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you're agreeing with me then.
the other poster is claiming that the quality of chinese goods will never increase, which is completely false.
they have been getting better because there was no where to go but up.
as they gain more experience, and as their domestic market demands higher quality goods, they will be forced to up their game.
it's the same thing that happened to japan in the 60s/70s, korea in the 90s/00s, and now china in the 20's+.
DJI, huawei, xiaomi all make extremely high quality goods that rival the best in the business - apple.
I never was debating against you. They are definitely learning. And because we've so graciously have given them entire industries, and the profits from them, many of their plants are state of the art.
That being said, there are still millions of products from China that are made from hazardous or inferior materials, with sketchy manufacturing practices.
Wells is right about the subway trains however. No US owned company has manufactured subway trains since the 1980's when Budd shut down. Budd transit vehicles were built to last. The R32s in NYC (solid stainless steel and 56 years of operation), the 2600 series in Chicago, and the entire Baltimore metro fleet are all Budds. Other great companies such as Pullman Standard, St. Louis, American Car and Foundry, and Morrison-Knudsen all either fell by the wayside or simply stopped manufacturing transit vehicles altogether. Even General Motors, the same company that once manufactured the venerable New Look aka "Fish Bowl" buses that were the transit pride of a generation, divested their bus and train locomotive divisions. Most US cities now order buses from Canadian owned companies (New Flyer, Novabus) and light rail and subway trains from Chinese companies (CRRC), Japanese companies (Kawasaki, J-TREC) or European companies (Astom, Breda, CAF, etc). Sure many of these companies have plants in the US but it's not the same as manufacturing for a wholly American corporation.
I'll tell you one thing about Americans manufacturing buses and subway trains. Many of those workers who built those vehicles may not even have been interested in riding them ever as passengers. They may have been hard core conservative, anti-liberal, anti-urban, automobile driving, churchgoing, family loving individuals but they were darn proud of the product they were making even though they were making them for others who did not share their political or social-cultural beliefs. Such things united our nation between liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican at one time. Then when those things were lost, so were the ties that bound the two sides. Look at what our nation has now become. We are lost and we need to find our way back.
A typical Left-Wing propaganda ploy is to state dollar value.
An excellent example of Left-Wing propaganda is "productivity." It is claimed that productivity has increased, but that is based solely on dollar value. Witness:
200,000 labor-hours; 1 Million widgets produced; unit price is $10; gross revenues $10 Million
190,000 labor-hours; 950,000 widgets produced; unit price is $12; gross revenues $11.4 Million
Did Productivity increase?
No, it did not, but the Economic Policy Institute and Left-Wingers will claim it did in order to spew their Left-wing propaganda.
The only true and correct measure of Productivity is unit volume per labor hours. Anything else is a lie.
So it goes with manufacturing. We can use Productivity as an example:
Germany: 1 Million widgets produced; unit price is $10; gross revenues $10 Million
US: 950,000 widgets produced; unit price is $12; gross revenues $11.4 Million
Who manufactured more?
Germany, but because of currency and pricing differences, it is falsely claimed that the US manufactured more.
So, when examining claims that the US is #2 in manufacturing, you need to be looking at unit volume and not dollar value to flesh out Truth.
I would venture to guess that China is #1 and India #2 not because of the value of the goods manufactured, rather because their populations are larger and because their populations are larger they would produce more.
If you want to take population into account, then you should look at unit volume per capita.
If we come back to this:
Germany: 1 Million widgets produced; unit price is $10; gross revenues $10 Million
US: 950,000 widgets produced; unit price is $12; gross revenues $11.4 Million
Germany not only manufactured more goods per unit volume, they also manufactured more goods per capita.
the other poster is claiming that the quality of chinese goods will never increase, which is completely false.
Correct. Chinese consumers are not much different than any other consumer on Earth. Eventually, the 330 Million-strong Chinese Middle Class will demand higher quality goods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scarabchuck
That being said, there are still millions of products from China that are made from hazardous or inferior materials, with sketchy manufacturing practices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sas318
The only thing I buy regularly is groceries. But if I were to buy something, I'd buy Chinese (Thailand, Vietnamese, non-American) made because they're cheaper.
You're a fool.
Scarabchuck is correct.
I refuse to buy any food-stuffs, personal hygiene products, or prescription/non-prescription medication made in China.
You know Zantac? Ranitidine, I think it is.
The precursors were made in China and shipped to the US for mixing and packaging.
They contained a cancer causing agent.
Other foreign States like China do not have an EPA or FTC or FDA like the US and others do.
Corners get cut. Paperwork gets shuffled just a tad too much. Bribery is rampant in some cultures. And, of course, in every society there is always some turd trying to make a buck at any cost.
Granted, under international law, meaning a bi-lateral or multi-lateral trade agreement or an FNC, you comply with the laws of the country to whom your shipping, but that's not always the case.
The Chinese in particular have a habit of substituting cheaper glycols (alcohol-based chemicals that have a sweet taste) for sugar.
If you want to drink/eat anti-freeze, be my guest, but you'll suffer for it.
Some of their products are not very good, either.
I cook, so I have lots of cookware. An acquaintance has a side-hustle where he bids on storage sheds. One day he had a box of $3,000 worth of food-grade stainless steel cookware which I happily took off his hands for $25.
On Amazon, you'll see cookware made in China. That's not a problem. You'll see sauce pans and saute pans that are made of Aluminum sandwiched between stainless steel. That's not a problem, either.
The problem is that steel is not food-grade and their laminating/bonding process leaves a lot to be desired.
Steel is just Iron with Carbon added to it to increase its tensile properties.
Adding Chromium is what makes it "stainless." Grades are based on the percentage of Chromium and surgical stainless steel has the highest percentage. Why? You don't want surgical instruments like scalpels to rust and they have to be sanitized, so they cannot react with acids, bases or alcohol cleaning solutions.
Food-grade is the next lowest grade. I can cook anything except eggs, and all I have to do is wipe it down with a towel (a paper towel would be wasteful) and there's no need to wash it. There are other grades that have other applications.
The steel the Chinese use is not food-grade, which is why when you add balsamic vinegar or lemon juice it discolors.
The electroplating process is so 1880s, which is why the cheap stainless steel separates from the Aluminum after a few months of use, so your sauce or saute pan has these bulges or it's separated at the top around the lip.
And, if you have one of those pans with the Aluminum heat temper on the bottom to disperse heat evenly, that will separate, too.
Anyway, you should be very careful what you buy from China (and other countries, too).
Everyone studied the Ottoman Empire. It was a classic example of what not to do.
Friedman discusses the Ottomans in Free to Choose and other works.
By the way, I'm not finding the Ottomans in the phone book. Are they still around?
Ahh, yes, the great ineptitude of our valued scholars. You could only dream of the moronic things Friedman has said in his lifetime, and a patent misunderstanding of reality is most common among such thought.
There is a reason Henry Clay mocked the idea of free trade, not because it was false in concept, but because the people who would promote it had no idea what it did or what use it was.
Please go one and tell us why every developed economy had to protect national industry, or why secondary markets in Africa are still so poor even after decades of this miracle you call free trade.
There is a reason European countries forced the Ottomans to have an open market, and it was not because they wanted the Ottomans to be wealthy or developed.
Patriotism has nothing to do with where one spends their money.
Then again, you are a full-blown Command Economic Socialist.
Ha, so leaving your country to live on greener pasture is "patriotism"? Read the post, it was talking about how one earns money, not how one spends it.
Though to your point, buying foriegn products exclusively destroys local supply chains.
Mircea please get it through your head that nobody on here is saying we should produce every single consumer good that we consume. Can you process that?
There should be giant red labels on everything made in China so people can be better informed. Warnings on online shopping as well.
And Mr. Chinese Manufacturer shuts down his manufacturing plant in China, moves it to Thailand, Mexico, Central America, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, and?
"Boy, we really socked it to China, didn't we? Notice the products in Wal-Mart are now saying Made in Honduras, Made in Cambodia, Made in Mexico."
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