Made in "Your Country Here" ; Is it important to you?

[ShadowHM]

And, in the exceptional case where a dragon just hoards a gigantic stack of $CDN outside our borders, that money is effectively taken out of circulation, causing our currency to appreciate. But since we have a central bank, they can just neutralize the effects, and nothing happens.

Our currency only appreciates if the buyer's currency floats too. That is not the case, AFAIK.

Oh, I'd be happy to trade Alberta's oil wealth, and the corresponding best-in-the-developed-world employment figures, to prevent the environmental damage. But that's a different issue - we're talking here about the relationship between trade and employment: does buying local mean more local jobs?

You have still not convinced me that buying locally made items would not keep and/or create local jobs. And it is certain that a personal policy of buying the cheapest product will export the environmental damage. *

I see these issues as intrinsically linked.

I would like to see more rigorous reform and enforcement of labour and environmental laws in exporting countries. What I'd like more than that, though, is the first world to liberalize its migration laws, so that these workers were not trapped in their countries of origin, and thus had some bargaining power against their oppressors.

I perceive that there is little chance of either of those wishes to come true anytime soon. The 'exporting country' has no interest in my opinions. And while I may have some influence on decisions by my own government, it isn't likely to change soon either.

In the meantime, I intend to keep buying local as much as I can.

*And the lack of environmental or other quality assurance controls can and does mean importing dangerous goods, like tilapia farmed in excessively polluted water, for another food example.