The Presidential candidates are trying to impress voters as to who loves Harley Davidson more.
McCain would rather hear the roar of Harleys than having cheering fans in Berlin. Obama thinks McCain stabbed Harley in the back for not supporting a “Buy American” bill that would mandate government entities to buy products produced in the U.S.
“Buy American” sounds wonderful, and hey, who wouldn’t want to buy our own products if they best meet our needs and budget? The problem is this: If you mandate what, or how, to buy, it takes control away from the entity buying what they want or need. Governments have a hard enough time making good buying decisions and/or saving money without the help of those in Congress who never ran a business.
During the peak of the 1980s auto crisis, every Detroit motorcycle cop was riding a Honda. Buy American? Yea, right. Thanks a lot Detroit. The fact of the matter was Harley Davidson was not producing a quality product back then, according to their dealers. (By the way, neither was Detroit.) They would tell me of all the innovative ways they would keep new Harleys from leaking oil onto their showroom floor. Not drips but “Exxon Valdez” type leaks where customers were slipping and hurting themselves.
H-D nearly became extinct. Instead of writing their own epitaph, they remade themselves. They became fanatical on quality and cost cutting. They invested heavily in their brand. They made a market for their product and then they sold all they produced. They got a government bailout but it was really more of a commuted death sentence and a swift kick in their behind.
When bidding for the High School renovation, we wanted to give our local businesses every opportunity to bid, work, or supply the project without compromising cost savings or quality. We could not have restricted non Menomonee Falls’ companies even if we wanted to because competing for the business is always in the taxpayers’ best interest. If we restricted non Menomonee Falls’ companies, Menomonee Falls’ companies could rightly be restricted from working on projects around the state.
When governments mandate buying their own products it is called protectionism. Protectionism starts trade wars that affect all sorts of businesses, violates trade treaties, and fuels a global trade rift. For example, if we mandated that all U.S. airlines bought from Boeing, Airbus would demand the same from the EU. With pure capitalism the buyer is the winner, along with the company with the superior product at the best price.
The only way to get people, world wide, to “Buy American” is to make a superior product at the right price.
The most effective way to ship jobs overseas is to not understand basic capitalism and vote for laws that will deteriorate the market.
