Now That They're People And All...

...here's a handy how-to guide for dating your favorite new people, corporations.

And appropriately enough, a local article about how hard it is living without giant multi-national corporations. A recent state law requiring all state-purchased goods to be American made is straining budgets across the state.

The most ironic part of the article is that one person interviewed bemoans how other countries can recover more quickly from economic downturns because they actually make things that people need. I know it's more about political grandstanding than anything, but isn't part of the purpose of passing this kind of law so that American manufacturing companies, which by law and social pressure must pay their employees at least a decent wage (though often far from a living wage), can at least compete somewhat with multi-nationals that pay their workers pennies per hour?

So if people actually followed this law, then we would have companies actually making things and could recover faster from these kind of economic problems. But what do I know -- I'm sure the short-term solution of continuing to off-shore our production so we can get cheaper mershandise now will certainly pay off in the long run...