know. Mama, look at me. I'm going really fast. I just got my license. Can I borrow the car, please, Mom? Kids go from zero to 18 in no time. You'll be relieved they have 24-7 roadside

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Starting point is 00:02:10 The world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Where every week we publish three episodes per week, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. So be on the lookout for them, listen to them when they come out, and you'll be all the wiser. Welcome to Something You Should Know. We start today with a suggestion on what to do the next time you're in a pressure situation. Even the most talented athletes and musicians can choke under pressure, and there is a scientific reason for that. The thinking side of your brain can trip up the doing side of your brain.

Starting point is 00:02:45 Research has found that clenching your fist in a pressure situation can actually help prevent that from happening. You just have to be sure to clench your left fist if you're right-handed and your right fist if you're left-handed. In three experiments, right-handed soccer players, judo experts, and badminton players, were asked to perform in high-pressure simulation. One group, these are right-handed players, one group clenched their right fist for 30 seconds before play, while the other group clenched their left fist. The left fist clenchers choked less under pressure than the right all three times.

Starting point is 00:03:26 It appears that clenching the non-dominant fist sends a message to the opposite side of your brain to stop thinking and start doing. And that is something you should know. When you hear me say the words tightwad and spendthrift, you know exactly what I mean. Perhaps you're one say the words tightwad and spendthrift, you know exactly what I mean. Perhaps you're one or the other. And maybe you've heard that in relationships, tightwads are often attracted to spendthrifts and vice versa. So why are some people tightwads and other people spendthrifts?

Starting point is 00:04:06 What's the difference, say, from being a tightwad and just being frugal? Is being a tightwad or a spendthrift problematic, or it's just the way you are? Well, this turns out to be a much more interesting subject than I think you ever thought it could be. And someone who is a real expert on this is Scott Rick. He is a marketing professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and author of the book Tightwads and Spendthrifts, Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships. Hey, Scott, welcome to Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:04:37 Thank you so much for having me. So since this is your area of expertise, can you explain and define what a tightwad and a spendthrift are and how they're different? How do you look at it? A tightwad is someone who wants to spend money. They have money to spend, but they just feel very anxious about the thought of spending money. And they end up spending less than they would ideally like to spend. And this can be quite frustrating for them and the people around them.

Starting point is 00:05:11 And so it's very different than, say, someone who's frugal, someone who enjoys saving and reusing products until they truly cannot be reused any longer. Frugal people are happy, and they save a lot, and they believe in it. And that's a good thing for them. That's great. Tightwadism is very different. Tightwads look good on paper, but they just don't feel good about money. That's the interesting thing is that I think most of us think of tightwad and frugal as being kind of the same thing, but they're really not because, as you say, frugal people are completely happy being frugal and tightwads are pretty anxious about being tightwad. Yes, there are many different ways to spend conservatively. Frugal is great,

Starting point is 00:05:59 tightwad, not so great. There's also just being cheap. Some people are cheap. They kind of look like tightwads from a distance, but truly cheap people, they don't want to spend. They don't want to indulge. It's kind of like Scrooge and just kind of their drive is to just accumulate and protect their resources. You know, tightwads have a little bit of that going on, but a lot of tightwads want to enjoy the money they have, but they just can't bring themselves to do it very easily. So I know cheap people and I always wonder, do cheap people think that non-cheap people are foolish for spending money on, say, a fancy restaurant when you could eat at a fast food place and be just as full at the end of the meal.

Starting point is 00:06:53 Or do they realize that they're cheap and that the world sees them as cheap? Yeah, some do and they acknowledge it and it's kind of a badge of honor for them. And that can be okay until they find themselves in a relationship with someone else who needs money to be spent for practical matters and just kind of fun. So these things that we might be okay with on our own, they can really get tricky when we find ourselves with other people. Is there a sense as to how we got the way we are in this world that are we born cheap? Are we born tightwads? Are we born spendthrifts? Or something happens?

Starting point is 00:07:40 Yeah. No, I think there is a kind of innate biological component to it, just how prone you are to experiencing anxiety and kind of ruminating on numbers. Tightwads are quite mathematical, and they're really thinking a lot about, oh, I could spend this money some other way, what we call opportunity costs. What am I losing later by not spending it now? So part of that is in their kind of wiring. But tightwads also, a lot of them, when we talk to them, they experience something early in life, some kind of financial constraint, whether it was real on paper or just something that was in the

Starting point is 00:08:26 home. Maybe their parents were anxious about money and they developed a kind of protective response to spending. They made spending painful and it helped them through a time where they felt money was tight. For a lot of them, money got less tight later in life. But these responses that they developed and were hardwired, they're hard to shake once your circumstances change. So this is true for a lot of aspects of life where you kind of develop a response to kind of get you through a hard time, but you can't shake it when your circumstances change. And it seems to me, when I think about my spending habits, that there are categories. Like, I'm a real tightwad when it comes to gas prices and ATM fees.

Starting point is 00:09:23 I'll go way out of my way to not pay those things. But on a lot of other things, I'm not a tightwad. It's like, it depends. It's circumstantial. Well, that's good. That makes me optimistic about your general psychology. But, you know, things like ATM fees and gas prices, there are some things that are just so salient. You know, we drive around, we see these giant billboards. And when we're at the gas pump, you know, we see the amount we're spending kind of changing in real time. It's very, it's like being in a taxi and seeing the meter running. It's very aggravating.

Starting point is 00:09:58 And it aggravates some of us more than others. So in the world of spending, the spendthrifts, are there also shades of gray there or not? Sure. You know, some spendthrifts, they have money to spend and they're okay. You can, being a spendthrift is not necessarily a recipe for financial doom. You can be a happy spendthrift, but the spendthrift mentality, and I'm a spendthrift, is I'd rather be looking at it than looking for it. We make a lot of just-in-case purchases. Like I might go to the mall because I need some work clothes, some teaching clothes. And while I'm there, I might see like, oh, a fun like velvet blazer. And I think, oh,

Starting point is 00:10:43 that would be fun for like a you know a nice holiday party or some fancy event that event is not on the calendar and if that party was being held i probably wouldn't be invited but if it were to happen i would not want to be without that jacket so just in case i'll go ahead and get it and then don't you feel guilty later on lying in bed that night, feel bad about the fact that you bought that jacket? Yes. And certainly if we're married to someone who notices that jacket, there might be a conversation that makes us feel not so great about it. But, you know, we do make a lot of spending mistakes and a common question is like, well, why don't we learn from these mistakes?

Starting point is 00:11:27 We realize that, yeah, I probably didn't need to buy that. The problem is that these mistakes are only educational when they're surprising. For a spin thrift, we kind of expect to get it wrong a lot. And so we know we're going to make mistakes and we do, and it's, you know, it's not that surprising. It's just kind of what we do. And the psychology literature suggests that really, if you want to spark learning, you need some aspect of unexpectedness, it's really kind of

Starting point is 00:11:58 unexpected mistakes that can prompt learning. And so, you know, that kind of helps to solve this puzzle of why can't we learn from a lifetime of mistakes? So it's often said, or I've often heard, that in relationships, spendthrifts and tightwads tend to attract each other. Is that a myth or is that true? That is what we find in surveys

Starting point is 00:12:24 and measures of many, many couples. That is what we find, that tightwads and spin thrifts are more likely to marry each other than they are to marry someone like themselves. And so the question is why. Normally, for most aspects of personality, birds of a feather flock together. We tend to marry ourselves. But the thing about tightwads and spin thrifts is they don't love being tightwads and spin thrifts. As I've noted, they're somewhat conflicted about it. They don't love their approach to money. And when they encounter someone who has that approach, it can be really distressing to see your flaws reflected in someone else. It really shines an uncomfortable spotlight on it. And so at first, it can be fun and exciting

Starting point is 00:13:15 and interesting to get into a relationship with someone who has the opposite approach. It's fascinating. It's charming. And that can be fun for a while. But over time, these differences can get a little tricky. We're talking about tightwads and spendthrifts. My guest is Scott Rick. He is a marketing professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

Starting point is 00:13:42 And he's author of a book called Tightwads and Spendthrifts, Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so.

Starting point is 00:14:12 Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best. Give it the upgrade it deserves at Best Buy's Ultimate Appliance Event. Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. So, Scott, what are we supposed to do about this? What are we going to do about Tidewads and Spendthrifts? Well, there's a few things. One is to look at how money moves within the household. So I'm a big proponent of a combination of joint and separate accounts. So I like it when all incoming money is laundered through a joint account. That's where all incoming

Starting point is 00:15:03 money lands. It's all our money money lands. It's all our money right away. It's all our money. There's no yours and mine. It's ours. But there should be separate accounts on the back end of that joint account. So we both know, for example, how much we're taking out of the joint accounts. I take X, you take Y. We see that. I don't necessarily need to know all the details of what you're doing with your amount. We each get to spend some of our money without close monitoring. So I call it financial translucency instead of financial transparency, because I think the details, the line-by-line scrutiny of what everyone's spending can lead us into a lot of

Starting point is 00:15:46 unnecessary arguments, especially when one of us is a tightwad and the other is a spendthrift. We're going to disagree about the best way to use that money. But if we have a general sense, if we're okay with like, oh, you're spending that amount in a week or a month, let's just leave it at that and not get into the weeds of everything. And yet there are those people that need to know where every penny's going. And if you're in a relationship with one of those people and that's not you, seems like that would be real trouble. Yes. And I understand the temptation. There is a lot of advice out there to print out your bank statements. And as part of like a financial date night, go line by line.

Starting point is 00:16:36 Could we eliminate this? But I think that really squashes autonomy and individual enjoyment? What if we have different hobbies and interests? Right, right. I'm not going to understand the prices of your hobby and everything's going to seem overpriced. Most items to most people seem overpriced. And that's especially true if it's an unfamiliar domain. So I say, make some general high level agreements on what can be spent, but then just make the details available upon request. And hopefully those requests are few and far between. It would seem that when there's conflict about spending and saving and what we're talking about, that there would be a desire to change the other person, to say what you're doing is wrong and you, or that we need to meet more in the middle.

Starting point is 00:17:35 Is that your message or you are who you are in this relationship and let's work to make it work rather than let's try to change each other. Yeah, I would not hold my breath on change. We do see in kind of the more successful long-term relationships, there is a bit of a movement towards the middle, not huge, but there is some convergence where we become a little more like each other. But mainly what I recommend is understanding where the other person is coming from and reshaping the systems in the home to accommodate those differences. Those differences are probably not going anywhere. And so it's more about learning how to live with it. And you can live happily with it. I live with a tightwad.

Starting point is 00:18:25 My wife's a tightwad. And we have managed to learn about each other. And I know where she's coming from. And she knows where I'm coming from. And you need to be curious about the other person and learn about them. But it can be done. You can kind of work around these stable differences. But doesn't it, isn't there this going to be this natural tension? If your wife is a tightwad

Starting point is 00:18:52 and you're a spendthrift, you're out spending most likely, spending more money than she is, which could cause her to resent the fact that you're out spending this money. It's true. And that's where kind of the initial discussion is critical. You know, X per month that we each take out of the joint account. Let's try to stay within that. That's where the tightwad can have a lot of influence, as opposed to if everything's just ad hoc and there's no kind of plan set in place.

Starting point is 00:19:27 But the spendthrift can help the tightwad too here. So the tightwad, we think about budgets as like restricting spending, but budgets can also loosen up tightwads. Tightwads in the moment are going to have a hard time finding the money and justifying the purchase. But if the spendthrift can help the tightwad set up like, no, you can spend X per month. Then when the tightwad does encounter an opportunity for enjoyment, the money's there. And they're a little more willing to kind of loosen up.

Starting point is 00:20:00 What else about this topic do you think people maybe don't understand? Because this has been really insightful that it's more diverse than I think people realize where you're either cheap or you spend too much. But it's a lot more nuanced than that. But what else is there in this that maybe people don't understand? I think gift giving is, there's a lot of bad advice about gift giving out there. And it might seem like a not very consequential thing. Like, oh, how many gifts do we give? We give a lot of gifts. And if you're in a long relationship, like you have a ton of opportunities to get it right or wrong. And so we can learn to be better gift givers. And these are actually crucial moments where we can reveal what we appreciate and understand about our partner. And so there's advice out there like, oh, you should just ask them what they want. I think that's terrible,

Starting point is 00:21:05 risk-averse advice. That's not what a gift is. A gift needs to reflect that I understand you, I see you, and I appreciate you. And so there are questions you can ask your spouse to learn more about their kind of current psychological life that I think are useful. It's a good exercise. I also think that tightwads and spendthrifts need to go about gift giving differently. A good gift requires sacrifice. If I'm a spendthrift and my wife knows I'm a spendthrift, she knows it's not a big deal for me to go out and spend money.

Starting point is 00:21:41 So if I buy her something expensive, like, oh, a new iPad, I mean, it's nice, but she knows that wasn't a sacrifice for me to go out and spend money. So if I buy her something expensive, like, oh, a new iPad, I mean, it's nice, but she knows that wasn't a sacrifice for me. She just saw me buy the new iPhone. I do this kind of stuff all the time. So there's no sacrifice there. If I want to sacrifice, I got to plan something. I got to find something, track something down, like a first edition of a book or arrange a weekend getaway. I've got to put in the time and the effort. It's a little easier for her. I know she doesn't like to spend. If she buys me something expensive, that's a sacrifice. I know that was hard for her. I'm flattered. I mean, assuming it's something thoughtful and something I like, but tightwads and spendthrifts, they have to demonstrate sacrifice in very different ways.

Starting point is 00:22:27 Yeah, but it can be difficult if you're buying gifts for someone who has the reputation of returning everything. No matter what you give them, it's the wrong color. It's too big. It's too small. And so it kind of takes the wind out of your sails. They're hard to shop for. You know what you're going to buy is going back to the store anyway. So it makes it a lot less fun.

Starting point is 00:22:56 No, I understand that. I think the key there is to venture into new territory, new gift-giving domains, gifts that you've never entertained before, taking some more chances. Of course, part of that's on the recipient, too, kind of being open to adventurous new gifts. So both parties play a role here. But certainly it is sad to see all these gifts being returned. Like there's these Pandora charms. I don't know if you've seen these. Yeah. And yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:34 So it's like, oh, you're an artist. So I'll get you like a painting palette charm. And so you see a bunch of men kind of lining up on Christmas Eve to buy these, and you often see the day after Christmas a lot of women going to return them. It's kind of relevant to the gift recipient, but it's not a great gift. It's a very hard thing. There needs to be some grace and forgiveness and openness, and it's tricky. It's tricky. It's tricky. Well, it does seem, I mean, I get what you're saying, but it does seem, especially for someone who's hard to shop for, to ask them, you know, is there something they would like that maybe they wouldn't return? But you're right. It takes some of the pizzazz out of it. But I do think there can be a compromise, which is, you know, tell me a

Starting point is 00:24:28 category of things. Give me a general idea, but let me find the specific thing. So you say, I love first edition books or, you know, posters from bands that I like. And so you give me a general idea, but then you still let me surprise you with, you know, the specific version I come up with. So that can be, I think a happy middle ground. Well,

Starting point is 00:24:52 and as you were saying too, like a weekend getaway kind of thing, well, you can't really return that. Yes. You know, right. You kind of have to go get in the car.

Starting point is 00:25:01 Here we go. And here we go. There's your gift. So can't take that back to the store. Gotcha. That's right. Gotcha. Well, this is one of those topics, you know, we think about and we talk about it. Well, we talk around it, but we don't like really tackle it head on. But well, we we just tackled it head on. I've been talking with Scott Rick. He is a marketing professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

Starting point is 00:25:29 And the name of his book is Tightwads and Spendthrifts, Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate you coming on. That's so nice. Thank you. And I love your questions. This is an ad for better help. Appreciate you coming on. That's so nice's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. This winter, take a trip to Tampa

Starting point is 00:26:18 on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Made in America. That's an expression people often say with a lot of pride. When you buy something that was made in the USA, that is considered by many people to be a good thing. But the fact is that a lot of things that used to be made in America are now manufactured somewhere else. Cheaper labor, fewer regulations, there are a lot of reasons to

Starting point is 00:27:11 outsource manufacturing elsewhere. Still, you sometimes hear about efforts to bring manufacturing back to the USA. And there are certainly many things that are made in America. But in fact, I just saw the other day, it was an American flag and it had a little tag on it that said made in China. And there was just something weird to me about that. Still, there are some great stories about making things in America and joining me to tell some of those stories and talk about what I guess you would call a movement of sorts to make more things in America is Rachel Slade. She teaches political science at Tufts University. She's an award-winning writer and she's author of a book called Making It in America, the almost impossible quest to manufacture in the USA

Starting point is 00:28:04 and how it got that way. Hi, Rachel. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, thanks so much. So when so much manufacturing left the United States, it created problems that you don't really hear people talk about much. But when you stop making things here, there are ripple effects, right? There are large parts of America now that are really suffering because people are having trouble finding work in fields that they find rewarding. Solid work, not gig work, not shift work, but nine to five work or work that they can count on.

Starting point is 00:28:43 And I think in general, we've lost a sense of community. And I blame so much of that on the loss of manufacturing, which offers incredible opportunities for people who have less education. So manufacturing allows people to enter a kind of lower level with a high school degree and work their way up. So the idea is basically, let's bring manufacturing and in doing so diversify, further diversify our economy, get some independence from other countries who right now we are very beholden to so that, you know, when we're talking about international politics, we can speak on good faith instead of being too worried about how others will punish us economically.

Starting point is 00:29:34 And just in general, help Americans find better work. I think the general kind of feeling people have is that manufacturing left America because companies could get the same thing made overseas or in another country for less. And that's the driving force that took manufacturing away. That is the driving force that took manufacturing away. But the question is, why did that happen and who did it benefit? So originally, large corporations were very eager to do manufacturing abroad, of course, because they could find cheaper labor and get around unions and all kinds of regulations, environmental regulations that the United States has that other countries don't have. Who benefited is, I think, really the important question. This was happening, of course, you know, in the late 80s, early 90s. And so a whole bunch of things were happening at the time to get the government to support policies that would allow these companies to leave, to monopolize, to leave behind American manufacturing.

Starting point is 00:30:46 Now, ultimately what happened was that prices, consumer pricing especially, has actually not dropped that much. The perception that we have significantly cheaper goods because of manufacturing abroad, I think it's a fallacy. But if indeed things are nominally cheaper, it's in great part because other countries where we are now doing manufacturing are heavily supporting their manufacturing sectors. So like China, for example, has a very strong industrial policy. And when you think about then the cost, the cheap cost of some goods from China, you have to remember that that is being heavily subsidized, that price is being heavily subsidized by the Chinese government. with the intention of putting American corporations and manufacturers out of business so that we are completely beholden to imported goods. Okay, well, but I understand the problem, but how do you fix it? I think the first thing that we need to do is decide that this is really important. And that's why I focus a lot on the effects of community on reviving manufacturing. Because I think, you know, when we look at it super broadly, like you said, it seems daunting. There are questions

Starting point is 00:32:18 about, well, my stuff is cheap. It's coming from China, but maybe I don't care. But there are absolutely profound effects when you start rebuilding manufacturing in your hometown. And that's why I decided to look at the effect of one small company in Maine and what happened when they opened their doors and started making things right there in Maine, in this small town. The effects are just so profound and widespread. So explain how that happened and tell the story of this manufacturer in Maine. So this is a company that started in 2015. They make hoodies and quarter zips and those kinds of things, but they're making American sourced apparel. So the cotton is coming from Mississippi and Texas. It's spun into fleece, cotton fleece in North Carolina. The zippers are manufactured in LA. So these are all components made in the United States. So in this small town, this young couple decides to open a factory making apparel. And in doing so, over the past, let's see, now it's been eight years,

Starting point is 00:33:32 they have actually pulled 70 families out of poverty. And they did that by doing what? The family that founded the company was able to pull people out of poverty by providing jobs that could be performed by people without high levels of education. paying very competitive rates, offering vacation time and sick time, and offering health insurance for all of their workers straight out of the gate. So the idea was, for this young couple, the idea was to prove that capitalism could be a force of good in a community. So it wasn't so much about producing a specific product when they founded it. It was more like a grand experiment to see whether you could create a product with unskilled labor and pay them a living wage and survive.

Starting point is 00:34:40 So it was a really, really interesting experiment. And they've done incredibly well and at the same time helped so many other people. So we hear about companies that say, you know it was made in China or Portugal or wherever the hell it was made, or you could pay maybe a little more, maybe not, and it would be made in the USA. Do people care? People really care about Made in America. In poll after poll, more than 80% of people surveyed say Made America is important to them. And voters generally very much support Made in America efforts from the government to, you know, tweak its procurement guidelines to ensure that things that the government buys, which is a lot of stuff, is made in the USA by American workers. Isn't it somewhat difficult to always know where things are made?

Starting point is 00:35:57 Because things are so complicated that maybe the screw you need to do this is only available in Brazil. So we're not 100% made in America, but we're mostly made in America. Does that count? Or have you poisoned the well kind of thing? Oh, that's a really good question. I mean, certainly, you know, commerce is global, and our cars, so many of the parts come from elsewhere. It's absolutely true that very few products made in the USA are all USA made. However, when it comes to government procurement, there actually are stipulations about what percentage of components are made in America.

Starting point is 00:36:32 So from that perspective, from the government procurement perspective, it's very clear. As far as the consumer is concerned, you're right. I mean, it will always be a question. And actually, even worse than that, I find that there's a lot of bait and switch. So there are companies that crow about how their products are made in America. And then when you actually go on their websites, you'll find that, well, yeah, okay, maybe they make 10% of their products in America. And, you know, so what I actually end up doing, because I am really anal about this, is I will zoom in on tags on companies' websites to see whether or not those products were actually made in America. But yes, I mean, in terms of components, certainly you'll find that, for example, like a lot of wool that textile companies use in America,

Starting point is 00:37:28 made in American products, comes from New Zealand and Australia. It's actually been that way for more than 100 years. But that doesn't diminish the fact that if American workers are involved with the production of a product, then they are benefiting from your dollars. So what is the big barrier to bringing manufacturing back? Because, you know, there's this theory or idea that, you know, the market kind of takes care of itself. If it was really a good idea, it would just happen because it would be better for everybody. So if it's a struggle to bring it back, why is it a struggle? What is it that keeps people from bringing manufacturing back? So the biggest obstacle to bringing manufacturing back is just these massive brand monopolies that

Starting point is 00:38:21 we have and the ease with which we can purchase things from abroad. So when you think about Nike, Nike doesn't make a single thing in the United States, but they're the largest seller of apparel in the United States by a long shot. When we think about what do we buy, it seems like we have a few options in terms of brands. And those brands are really big companies. And what they're doing to suppress the price of their products is they're pitting small manufacturers abroad against small manufacturers abroad. So there's already this horrible race to the bottom happening elsewhere in the world. And they're also pitting countries against countries, which is why now a lot of manufacturing is moving from China to Vietnam. race to the bottom happening elsewhere in the world. And they're also pitting countries against

Starting point is 00:39:05 countries, which is why now a lot of manufacturing is moving from China to Vietnam, and eventually it'll move from Vietnam to somewhere else. So I want to point out that there are 250,000 U.S. manufacturing companies making every single thing under the sun. A quarter of a million manufacturing companies in the U.S., but they're small. The majority of them have fewer than 50 employees. That accounts for 13 million workers in the United States involved in manufacturing. So it's not a small number. So actually, manufacturing is here.

Starting point is 00:39:43 I think the important thing to remember is that when you buy stuff, we have this consumer-based economy. When you buy stuff, it is way too easy, I think, to just hop onto Amazon and not really think about all the implications of what you're purchasing when you just buy that thing shipped directly from China. And so I think it's a matter of just stop, pause, try to find something comparable made in the USA, at least try. So when you say try to find something that isn't made somewhere else, instead of just going on Amazon and buying something from China, I don't know what that means. By doing what? I wouldn't know.

Starting point is 00:40:35 Where do you go to find something that's not made in China? I don't know how to do that. Yeah, well, actually, it's really interesting. So I'm on Instagram, like a lot of folks. And so when I start liking American made companies, because it's a hashtag made in USA, made in America, made domestically, you start getting fed other companies that are making stuff in the USA. So it's really a matter of just doing a little research. There are a lot of also websites out there that are dedicated to aggregating companies that make things in the USA.

Starting point is 00:41:11 So yeah, it requires a little bit of research. What I'm really, really hoping for, and maybe we can start a movement here, you and me, is to get Amazon to actually, you know, when you shop for something on Amazon, on the left hand side, there are all these filters that you can use like size, color, brand. I wish that they would add another check box, just one more check box that's made in USA. That would make this project so much easier for us because I really think that that is the most difficult thing at the moment is just finding domestically made goods.

Starting point is 00:41:45 You're right. It's just, it's hard. We don't have a lot of time. We've been kind of used to the ease of operation of not having, you know, of shopping on Amazon and not having to think too hard. So I would love to make it easier for you to find stuff that will benefit all of us. Those are two ideas that I have just on Amazon. Please, Amazon, just add that Made in USA checkbox. It's no skin off your back, and it'll make our lives a little bit easier and really impact this movement. Well, I can imagine, though, that part of the problem is what is the definition of made in America? Is it 50% made in America I mean it isn't as simple as just it is or it isn't yeah no I totally hear you on that

Starting point is 00:42:31 made in USA you're right can mean any number of things to any number of people but generally it generally it means that somebody's hands have touched this product in some way, some meaningful way. And, you know, for many products that might mean finishing. So, for example, there was a blanket that I bought that was made in USA or it said it was. And, you know, I unpacked and I was looking at it and then I called up the company and I said, so what part of this is made in USA? Certainly not the fabric. And they said, no, not the fabric, but the finishing was done in the USA.

Starting point is 00:43:06 So that meant the cutting and the stitching. And all right, that's a start. Look, that's a start. I'll take it. That's better than a product that's entirely made somewhere else, which means that all of my dollars are going somewhere else.

Starting point is 00:43:20 If I can support some American workers with my dollars, I'm going to do it. So as you say, though, a lot of the manufacturing in the USA is smaller, maybe consumer stuff, clothing, that kind of thing. And when I think of the heyday of manufacturing in the USA, it isn't that. It's, you know, they make tractors and they make these big things. They, you know. Okay. So as of 2022, here are the rankings of American manufactured goods.

Starting point is 00:43:53 Number one, machinery, heavy machinery, industrial equipment. So that's still happening. Number two, transportation equipment, vehicles, aircraft. So yeah, very much made in USA. Chemicals, pharmaceuticals, not as much as we should be because actually 90% of our pharmaceuticals are made abroad. But chemicals, definitely huge industry in the United States. Actually, it's down at the bottom that you get to textiles and apparel. So most

Starting point is 00:44:27 textile and apparel manufacturing actually has been offshored. But the big stuff that you were referring to, that's very much still here in the United States. And it's something we should be really proud of. This is really eye-opening because I don't think, I mean, people are aware of it, that made in America is a good thing, but we don't think about it a whole lot. And, you know, like I was saying before, you know, like when you see a flag, an American flag and a tag that says made in China, then you notice it. But most of the time we don't, we just kind of go about our business and buy what we buy. Can I add one more incentive for taking another minute? Let's talk about innovation for a minute. Innovation happens when you know how to make things.

Starting point is 00:45:15 Innovation happens when you are making something and you figure out a better way to do it. And by doing so, introduce something brand new. And a really good example of that is what's happened in the space industry, the aerospace industry. You know, when NASA was working on first getting people to the moon and then developing the space shuttle and all these other things, amazing stuff spun out of that because engineers realized that they needed this or they needed that and these products didn't exist. And so they developed them because they didn't exist.

Starting point is 00:45:53 So I just wanted to give you a few examples like LEDs, for example, came out of the aerospace industry and a bunch of other amazing things that we use every day. And it's all because engineers and manufacturers were put in the position of, like, go create stuff, go make stuff. And, oh, you know what we could really use is light-emitting diodes because we don't want to generate the heat of incandescent bulbs. So manufacturing promotes innovation in a way that just the knowledge sector can't. And so I just feel like if we want to remain competitive as a country in the innovation sector, we need to make sure that we are actually producing stuff, getting our hands dirty, making gears, turning gears, getting into robotics and everything else so that we can stay on top of all that innovation that's happening around the world.

Starting point is 00:46:54 Well, excellent. As I said, I think this is really eye-opening for a lot of people. I've been talking with Rachel Slade. She is author of the book, Making It in America, the almost impossible quest to manufacture in the USA and How It Got That Way. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Rachel. I appreciate you coming on and explaining this. Great. Thanks so much, Mike. It was great to talk to you.

Starting point is 00:47:17 I really appreciate your line of questioning. Although there is no one secret to happiness, research indicates that there do seem to be some necessary ingredients for a person to have a general feeling of happiness. The happiest people spend the least time alone. Humans are social creatures, so we need to connect with others. Signature strengths. Doing the things you're good at and enjoy doing brings a sense of

Starting point is 00:47:47 happiness. Gratitude and forgiveness. Happy people tend to be grateful for what they have and they don't hold grudges. And altruism. The rewarding feelings that come from helping others breed happiness in pretty much everybody. And that is something you should know. Hey, make it your New Year's resolution, or one of them anyway, to get at least one other person, preferably two or more, but at least one to listen to something you should know. You'll look like a genius and we get to grow our audience. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

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Something You Should Know - Tightwads and Spendthrifts & Why We Love “Made in America”

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