Even when viewed through a macro lens, it is the choices that those of us who are not living in poverty in 1st world nations make that are ultimately the building blocks of many of contributing causes and many of the partial solutions to poverty, at home and in third world economies. Do you belong to a labor union? Have you urged your union leadership over the course of years to support fair labor practices in thrid world countries, or urged your leadership to lobby Congress to provide incentives for just labor practices in third world countries and disincentives for unfair practices? Or have you simply been content for your leaders to lobby for protectionism?

Do you habitually shop at Walmart, and buy 5 pairs of jeans for $15.00 each, made in a sweatshop in Bangladesh. That Levi plant in Burlington, NC would not have closed if you had realized you only needed two pairs of jeans, at 30 dollars each, made there by people who are, or could be your neighbors, and who were paid a living wage for their work, but are now out of work because the mill closed down? And do you understand that if you had bought those two pair of jeans from a local merchant, the $30 would have stayed in your community, paid a sales clerk in your community, kept a locally opened small merchant opened for business, paying taxes and employing people? And if the sweatshop workers in those third world countries were paid a living wage in their country and if they had decent working conditions, that would go a long way toward providing a sustainable economy in their own communities, such that the jeans they make would have a market in their local community?

And that your aunt, or your father, or your husband or you would not now be out of work because the business all went overseas?