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cjm I agree totally. New Balance should be rewarded. Of course New Balance has an uphill battle against Nike etc. Why? Because they are making less profit on each sale due to their increased costs of employeeing American workers. It is this higher profit on unit sales that allows Nike etc to pay sports starts millions of dollars to wear their shoes which in turn leads to even more sales. (Of course Model Railroad manufacturers don't have spend money on sponsorship - unless Proto 2000 became the official engine of the 2005 NMRA convention!) What can New Balance do? How can it compete? The difference in cost to the manufacturer should lead to Nike etc to offer sneakers at a price break, but they have to dish out money for sponsorship etc. How much is that? Back in B-School I read a case study where one of the jeans companies in the early 80's was spending 75 cents of every dollar in sales in advertising! Since MR manufacturers don't have that problem, they can cut the cost to consumer and increase its sales that way. Bottom line, I agree with you . . . I'd rather NB pay American workers 10 times what the Chinese get paid than advertise 10 times as much . . . . but what does the majority of the American public want? I dare say as soon as someone as Michael Jordon, Britney Spears and the Olsen twins put their names on something . . .people fall over themselves to buy it. I want to buy American made MR products, but it is getting harder and harder to do so. There is another topic on this forum discussing how hard it is to get their hands on blue box and MDC kits. If model railroaders put their money where their mouths are, it would only make economic sense for the manufacturers to put American made products on the shelf. It's up to us.
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