Thanks for that information
I think I like the idea of a Mexican-made domestic car better, versus a chinese-made domestic car
Sounds like your friend Raul’s employee got a little bit too greedy. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you . . . 
Yeah that was a cartoon I saw in one of my books. Personnel manager talking to employee: “I’d like to pay you what you are worth but the minimum wage laws have teeth in them.”
A high school classmate has a pretty successful machine shop enterprise (or whatever it is) that he developed from scratch over the past 50 years. He’s been complaining for years about how hard it is to find people interested in CNC and how long it takes to actually train them. So they are treated pretty good when they get a good candidate. He has worked with the Vo-tec for years trying to promote kids going the Vo-tec route. Lots of good jobs available in clean environments and not like the old days in dirty factories. Why in the world high schools continue to push everyone going to college is beyond me when these jobs go begging.
As for the Buick that’ll be imported (the Envision), GM didn’t want to make it in two places. GM sells 4X as many Buicks in China as the US, without China Buick probably would have gone the way of Oldsmobile, Pontiac, etc.
The “Envision”?? IMHO that’s a terrible name.
Just one man’s opinion, you understand. Some might even argue that it comes from a man with little taste. I accept that opinion. We’ll see if it sells.
Early Japanese models from Nissan were the "Cedric, “Gloria”, “Cherry”, “Sonny”, “Fairlady” (260-Z), and other quaint names. US ad agencies quickly convinced them that THEIR ADMIRATION FOR THINGS BRITISH WOULD NOT WASH WITH US CUSTOMERS.
The Chinese are going through a similar process. Koreans were wise to change the name of Lucky Goldstar to simply LG.
So on the way back home, the news was about China making electric cars and the plan is to show them off in the Beijing car show next year. I didn’t get the brand, sure if you google it you’ll find it but I am not that interested, yet.
I hope its not like the electric skateboards from China that are bursting into flames.
I have 2 issues with Chinese products.
-
Most of it is not worth bringing home. My unscientific estimate is that for every billion dollars worth of Chinese goods sold in the U.S. about 999,000,000 of it will be in the dumpster within a month or so.
-
The manufacturing base is moved out of the U.S. and that removes the manufactured wealth out of the equation. For a few at the top this is good; for the consumer not so much.
Me? I’d rather pay extra for something made in the U.S. of A and keep the wealth at home.
While I have strongly opposed the rush to Chinese goods for many years I have acquired a chipper/shredder and power generator made in China and each seems to be perform considerably better than the more expensive domestic models. The generator has a 16 hp engine that will start on the second pull if it didn’t start on the first. And the carburetor has a non leaking fuel shut off and a bowl drain to prevent the all too common problem of gumming when ethanol gets stale in an idle engine.
Also, years ago I was connived into reparing a John Deere tractor that the owner had hydralocked. The engine was a Chinese Yanmar that was the clone of a Perkins. The parts were astronomically priced at the Deere dealership but the engine appeared as well made as any Perkins that I had ever dealt with.
And as for importing Buicks from China, maybe we should rethink import duties.
You can’t stick your head in the sand and pretend things haven’t changed since 1950. It’s a global economy and that genie is out of the bottle. Exactly how long do you think this country could last if US companies decided to ignore the competition and build things here regardless that they cannot compete, price-wise, in a global market? You think the trade imbalance is bad now…
The world has moved on. This country has been a juggernaut because it was AHEAD of the rest of the world in areas where they could not compete with us. Manufacturing is no longer something we can compete on a global scale and retain the expected standard of living. It’s time to let go of the past and move on to new ways of staying ahead of the pack. Not digging in and erecting walls, hoping the rest of the world goes away…even China has realized that policy won’t work today…
+1 to TT’s post.
I should add that international relations and trade policies are a major factor beyond the control of the manufacturers. When China was again categorized as a Most Favored Trade Nation (see link) tariffs were removed that enabled China to export to the U.S. at costs well below ours, and manufacturers were allowed to expand into China without penalty. Any company that sells globally that resisted the game is no longer doing business… nobody benefits from a company not making decisions based upon current trade laws.
I miss the old days. But I have to accept that they’re gone.
Trade laws are made in a vacuum. In most cases they don’t take into account the ramifications to local workers or towns/cities/states. The main interest is how to benefit a business. It use to mean that companies that grew in the US would hire more people in the US. Not anymore. The Jack Welch model is coming true…keep business headquarters here in the US and move manufacturing (and now engineering) to cheaper (aka more profitable) markets. I’m close enough to retirement and saved enough that any future decline in US workers won’t effect me…but I fear that my kids and their kids will be living in a third world country.
I would argue that trade laws are bought by lobbies. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the legislators that pass them are bought by lobbyists.
But I agree that they take no measure of their impact on the real world outside the beltway.
It seems to me that trade laws are mostly determined outside the DC beltway. I’m sure you’ve noticed that Asian and Central/South American goods are everywhere. That is because everyday people prefer them. Quality is acceptable and prices are low. This is not lost on politicians, even democrats that we might think would prefer to stand for unionized clothing manufacturers (for instance). Some do, I’m sure, but not in my extremely liberal state. The Port of Baltimore makes more money, and imports/exports rule here. The old saw that all politics is local holds in this case, too.
And what happens when we loose ALL manufacturing and engineering jobs to foreign competition? People want those cheaper goods because the average wage for most Americans has actually gone down (accounting for inflation) in the past 20+ years…NOT UP. Our economy can NOT survive on service jobs. Service jobs offer far less pay…usually less skill. We’re becoming a barter system.
We can’t keep fighting yesterday’s wars. Bringing back reasonble tariff protection today might be more beneficial than eliminating tariffs was 80 years ago… Something must change for the better or we will continue to decline as the 3d world overtakes US.
Well I’m not putting my hands in the air just yet. Maybe when the government stops subsidizing the products they wish to undercut, and the cyber theft stops, and the patent stealing stops, and you can trust the quality of the steel and nuts and bolts and computer circuit boards, maybe. For all you engineers out there, do you really trust the bridges made with Chinese steel using supposedly hardened Chinese fasteners?
The issue is really more than just moving on to prettier flowers the future holds. Its a matter of maintaining some semblance of independence and quality in our industries. In Minnesota the north steel industry is reeling from markets drying up due to cheap Chinese steel. Steel that is subsidized by the Chinese government to drive US suppliers out of the business and with an inferior product. I don’t think this is really where we want to be in the future.
Absolutely. One of those troubles had to do with an under-age girl. Real loser. An ingrate if I ever heard of one.
For all you engineers out there, do you really trust the bridges made with Chinese steel using supposedly hardened Chinese fasteners?
I really do not care where they are made in that respect. When it is a critical application, there are qualification and verification tests that must be performed to ensure quality is achieved and maintained. Trust but verify. Only a truly blind man can be fooled…
No matter where we have products manufactured (btw, there is a resurgence of manufacturing in mexico as global costs stabilize), we have verification testers on site, regular quality audits, CofCs from independent sources and so on to make sure that what is delivered meets specifications. The same rules apply to domestic suppliers as those in LCCs. It might surprise some to know that once initial quality has been established, our Chinese CMs deliver quality on par or exceeding all others…
There will almost always be someone willing to do labor jobs for less money. Established industries like steel production are now so well understood and controlled, almost anyone can do them. They are destined to be located where it costs the least to extract the raw materials and labor to run it. What we need to do is educate our youth in the emerging fields that hold the most promise for exclusivity. Not teach them how to do something 80% of the population on the planet can do…
>For all you engineers out there, do you really trust the bridges made with Chinese steel using supposedly hardened Chinese fasteners?
Doesn’t bother me a bit.
But I do get nervous driving through the “Big Dig” in Boston. People have died in those tunnels! Not from Chinese parts, but from materials made in the U.S. and installed by union labor!