The other day I was shopping for a new belt, and went into my local Coach store. To my dismay, I discovered that all their belts are now made in China. Considering the awful balance of trade deficit that the US and other countries have with China, not to mention their dubious record on human rights and pollution, or the unemployment situation in this country, I went searching for something made in the US. And voila, I found that Allen Edmonds offers some really great USA manufactured belts (not to mention shoes of course) for the same prices as those made-in-China belts. And then I decided that I should be rewarded some bonus frequent flyer miles for my effort, so rather than buying the belt at Allen Edmonds' website, I searched on United's shopping mall and saw that Nordstrom is selling the same wares (actually better looking stuff than what Coach had) for the same price as Allen Edmonds' website, but Nordstrom is offering 4 United bonus miles for each dollar I spend with them. So my $98 belt earned me almost 500 miles on United (since I used my United MileagePlus credit card to purchase). But the biggest reward was knowing that I was helping keep someone employed in the US, if only a little bit.