Made In The Usa? Texas Cotton Farming And Foreign-Made Clothes

I was at a local department store the other day and it was running a big sale on clothes. So I went shopping.

The original price on the first shirt I saw was 90 bucks. You've got to be kidding, I thought. It was a business-casual shirt'the kind you wear with khakis. Long sleeve, size, large; button-down collar. Blue with white stripes; 100 percent cotton; made in India. They didn't say if it was from our local Texas cotton farming industry. The shirt had been marked down half price to $45.

Forty-five dollars for a shirt? You've got to be kidding. I usually buy three shirts for $45. Okay, I didn't notice the '30 percent sale off discounted merchandise' sign. Final price, $31.50.

Thirty-one-fifty for a shirt? You've got to be kidding. I decided I didn't need shirts, especially if Texas cotton farming producers weren't involved
But I did need some white socks to wear with my tennis shoes. So I went to the sock department.

Eighteen dollars for six pair? You've got to be kidding. Note, they were designer socks; made in Columbia. I'm not naming any names but they had a gold toe. So I passed on the socks, too.

As I was walking out of the store in disgust, empty-handed, I noted some Nike T-shirts. Curiosity got the best of me. They were 100 percent cotton T-shirts, made in El Salvador. Regular price $28. Sale price $14. You've got to be kidding.

What's my point?

One bale, approximately 480 pounds, is enough cotton to make 765 business-casual shirts, 4,321 socks and 1,217 T-shirts. Those items would sell as follows:

• 765 business-casual shirts at $90 a pop would sell for $68,850. At half price they would sell for $34,425 and at 30 percent off half price would sell at $24,097.50. One shirt contains a little more than a half pound of cotton. The farmer gets about 68 cents per pound for higher quality cotton. No matter what the price'$90, $45, or $31.50, the farmer receives about 41 cents per shirt.
• Those 4,321 socks translate into 2,160 pair with one left over. Retail at six pair for $18 comes out to $6,480. The farmer receives about 91 cents for the six pair or a little over 15 cents a pair.
• And the Nike T-shirts? 1,217 T-shirts would retail at $34,076 for full price; $17,038 half price. The cotton farmer gets about 17 cents per shirt no matter what the price.

So here's where we're at. While our domestic textile mills and manufacturers have almost completely disappeared, foreign workers are making $90 shirts, $18 socks and $25 T-shirts out of bargain-priced cotton and shipping them to the United States. No Made in USA labels here. Meanwhile, our economy is in the pits, unemployment is over 10 percent and farmers struggle to make ends meet.

The price of shirts needs to come down. The price of cotton needs to go up.

Have a great week.