ya, well

[Dravur]

MacroEcon needs to be taught in schools....

Seriously, grab an econ book and go nuts. Simply put, the car companies and the unions priced themselves out of the market. When GM has to pay someone $40 an hour, plus burden, to punch a rivet and Toyota can pay $13 an hour....one of four things will have to happen for GM to be competitive....

Mechanize...Make a robot that can do that job.
Move the job...Next stop..Mexico
Close down as inneficient.
Hope the buying public can be conned into paying more for the same or lesser quality.

This is the way the world works. If you can bring the same or better quality into the market for a cheaper price and one of your main contributing factors is wages, you don't have a lot of choice.

If we were protectionist, the buggy whip manufacturers would have LOVED that. Also, there is a huge slippery slope when you start screaming for protectionism. For every $ you place on their heads, they place the same on our corn, for example. Protectionism is a tax on the consumer to keep an inefficient business in business...

This assumes just the one factor. There are many factors that also come into play, such as shipping costs, availability of raw materials, available talent and ease of entry.

 

[JohnBT]

"Lets just take Burris as a scope maker and they have the chinese make them for Burris. Burris price doesn't change they just make more profit off the cheap labor.

The money that is sent overseas..."

To Italy. Beretta owns Burris.

12/02 - "Beretta Holding S.p.A. announced in late October its purchase of Burris Co. Inc. Burris designs, manufactures and distributes rifle and handgun scopes, binoculars, spotting scopes and scope-mounting hardware. Burris had been owned by Inductotherm Industries Inc. for 17 years."


China can't maintain it's current rate of growth because it doesn't have the necessary fresh water. They didn't have it decades ago and now it's worse. Not only are the rivers more polluted than U.S. rivers ever were, China has major rivers that during some seasons of the year no longer run all the way to the sea. They're simply being sucked dry.

John


"Dried-up Yellow River brings sorrow to China. Dermot Tatlow / Panos"

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/05/china/yellow-river/larmer-text/2

"Water has always been precious in China, a country with roughly the same amount of water as the United States but nearly five times the population. The shortage is especially acute in the arid north, where nearly half of China's population lives on only 15 percent of its water."

"Pollution-related protests have jumped—there were 51,000 across China in 2005 alone—and could metastasize into social unrest."

"China is not only draining its rivers and aquifers with abandon; it is also polluting what's left so irreversibly that the World Bank warns of "catastrophic consequences for future generations.""

"Irate citizens last year flooded the government with hundreds of thousands of official environmental complaints. Whether to save the environment or stave off social unrest, Beijing has adopted ambitious goals, aiming for a 30 percent reduction in water consumption and a 10 percent decrease in pollution discharges by 2010."

BUY CHINESE

 

[strat81]

Just Jim,
Pick up a copy of "International Economics" by Hendrik Van den Berg, ISBN: 0072397969. It will answer many of your questions and debunk your statements.

Sans Authoritas has done a pretty good job in this thread refuting some of your assertions. International trade is a good thing. Tariffs, quotas, and other protectionist measures are bad things.

As for the Chinese making copies of things, there are plenty of Germans who probably think many American rifles are Mauser knock-offs. Gaston Glock probably does not look kindly upon the S&W Sigma or M&P. It goes both ways.

Made in China does not equal junk.
Made in America does not equal quality.

 

[Just Jim]

Made in China does not equal junk.
Made in America does not equal quality.

If your money goes to China then it has left your neighborhood and your tax structure which means you will pay more at home for education and highways etc. Ask some of the thousands of American pet owners about the quality of Chinese pet food after their dogs died.

Sans Authoritas has done a pretty good job in this thread refuting some of your assertions

I haven't seen anything SA has said that refutes my assertion that our money going to China is a bad thing. While you and I are paying on a 35% inflation rate now because China is buying up comodities and building up a society that will take even more isn't good for America.

I will believe someone has debunked what I have said when the price of comodities goes down. Have you bought any ammo lately??

I believe that Glock did a lawsuit on the Sigma and won.

jj

 

[Just Jim]

Also, there is a huge slippery slope when you start screaming for protectionism. For every $ you place on their heads, they place the same on our corn, for example. Protectionism is a tax on the consumer to keep an inefficient business in business...

You are confusing protectionism with conservatism. I what to conserve a great country and a way of life that lets me live free and own a gun. I want my neighbors to have the same thing.

I don't want those who disslike us to be able to change our lives. I don't want American money to be spent on those who wouldn't allow us to be free.

jj

edited to add, All of you who believe in the free market must love the latest problems with realestate. A protected market for the big guys with the feds bailing out the banks useing our money. (Too bad they won't bail out the gun companies) Sooner or later you might figure it out that government and business in all countries is one and the same.

Governments all over the world are buying up our stuff while it's cheap and the dollar down. The dollar down because we buy Chinese crap and they use our dollars to compete against us for comodities. Free and fair trade doesn't exist so better to watch out for your own.

 

[jenrob]

Just so ya know Burris is made in the Philippines and are just as good as make as the leupolds for the price range.

So I guess since I purchased a couple of the Burris over the VXII cause the price wa better and looking through them side X side the Burris was a cleaner scope. If I put somebody out of work for makeing an inferior product makes me a bad guy than that is what I will always be.

I bout 2 pairs of Danners one pair of hikers one pair hunting boots. The hikers made in China came apart at the stitches. I called Danner and the told me to send them in and they would fix them. I told them that that would not be an option and that from now on I would check the label before buying any more of there products and only buy the ones made in the USA.

So if it's a better product I don't realy care who makes it or where it comes from. give me quality or foreget it.

 

[moooose102]

well, yes, the toyota's and honda's are american made, but the profits go back to japan. and they have so much of our money, and soon, so will china, that eventually, they will just buy us out! they will start///corection, they have already started buying up american soil. when they own enough of it, they will simply take us over. i know that sound overly simplified. but think about it. when they OWN 60 -70 % of america. it IS GOING TO GET UGLY! the 'CORPERATE WE CAN'T COMPETE IN AMERICA" SLOGAN IS A BUNCH OF HOGWASH!!! what that means simply, is they can make millions more profits every year by having their products made overseas. in MY OPINION, they all, along with the creators of "the north american fair trade agreement" should be TRIED FOR TREASON! AND HUNG!!! when they signed that into law, they sold america to the highest bidder. and the rest of us are just along for the ride.

 

[4RAR]

Id prefer a cheaper chinese accessory that worked than no expensive American accessory that worked.

 

[Sav .250]

My money....my choices.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Made in China does not equal junk.
Made in America does not equal quality.

I suggest you take some China made items and some American made items and compare them side-by-side.

Kershaw has two lines of knives. They have thier China made stuff that is typically under $30 and thier American made line that starts at about $45. The Chinese blades are soft, easily bent and won't hold an edge for beans. The American made Kershaw stays sharp longer than a Spyderco.

Same thing goes for companies like Cold steel, except that it is the China vs. Japanese made models.

I can also tell you that those who believe the imported cars are universally better than domestics are sorely mistaken. It has to be considered model by model. I work in a shop that is within a county where roughly 2/3 of the vehicles registered are domestic. Obviously, the number of American trucks we work on is far greater than the number of Japanese trucks, simply because for every one Tundra or Titan on the road, there are about 12 Fords, 10 Chevy's and 9 Dodges. But the split for sedans is pretty equal, as are the repair costs and frequency. Let's take for example, my 1999 Dodge intrpid Vs. my sisters 1998 Honda Civic. I choose these two as an example, because both are meticulously maintained by me. I have just over 106K on my Intrepid. Aside from routine mantenance and my 105 K service (timing belt, spark plugs), the only parts I've had to replace were the digital climate control panel (went blank) and the master window switch (auto down quit working). My sister's Civic had to have replaced both CV axles, a left window regulator, a rear main crank seal (and clutch, since it was 3/4 worn and we were already there) and struts before 100K. Additionally, her scheduled maintenance intervals for major stuff like the timing belt is 60K instead of 105k. In other words, the cost of ownership on her Honda has exceeded my Intrepid to the point where the disparity in fuel economy is a moot point. And she doesn't pay for labor.

That was a little atypical, but I will tell you that on average, the cost of ownership on a Japanese car is roughly equal to an American car. THe less frequent repairs on Jap cars are offset by the substantiallly higher cost of routine maintenance. Average Timing belt service for a Jap automobile runs very near $1,000. Most Domestics don't even use timing belts.

 

[jackstinson]

Honda is 100% American made and Toyota has a plant here also. GE, Ford and Chevy chose to take advantage of Americans and moved the jobs to Mexico thanks to NAFTA. Now that we are buying economical cars like Civic and Prius that are still made here

"100% American made" with a fair percentage of off-shore produced components. The Honda wire assemblies installed in cars "assembled" in Ohio were actually made in Mexican factories the last time I checked. As are many GM and Ford wire assemblies.
"Made In America" ofttimes really means "assembled in America".
Not to mention good old "American Ford"...two of their top selling vehicles are simply Mazdas with Ford emblems stuck on them.
Jack

 

[MakAttak]

There is so much bad economics here (Sans has it right though) that is makes me weep for my country and our deplorable educational system.

This, however, was particularly egregious:

I haven't seen anything SA has said that refutes my assertion that our money going to China is a bad thing. While you and I are paying on a 35% inflation rate now because China is buying up comodities and building up a society that will take even more isn't good for America.

Wow, you want to keep the rest of the world in poverty, filth and disease.

Because that's exactly what you said. You are afraid of "bulding up another society." If it doesn't get built up, it stays in huts and mud.

I guess that's ok, those people are stinking foreigners and they deserve to have a life that sucks.

Also, since we don't want anything to change in this country, I guess we had better stop inventing new technology.

Oh, how I wish we lived with 70's technology, life was far better than.

 

[RedLion]

Toyota Tundra, Honda Accord, Subaru vehicles are made in the U.S.

Chevrolet has been shipping cars to plants in South Korea and Canada and Mexico. The new Holden platform was designed in Australia.

Ford has been failing miserably and the only brand they have that's succeeding is Mazda.

Buy American? Which one is American?

Trade helps everyone. China sells stuff to us, they take our money and want to buy stuff as well. Do you think China is a Monetary Black Hole? They might be better at saving money and being more fiscally responsible, but they need more hi-tech stuff to buy anyway, whether it's computers to keep track of money or weather its American/European brand cars(they won't buy Japanese) or other things.

I could say the same thing about states like New York, and how all of our(minnesota) money goes to New York in thier Financial Institutions. It's an easy arguement to make except when you look at where New York gets its food or 3M office products. I always laugh when Super Rich Saudi Princes show up at the Mayo Clinic here in Rochester MN, because I can tell you that Mayo is making them PAY BIG BUCKS.

I guess it comes down to Capitalism, If you can't pull your weight why should I? If your leaders can't help get a job, why should they lead? If you look past the differences between China and the U.S., I'll think you'll realize that America isn't any different than China and China isn't an Evil Empire that's hell bent on enslaving the Free World.

Think about that the next time you pay your neigbors kid to mow your lawn.



Also ask yourself this, Why did America move to be the Dominant world super-power? were we really that good?

Or was it that Europe had just been annilated and every European nation had just blown their entire populations and Money on killing eachother and we happened to step in at the right time?

Did Japan Industrializing have any negative effects on the U.S.? Not really when you consider the 90s was the most lucrative time in U.S. history including the 'roaring 20s'.


You can buy only American products, but I will buy the products I want to buy and spend the savings on my education so I can succeed in a competetive, capitalist world, because communism or socialism will not come back.

 

[MakAttak]

I could say the same thing about states like New York, and how all of our(minnesota) money goes to New York in thier Financial Institutions. It's an easy arguement to make except when you look at where New York gets its food or 3M office products. I always laugh when Super Rich Saudi Princes show up at the Mayo Clinic here in Rochester MN, because I can tell you that Mayo is making them PAY BIG BUCKS.

It's even worse!

I go to Wal-Mart, Safe-Way, Panera, even the local gun stores and restuarants (particularly La Tolteca, man that place is addictive) and they DON'T BUY ANYTHING from me!!!!!

I must be getting screwed.

 

[Macpherson]

Take a look at this article, counterfeiting in China is a far greater problem than most of us realize. Some of those counterfeiters actually charged royalties to subcontractors for their fake products
http://www.popsci.com/iclone

Innovation is one thing, blatant theft and profit from other companies' intellectual property is quite another. China is growing as a world power, and they have a sovreign right to that, but their lax intellectual property laws are costing American and Japanese countries billions of dollars every year.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

This has wandered way off topic.