Wow, you totally convinced me! Buying stuff from the neighbourhood and also saving my country labors is a great idea. I will tell all my friends and relatives...
...too bad for you, I live in Germany, so my decision to support local production will be negative for the american jobmarket :-P
Okay, lets get serious. There is sence in the idea to prefer local products over imports. Not only you can be sure the products are made under the rules of your own country (well, as sure as you can get without having a real proof), however products imported may have less quality criteria than products made in your country (in germany, imports follow european quality standards that normaly are not so strict than german standards). You also can help environment if your buying decision prevents unnecessary transportations.
But as already said, this may work for deciding if you buy a local potato or one from spain (or italy, if you come from spain
), but for most of the products this just doesn't work. You just cannot grow a orange in finland, e.g. (or at least grow one with reasonable production costs). Bringing the knowhow to build, lets say microwaves in each and every country, so everyone could buy a local produced microwave instead of a import will also proove unefficient. And I really doubt Bayer will relinquish on their Nexavar patent, so this pills can by produced by every country on its own (what doesn't inhibit India from doing so, but thats a different story).
