We are seldom interested in our "roots" until we discover that we have fallen off-the-track that our ancestors set for us to grow and prosper. Those that went before us assembled significant experiences and knowledge that can be applied to the situations we find ourselves living today.
"An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced." Ayn Rand
I was born in Gloversville, NY, a city known for its glovemaking expertise, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains during World War II. My earliest ancestors had settled in this part of the world as early as the 1630s...trading among the American Indians and one, Cornelis Antonissen Van Sleyck, was even adopted into the Mohawk tribe after being married to Otstock, whose mother was American Indian and her father was a Frenchman named Hartell. The Dutch name of Margretta was given to Otstock and, as a family tradition, has been handed down (as middle name) within the extended family (including my sister, Jill).
Glovemaking, one of few remaining handicraft industries, began in this country over 250 years ago in an upstate New York community that would be called Gloversville. Sir William Johnson (who received the only baronetcy ever granted on American soil) persuaded a shipload of Scottish Highlanders from Perthshire to brave the Atlantic to establish the glovemaking industry in the New World. The Highlanders brought their tools -- needles, thread, and the sword-like shears necessary for cutting leather -- and these artisans also carried with them the closely guarded guild craft techniques of Europe. Material they found in abundance. Indians provided deerskin hides that gave gloves a unique durability and feel. And the U.S. glovemaking craft was born.
"All it takes to make a fine leather glove is a hide and a pair of hands." an old glover adage
Sir William settled close to Gloversville, then known as "The Gate of the Adirondacks," and later married a full-blooded Mohawk woman. The crystal-clear water from the Adirondack mountains was perfect for the tanning of deerskin to a velvety soft texture. The leather gloves and mittens produced were traded with the tin peddlers from Boston and the local economy flourished. The age-old tradition of glovemaking survived virtually intact in Gloversville, allowing the community to easily weather the Great Depression and World War II because everyone needed gloves. Glove manufacturing was the stimulus for full employment as one manufacturing job created 5 to 8 other supplier and service jobs throughout the community.
However, in the early 1960s, glove manufacturing began to move outside the country where lower cost labor was available. Today, most gloves are made offshore, in places like China and Indonesia, where wages are 20 to 30 times less than what American workers must make to survive. Rather than invest in automating the U.S. glovemaking process, glove manufacturers, with the support of government, chose to move to the lowest cost labor source.
"The encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce; for the difficulty lies in supplying the means, not in stimulating the desire of consumption; and we have seen that production alone furnishes those means. Thus, it is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption." Jean Baptiste Say
Globalization is not working for everyone.
Stagnating wages and rising job insecurity in developed countries are creating popular disenchantment with the free movement of goods, capital and people across borders. If unchecked, popular fears could turn into a political backlash that could lead to protectionism.
A slow-growth world has big implications for companies. For one, it's likely that the prices of commodities such as oil and copper, already well off their peaks, will continue to fall. In the past, oil had its sharpest declines in years when global growth was slowest. Similarly, industries that require long-term investment--aircraft, semiconductors and cars--may find themselves squeezed by slower long-term growth.
Several things need to happen to get the economy off the slow-growth track. First, the private sector in the U.S. must concentrate on generating more productivity gains at home. In addition, U.S. companies need to focus on creating more innovative goods and services that can be produced in this country and shipped abroad.