James-
I think you may have seen another product, the DripStick? http://www.thedesigntown.com/products/1241/Drip...
That large (and expensive) piece of plastic (IMO) is not even in the same league. Most likely made in CHINA and not something you’ll ever see on a ‘commerical’ level. According to my findings it still LEAKS as well. ; ) Oops.

The mfg I’m partnering with already makes all of the containers for one of the world’s largest ice cream chains…to the tune of 3.7 million people served per week. Our Dripnot product is the world’s only universal holder that holds all shapes and sizes of cones…with one simple design (yes even popsicles)! Our ‘Home’ version is the same as our commercial line, but made out of FDA approved silicone instead. All made in the USA (because it matters to me) Wal-Mart is one of our target markets for the ‘Home’ version. Thanks for the congrats anyways, we are almost there!

Here’s a very ‘cheesy’ homemade video(try not to laugh too hard it’s really bad) we did a while back that shows who our only ‘competition’ is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGQeWFY5t1I

Ralph,
Congratulations, I saw your Ice Cream drip product in Wal-Mart. I didn’t check… Is it made in America? I will check next time. Not much in Wal mart is made in America. We bought socks, bandaids and neosporin, otherwise I avoid the store… Yes the socks were made in America.

Thanks Ralph. Home Depot had a chance with one licensee “Dorman” to look at it. No buyer was “in place” so it was a pass for Dorman. They were going to try again a few months later, but Home depot had sat on everything that Dorman threw at them, so pass again. Dorman has since given the heads up to a smaller distributor that I’m negotiating with now. It would go smaller retail ditribution if we work it out. Then later let Dorman take it to HD again.

The stuff that goes on at corporate levels is a huge reason not to be discouraged when an agreement doesn’t just drop from the sky. To get turned down by Dorman three times and probably a couple more times in the future is not because they don’t believe in it. It’s out of their hands at the moment. They know that to license it now would not yield a return for either of us. I’m grateful that I didn’t ever give up because I was turned down a couple times by one of the largest distributors in the US. I have to remember that I’m trying to compete with major corporations and it isn’t going to be an overnight walk in the park. This is big business and today I’m just getting started (5 years later)…

Scott-

Just checked out the ‘Holeyrail’ and I must say… I like it. Looks tougher than nails and versatile, both things I like. Def going in my garage as soon as it’s refinished! Nice job. : ) Home Depot selling this yet?

Thanks, If you get your casting call on Shark Tank mention the holeyrail. They never picked my name so I keep grinding it out the fun way. Even though I’m still small potatoes, the industry is filled with some pretty tough players. My dad, who passed away a few years ago, never thought I would ever get this far. But, in that first year, he had a chance to see the determination and work I put into it. If he were around, I know he’d be very proud that I continue on. It definately hasn’t been gift wrapped for me, and I respect anyone that takes the path I have.

Scott-

There are companies that endorse the very thinking you have expressed. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is just one of many who support the ‘Fair Trade’ practices. It’s a way for big compnaies to think globally and act locally.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/ben-jer...

I’m also an ‘end to end’ inventor as well, my hat is tipped to you, sir. It’s a challenge doing it all, but it can be done. As far as SharkTank, good luck. We got our Season 3 call but haven’t received our taping date yet (and may not). No biggie, as the investors I have lined up bring more to the table anyways. There is always a touch of ‘gray’ to go with that silver lining.

Nice shot Michael, Beautiful.. Those rocks look familiar:) Thanks, some of made in Americas finest right there.
Is that Paul Bunyan shop still there in the deep south of coastal Oregon?
Scott, I admire the way you do it all. Idea thru sale.. my hat is off to you. Are you still in the hunt for shark tank? or did I miss that episode. Best of luck and have a great day

Scott,
Well put…

If I could buy products from a retailer that, in turn, purchased only from manufacturers, who in turn only sourced from fabricators and suppliers that treated employees fairly, asked for reasonable profit margins, and also supported small business… THAT would be the only retailer I would support. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist. I try and be as self sufficient as possible and generous to those that support those ethics.

Hey Charlie,
How’s this for Made in America;

Take care out there.

Don,
It doesn’t sound like you disagree with products being made in America, (non-union, made in America bulldozer). It just sounds like you’ve lost faith in the American worker. It is easy to do from a political point of view…but I think there is still a lot of heart in the American work place.
It is not my point to take away from the problems in our Country that you have expressed…couldn’t agree more.
The World Market is what ever we make it, and I am not above paying double for that privilege…
As far as gang members picking fruit…I’ll bet they’d pick it if it was growing in the prison yard…

Great discussions by all, thanks for contributing.

@Don- I agree to disagree. : ) Was trying to raise awareness of the vicious cycle of ‘low cost items’ The more we buy from others, the weaker it makes us as a nation. Oil imports are an excellent example and a perfect parallel: We are dependant on others now for oil to a large degree all because… we chose to.

@Carol Thanks again for posting this!

The best solution is to cut entitlements a little bit across the board so everybody takes a hit equally. Republicans want to hack the hell out of everything in one fell swoop, while the Democrats know their hopes of winning the next election are dependent on not cutting entitlements at all. It’s very difficult to cut entitlements once people think they are ‘entitled’ to them. And should the lower and middle class take a disproportionate share of the burden so the ‘rich’ can keep their money and allow it to trickle down to the 50% of Americans that pay no taxes? There’s a lot more to this argument than is first apparent, and nobody in Congress wants to compromise or make the first big move to cut entitlements even though the programs are unsustainable the way they are now. I think I’ll just stay out of politics and try to invent my way to prosperity, which by the way, is what America should do too!

Don I think they’d pick the fruit if it was in their union contract. The whole problem came crystal clear to me when a few years back the auto workers were striking. The news interviewed a striking worker. Her quote, you ask? “I’ve been turning the same bolt for 30 years! If you think $152,000 (plus benes?) a year is enough pay to do the same thing that long, YOU try it!”

I thought …hmmmmmmm uh oh.

Isn’t it wonderful that foreigners are buying US debt. The majority of our T-Bills are owned in America. The big problem with our debt is that we have so much. I am greatly in support of efforts to dramatically cut our spending and our debt. As Romney said, we can’t keep spending more than we take in. I don’t want to use this forum for politics so will spare you a political speech. If you want Walmart to only buy from US companies then be prepared for some large price increases. Maybe NIKE could only make shoes in the US – double the cost. I would much rather have imports of cheap items and have exports of cars, trucks and bulldozers. We could even have US citizens pick fruit instead of migrant laborers – the only problem is few US citizens will do the work.

I went to High School in Maine in the 60’s. They used to let school out in October so the high school students could work in the potato fields and bring in the crop. I made money for school clothes picking potatoes. Maybe we should do that for tomatoes, strawberries etc. I wonder how many inner city gang members would go pick fruit. Oh well, lets just agree to disagree.

Here is another recent article (7/21/2011) about the U.S Debt:

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07...

Hi Michael, How was the coast? That So. Oregon coast is the most beautiful coast I’ve seen. Giggy waited for you to get back yeah? Do well in that one.

This should add a little perspective;
http://blog.edisonnation.com/2011/08/09/whats-m...

“As of May 2011 the largest single holder of U.S. government debt was China, with 36 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities (16% of total US public debt).”

Don-
I’m aware that it is a ‘world market’ but I’m also painfully aware of where in the world that market is. The figure you quoted of 1.9% is not only misleading, it’s incorrect. I think it’s time everyone wakes up and counts the real numbers. A simple Google search on the topic is eye opening at the least. Here’s one article that cuts to the chase, sad as it is. FYI- I’m not a big HuffPost reader but the article is right on the money.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and...

Peter Navarro and Greg Autry.Author, ‘Death by China: Confronting the Dragon — A Global Call to Action’

Any tourist standing on Shanghai’s waterfront and gazing across at the garish Pudong skyline sees the visible manifestation of American wealth moving to China and every businessperson on the streets of Shenzhen knows that the manufacturing export business built it.

Yet, a recent “economic letter” from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Board contends that America is spending only 1.9 percent of its dollars on Chinese goods. It has inspired headlines like: “‘Made in China’ Taking Over U.S.? Not By a Long Shot” from the Wall Street Journal. How can we reconcile what we see on Wal-Mart’s shelves with what these experts and media pundits tell us?

As Benjamin Disraeli supposedly remarked, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics” and the arcane art of econometrics makes it easy for academics and pundits to tell the public that black is really white with a straight face. Let’s peel back just the surface of the onion that the FRB has offered us:

Firstly, the paper, titled “The U.S. Content of ‘Made in China’” is based on Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), which include everything from existing housing to used cars and nursing home stays. It just isn’t germane to discussions of trade balances and creating national wealth.

Obviously, China doesn’t play in these generally non-tradable categories, which comprise the largest portion of consumer spending. Leasing cars and renting houses do move a lot of PCE dollars around, but they create no new net wealth for America and provide relatively few jobs. Making the tools to build new homes and making the parts to build new cars are what create wealth and jobs; two things that are increasingly “Made in China.”

An organization with a much closer connection to reality, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, reports that Chinese imports quadrupled from 1997 to 2008 and that a full 46 percent of imported consumer products are now produced there. Since China’s hazardous goods also dominate product safety recalls, the CPSC has established offices in Beijing to help Chinese manufacturers improve their quality — at the expense of American taxpayers.

We’ve got a better idea: let China keep their dangerous cribs and killer medications, and we’ll keep our jobs and standard of living. If, as Beijing’s apologists are so eager to believe, “Made in China” really constitutes only 1.9 percent of our spending, then the cost of returning to the safety of “Made in America” should be correspondingly minuscule.

The “Made in America” argument is just a promotion by unions. Only 2.7% of all the products we import are from China. Keep in mind we manufacture far more products in the USA that we export around the world than we import. Our biggest imports are foreign oil, not manufactured items. I am also a veteran and am proud of the USA however I know I can get a much better cost of certain products overseas. I’m happy to have them made overseas because the labor is so cheap. If we had to make them here, they would cost to much to compete. Get over it, this is a world market. Some or our car companies have the greatest growth overseas. Should those companies, like Russia, proclaim no more American imports. That would hurt us terribly.

As far as I can figure, there is an innovation triangle formed by three legs or ‘angles’ if you will. The first leg of the triangle is corporate R&D, where corporations fund research and development for the specific purpose of improving their bottom line. A second leg would be publicly-funded research and development organizations like universities and Government-sponsored laboratories that for the most part intend to extend the edge of knowledge outward. And the third leg of the triangle of innovation is the independent inventor. No doubt the US has some of the best research universities and research labs that are stocked with some of the greatest innovative minds on the planet. Those brilliant people can also be hired by corporations to assist them in staying one step ahead of the competition. The problem is in a global economic scenario, with all governing philosophies and laws set aside, corporate and government R&D are fully-exportable. That means intellectual prowess is exportable and America has no claim on those types of innovative entities in that they can go anywhere and prosper in any environment that fosters and nurtures their development. The third leg of the innovation triangle is the independent inventor, or the person driven by a true innovative wit that knows no boundaries except those imposed on it by governing laws and philosophies! So what does all that mean? It means that the greatest asset America has that nobody else can take away is the independent inventor! And why is that? Well, just consider what it would be like to be an independent inventor in communist China where all incentives (and many rights too!) to succeed are taken away from the individual. The concept of any individual succeeding apart from the ‘state’ simply does not fit into the current governing philosophy. In America though, the light of hope still shines for the independent inventor. It’s the sweet ‘rags-to-riches’ dream that can be accomplished with a keen mind, a lot of hard work, and either a little luck or some open-minded investor with deep pockets. So China can’t change things for the independent inventor without changing their entire governmental philosophy, and what are the chances of that? On the other hand, flexibility to be able to cater to the independent inventor is built into the governing philosophy of the United States because the laws are designed for the individual to pursue happiness in the hope that it will raise the moral and intellectual levels of the country, whereas in a Communist regime, ideas that consider the good of the individual over that of the state are treasonous! So what does America have to do to help the independent inventor? Shall we throw more Government money at the problem? What has that really ever solved when corporations and universities always have the first dibs on Government funding? The biggest problem facing independent inventors in the United States is the mind-set of a country that somehow got the impression that ‘independent inventor’ is a dirty word or something laughable at best! It gets worse. Look at the term ‘good old Yankee ingenuity’ for example. Nowadays, the first thing you will hear in response to saying it is that you have said something that pegs you as being biased somehow. So the best term we have that describes our only advantage to save and keep our innovative edge in the world has become an unmentionable slur! The first thing we need to do in America is to make Americans think the word ‘inventor’ really means something good again. Edison Nation tackles that problem in many different ways, but the most important thing they do is give us confidence that our families and friends will think nothing less of us when we tell them we are inventors!

Carol,
Thank you for posting this. It makes me feel good about my Pep Boys submission.
I think it was a slow day on the forums. I’m sure Irene has a lot to do with that…and for good reason…could be even quieter tomorrow.

@Ralph, maybe I should have noted by Louis Foreman in the topic it might have gotten more attention.

Cool article, I like his point of view in general.

But you can’t be a manufacturing nation under the status quo. I bet if you plot these three things on a chart since 1980, it would be eerily creepy:
Companies paying dividends
Companies with an Employment department rather than Human “Resources”
Manufacturing jobs

Manufacturing competency depends heavily on employee motivation. With what I’ve experienced with lean manufacturing and learned about Six Sigma, it isn’t the tracking, numbers, etc. but people’s dedicated engagement to the process that leads to improvements. And improvements and innovations on the floor are critical to success and you don’t get that with annual and seasonal layoffs to create books that generate wall street numbers to make short term investors long term wealthy.

You can’t fix it with Buying American or manufacturing startups anymore than you can cure a cold by taking a decongestant.

Ralph, I imagine you’ve experienced the proof of this: The solution I see is employee owned manufacturing companies supported by the government if needed. Start it up and hand it off.

A bit of ownership and long-term prospects can subjectively raise the average IQ of the entire workforce by 20-30 pts (pure bald-face unsupported random numbers for effect.)

America needs a middle class again.

ONE response? Surely not! I KNOW “Made in America” means alot to more than just Carol and I…

BUMP! Cause it’s important! ; )

Great article and thanks for posting that Carol! More important than being the ‘Innovative nation’ is being the Manufacturing Nation. It does the USA NO GOOD to come up with all kinds of great ideas and then have everything made overseas. I bet thousands of my fellow Americans will agree. If you are unemployed, it does you NO GOOD if you still cannot afford to buy something that is low cost (and low quality) made in CHINA. Bring it home to the USA. Scores of talented, hard working people in this country who NEED JOBS NOW!

O.K. off my soap box now… ; )