There is a lot of media attention being given to the topic of outsourcing to foreign countries. In case you just dropped in from Pluto, outsourcing is when a company subcontracts its business, or a portion thereof, to another company. Usually it's for cost savings.

In the United States, this is becoming a problem because the outsourcing is being done to other counties, thereby eliminating American jobs.

Is all of this being driven by corporate greed? In some cases, yes. In some cases, there are greedy corporations concerned only with return on investment and looking good to their board of directors. Focusing only on the current stock price, they're quick to turn their backs on the American workers who helped build the company in the first place.

There is, however, another side to the issue. There is another even bigger culprit behind the loss of hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs. As Walt Kelly's comic strip character Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

Those among us who prefer to shop at superstores in order to obtain the lowest price always, instead of supporting our local economy, are the real cause of this downturn in the U.S. job market and the resulting economic downturn.

It is our dichotomous position of "buy the lowest price" but "keep my job here" that forces hundreds of thousands of small businesses to stop selling to the likes of Wal-Mart, Kmart and Marshalls. For example, Artscape Inc., a Pennsylvania paintings and prints dealer, was forced to stop selling to one of the giant chains. Why? Because it could not produce a product cheap enough to meet the demands of the buyers -- something easily accomplished by overseas competitors that pay a daily wage that is less than the average American earns in an hour. Jobs that would have been created by an increase in Artscape's business will go overseas instead.

The old adage "you can't have your cake and eat it too" comes to mind. We can't demand the lowest price on everything we buy and expect jobs to remain in this country. As they say, something's gotta give. Personally, I'm willing to pay a bit more and support my local businesses whenever possible. This makes sense to me. It always has, even before the big-box stores. Local businesses are the backbone of our nation. They provide the bulk of new jobs in any given year. For example, in 2003 small businesses created 11 million new jobs.

Small businesses put money back into the community in which I live through their taxes as well as by supporting team sponsorships and making charitable donations to local causes. Each of us must decide if we want to buy into the poverty mindset of having to get the lowest price and beat the other guy, or if we are ready to open ourselves up to the abundance of our world and understand that life can be a win-win proposition. Getting the lowest price is not all that important in the long run.