We're our own worst enemies. When it comes right down to it, most of us will buy equivalent items at the cheapest price (assuming the items are available conveniently/locally). Consumers vote with their dollars, and companies, in an effort to satisfy their shareholders, find the least expensive way to source their goods. So, manufacturing is moved to locations where labor is cheapest. That takes jobs away from Americans. It takes jobs away from anyone who demands more money than the cheapest labor a company can find. Corporations are in the business of making money for their shareholders.
A couple other semi-related observations.
1. Airlines find we won't pay higher prices for airfare (United tried a $6 fare increase recently without success) so they try to get more money by tacking on fees. It ends up costing us the same, but it's more palatable I guess for it to arrive in the form of nickel and dime fees rather than seeing the higher fare up front, which is more easily compared and shopped around.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?articleId=32969
It's sort of ridiculous that we expect airlines to fly us and not get any profit. (United lost $651M in 2009 and $5.4B in 2008.)
http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=19190
2. The very act of saving money, not spending it, may prolong the recession and drag out the recovery. I heard Robert Reich on NPR this morning say that the personal saving rate is up to 4.8% of after tax income in 2009, up from around 3% just before the crash of 2008. But if we're saving money, we're not spending it, and companies don't make money.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/02/05/am-reich/
I don't know the answer and I don't even know what to think anymore.
How about this? The 3/50 Project. Pick three local businesses you'd miss if they were gone. Spend $50/month there. Pick 3. Spend $50. Save your local economy.
http://www.the350project.net/home.html
Some good stats there.