quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
On a consumer level, probably not. We created a monster that we can't defeat because we are addicted.

For things of national security we better try. Start with medicine, follow it by computer chips, then continue down the line. It would be expensive as hell to bribe or punish production to come back home, but it's a pill we need to swallow.

The run-up to build plants and train people to run them would take no less than three years to do, and we'd somehow have to continue to buy things from them for years after taking on such an endeavor. Not sure how we'd get them to sell us what we need for our independence.

Lastly is the question of raw materials such as rare earth minerals which we would never be able to source with out relying on them.

How many people would be willing to not only give up their cheap goods, but also damage our economy for nearly a decade to pull it off?

"damage our economy for nearly a decade to pull it off" ?? So buying our own stuff, keeping our own money within our own borders, will damage our own economy. If you can afford to buy one out of ten items otherwise made in China, that's going to damage our own economy. That's defeatism as far as I'm concerned. Trump was helping people wake up to a better plan and execution. The people who don't believe that are very stupid, and the rest either don't care or are part of the machine perpetuating the problem.

The OP is looking at it the wrong way. Economies go through cycles. There WILL be a depression/ recession. When that next happens, THEN push to go back to Made In America. Everyone will be clambering to put people to work, start businesses in this country, etc.

WE ARE ALREADY IN A RECESSION.

This is a do or die situation. America is at a crossroads.

Either we get assimilated into the new world order marxist machine, or we break away and get back to our roots.

Trump is right.

I'm not necessarily lobbying for one approach vs another... but perhaps I am.

How many of you still get a sense of pride when you go out and fix or make or assemble something after you get home from your programming job, or your middle management job, or in my case your light duty job? When you have to scrub off some grease, or get an actual-gasp-callous? I know I do. I think America has lost much of the blessing that a hard day of work brings to a person, and I just think that combining a reintroduction of that work ethos to our generations with returning some of our manufacturing base to our shores might be a winning plan-IF we were willing to spend just a bit more.

I go out now and buy the same box of Raisin Bran and spend $4.97 for it that used to cost me under $3, and while I might say some little something, I walk straight past the generic stuff that's right beside it for less. Why? Because it's what I WANT.

If we could have an AMERICAN ONLY version of amazon, for example, where everything was verified to be from our shores and our hands, and you could still get it for a reasonable amount, and you'd impact people on our shores having work versus people in Indonesia, would you? Or would your need to save a couple bucks override it?

quote:

Originally posted by Nuclear:
The OP is looking at it the wrong way. Economies go through cycles. There WILL be a depression/ recession. When that next happens, THEN push to go back to Made In America. Everyone will be clambering to put people to work, start businesses in this country, etc.

I agree, a free economy by it's nature, balances out over the long term.
Economic activity heats up, prices go up due to demand, interest rates go up to compete with other investment opportunities, then things go back down until they are a good deal again and the cycle repeats. That's the Darwin version of free market capitalism, as it should be.

Unfortunately, in an effort to seem compassionate and play things to their advantage, political leaders found that they could interfere with those economic forces of nature to their benefit.

Now we have interest rates that have been kept artificially low for well over a decade, artificial injections of cash to stimulate employment and reduce the natural effects of unemployment, distorting labor the market and other similar manipulations of the economy.

When forces of nature controlled the market, the highs didn't get so high, and the lows were painful to some, but not unbearable to society as a whole.

At some point, it's hard to see how they can keep this up without some sort of major calamity to the economy and society.

Until you make environmental laws equal everywhere the US does NOT stand a chance at bringing manufacturing back.
Countries like China have chosen profit against pollution while the US chooses to lose any chance at existing as they long as they are taking the high road on pollution control.
Labor cost were just the cover story to ship manufacturing away.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
On a consumer level, probably not. We created a monster that we can't defeat because we are addicted.

For things of national security we better try. Start with medicine, follow it by computer chips, then continue down the line. It would be expensive as hell to bribe or punish production to come back home, but it's a pill we need to swallow.

The run-up to build plants and train people to run them would take no less than three years to do, and we'd somehow have to continue to buy things from them for years after taking on such an endeavor. Not sure how we'd get them to sell us what we need for our independence.

Lastly is the question of raw materials such as rare earth minerals which we would never be able to source with out relying on them.

How many people would be willing to not only give up their cheap goods, but also damage our economy for nearly a decade to pull it off?

"damage our economy for nearly a decade to pull it off" ?? So buying our own stuff, keeping our own money within our own borders, will damage our own economy. If you can afford to buy one out of ten items otherwise made in China, that's going to damage our own economy. That's defeatism as far as I'm concerned. Trump was helping people wake up to a better plan and execution. The people who don't believe that are very stupid, and the rest either don't care or are part of the machine perpetuating the problem.

Defeatism? Nope just reality. If you raise the cost of items, people buy less. If you decrease the supply of things, costs go go up. It's ECON101.

Let's say you produce widgets. You decide that you are going to produce your widgets using all US sourced components. Your cogs and sprockets now cost 30% more than they did previously, so you need to raise the cost of your widgets by 33% to cover the costs and add 10% profit to the added costs. You end up selling less widgets initially and hopefully after some period of time people realize your widgets are now a higher quality and/or your advertising for USA made widgets eventually raises demand to the point that you now sell the same number of widgets as you did before.

This doesn't happen overnight, the business owners probably had to tighten their belts and cuts raises/bonuses or pass along higher health care cost to the employees as well. It will not be painless, I'm sorry, that's just a fact. I am only talking about one company here, now multiply that times all of our economy.

The first steps will be the most painful. I suggested using medicine as one of the first steps. There are a lot of people that make hard choices on medicine. People go without food, or select a cheaper, but less effective medicine. How do we bridge that gap when granny is deciding between paying the electric bill or life saving medicine? It will require subsidies and tax incentives to cover granny and to get the companies to move back. Where does the money for such programs come from? Tax payers.

I needed to purchase new work boots today. First stop, I look at Brahma brand. Made in china. Herman Survivors, at more than double the price? Also made in china. Only two brands at that store that I could get in a steel toe.

Across the highway, to the farm store. More brands to choose from. Lots of china made. Ugh. Wound up buying some Carolina brand. Lesser evil, I guess. Made in Vietnam. Hope they last a while. At least they fit well.

Made in Vietnam > China.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
On a consumer level, probably not. We created a monster that we can't defeat because we are addicted.

For things of national security we better try. Start with medicine, follow it by computer chips, then continue down the line. It would be expensive as hell to bribe or punish production to come back home, but it's a pill we need to swallow.

The run-up to build plants and train people to run them would take no less than three years to do, and we'd somehow have to continue to buy things from them for years after taking on such an endeavor. Not sure how we'd get them to sell us what we need for our independence.

Lastly is the question of raw materials such as rare earth minerals which we would never be able to source with out relying on them.

How many people would be willing to not only give up their cheap goods, but also damage our economy for nearly a decade to pull it off?

"damage our economy for nearly a decade to pull it off" ?? So buying our own stuff, keeping our own money within our own borders, will damage our own economy. If you can afford to buy one out of ten items otherwise made in China, that's going to damage our own economy. That's defeatism as far as I'm concerned. Trump was helping people wake up to a better plan and execution. The people who don't believe that are very stupid, and the rest either don't care or are part of the machine perpetuating the problem.

Defeatism? Nope just reality. If you raise the cost of items, people buy less. If you decrease the supply of things, costs go go up. It's ECON101.

Let's say you produce widgets. You decide that you are going to produce your widgets using all US sourced components. Your cogs and sprockets now cost 30% more than they did previously, so you need to raise the cost of your widgets by 33% to cover the costs and add 10% profit to the added costs. You end up selling less widgets initially and hopefully after some period of time people realize your widgets are now a higher quality and/or your advertising for USA made widgets eventually raises demand to the point that you now sell the same number of widgets as you did before.

This doesn't happen overnight, the business owners probably had to tighten their belts and cuts raises/bonuses or pass along higher health care cost to the employees as well. It will not be painless, I'm sorry, that's just a fact. I am only talking about one company here, now multiply that times all of our economy.

The first steps will be the most painful. I suggested using medicine as one of the first steps. There are a lot of people that make hard choices on medicine. People go without food, or select a cheaper, but less effective medicine. How do we bridge that gap when granny is deciding between paying the electric bill or life saving medicine? It will require subsidies and tax incentives to cover granny and to get the companies to move back. Where does the money for such programs come from? Tax payers.

ECON 101. Really ? Yea that must be it. The economy is not a bunch price demand curves of varying elasticities. Not everyone buys the cheapest stuff they can find. And many that have to don't like it either. And contrary to your government programs to fix this shit, you forgot what Regan said that the government helped create this shit. So go ahead and buy your cheap stuff, pay higher taxes to fund your government programs to help the little people, and drag down our economy to the lowest common denominator with China stealing our lunch money into the forseeable future. I'm glad you know how to fix it, with more help from the government and ECON 101.

I designed and had manufactured a battery charger for my aviation Garmin 496. I am a vet, lifetime pro pilot, and American flag-waver.

But when I TRIED to manufacture my product in the USA, the lowest bid I got to JUST make the shell was $55,000.

I probed China and their cost was $1,300................AND INCLUDED ALL THE ELECTRONICS!! Plus they made a prototype overnight and I had it in my hands in a couple of days. Simply put, the product would not exist without being made in China. I've sold close to a thousand and have never had one returned.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/33388...3:g:fEUAAOSwopRYe~Z2

quote:

Originally posted by skywag:

I designed and had manufactured a battery charger for my aviation Garmin 496. I am a vet, lifetime pro pilot, and American flag-waver.

But when I TRIED to manufacture my product in the USA, the lowest bid I got to JUST make the shell was $55,000.

I probed China and their cost was $1,300

It's easy to only charge $1,300 when your slave laborers...uhhh I mean "workers" are making like a dollar a day...

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:

ECON 101. Really ? Yea that must be it. The economy is not a bunch price demand curves of varying elasticities.

Not entirely, but mostly. Economists are beginning to realize that not all economic choices are rational, but they are, mostly.

If we expect government regulation and subsidies to fix the problem of increased globalization, just remember what happens every other time the government interferes in the market. We get permanent, ineffective, and damaging government regulation and subsidies. Farm programs are an excellent example. We have been saddled with farm subsidies for decades now, and do we think they are doing what we want them to do?

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:



It's easy to only charge $1,300 when your slave laborers...uhhh I mean "workers" are making like a dollar a day...

Where would you suggest they be made?

quote:

Originally posted by skywag:

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
It's easy to only charge $1,300 when your slave laborers...uhhh I mean "workers" are making like a dollar a day...

Where would you suggest they be made?

This is simply not true and repeating a lie rather than actually understanding the reality gets us nowhere. As I have posted many times, from 2011-2019 I did enough business travel in China to accumulate 2-3 years in country. I also spent at least 1/2 year accumulated in South Korea, and a couple months in Japan.

I have been to many parts of the country and seen many factories. There is no "slave labor". China is a very very capitalist country now. They don't have welfare programs except universal basic healthcare (anything better costs money) and a meager public pension system. If you want to eat you have to work, and children take care and support their elderly parents.

Yes the CCP does have it's fingers into many things, and yes they do play favorites, but ultimately, successful profitable businesses are better for China and its people, and better for the CCP. When you are skimming your cut off the top, a bigger pie means a bigger piece for the CCP. Think of the Mafia, they made the Casinos in Vegas run well, more money coming in means more money for the Mafia bosses. They didn't favor poorly run Casinos that made no money over profitable ones due to "connections". Elected politicians here do this because they favor whomever gives them the most money.

Our biggest people issue in our factories in China is turnover as high as 80%. If the workers can make a little extra at another factory nearby, they changes jobs. They do not get paid $1 a day. Several years ago pay was about $4000-$5000 a year, but it's going up. That's more like $2 an hour. They are free to leave any time. The work hours are not sweatshop rates. They are normally 8 hour days 5 days a week, unless overtime is needed to make production. Remember the Chinese government would prefer more people employed then fewer people employed working more hours, so they restrict overtime and you will see 3 shift operations instead of how the US usually does it with 2 shifts working 12 hours. The cost of US benefits is so high that the OT is cheaper than hiring another shift of people.

Now Xinjiang is different. But I don't think anyone is really telling the truth about the situation. China says nothing going on, and anti-China people say it's a concentration camps and genocide. The truth is somewhere in the middle. My take is that the Chinese government is on a mission to eliminate the Muslim religion from China after seeing how much trouble radical muslims have caused in the US, Europe, and Middle East. They aren't going to let that shit happen in China so either give up the religion and be an obedient Chinese citizen or we will "re-educate" it out of you. If you refuse to give it up, you will be detained until you do. Mao tried to exterminate religion and many Chinese are atheists. Several Chinese people have told me they grew up seeing ethnic minorities like Uighurs (China recognizes almost 50 ethnic minority groups in additional to the dominant Han Chinese) getting preferential treatment, allowed to have more than one child, free college tuition or scholarships, and many other "minority" benefits. Not that different than it is here.

Japan had cheap labor and manufacturing moved there first. Then wages and standards of living rose and South Korea and Taiwan became more cost effective. Then wages and standards of living rose in those places, and mainland China became more cost effective. Now SE Asia is rising and China is seeing things like clothing and shoe manufacturing moving to Vietnam and other places.

And YES, Chinese complain about their jobs moving south of the border. I learned this from an ethnically Korean Chinese that was in fabric manufacturing. The big industrial looms need skilled operators, maintenance, a stable power grid, etc. But cutting and sewing is done anywhere you can get a woman in front of a sewing machine - Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam - wherever it cheapest.

China's demographic implosion will happen in the next 40-50 years. 40 years of 1 child policy means there is a huge population drop coming as all of those single-child parents retire and die, removing two people from the population and leaving only one in their place. The only way out is to immigrate a ton of people from SE Asia, OR to industrialize farming like in the US, increase yield per farmer dramatically, and relocate the farmers to the cities to replace the aging population.

China breaks all the economic rules and gets away with it because they have 1.4B people and are the largest market in the world. They lead the world in consumption of luxury goods. The shopping malls put Beverly Hills, the Magnificent Mile, and 5th Avenue to shame. They have high tariffs and force companies to set up factories in China, often in a joint venture with a Chinese company. You can't import goods into China without doubling the price, so only price-no-object goods are imported. It works because no company wants to miss out on the Chinese market. All western economic theory says low tariffs are better because it lowers costs, improves the standard of living, and reduces inflation. More velocity of money and more trade is good. This is true for smaller countries that cannot compel foreign investment to access their markets. Brazil tries to do what China does with high tariffs but they are not a big enough market to pull it off and it causes all kinds of problems.

Environmental laws are catching up. Beijing is horribly polluted. But now they have implemented vehicle emissions regulations that are equivalent to US and Europe. We need to put abatement systems on factory exhausts that we don't have in the US. Paint systems need abatement and charcoal filtering to remove the smell from the exhaust. The Chinese project managers asked corporate for help on how to do it and we don't know because we don't have to do it here! They have a long way to go, but they are implementing the rules as the economy is able to deal with them - go too strict too fast and you kill growth. The US did the same thing - 100 years of industrialization before the EPA was founded.

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:



ECON 101. Really ? Yea that must be it. The economy is not a bunch price demand curves of varying elasticities. Not everyone buys the cheapest stuff they can find. And many that have to don't like it either. And contrary to your government programs to fix this shit, you forgot what Regan said that the government helped create this shit. So go ahead and buy your cheap stuff, pay higher taxes to fund your government programs to help the little people, and drag down our economy to the lowest common denominator with China stealing our lunch money into the forseeable future. I'm glad you know how to fix it, with more help from the government and ECON 101.

You seem to be very angry at me, economics, and God knows what else. Still you have not offered any solutions. So if it's not with a carrot and a stick, how do you propose we get them to return manufacturing to the US? How do you guarantee costs stay the same as producing overseas? How do you get goods into the hands of those that can barely afford to buy things now?

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:



ECON 101. Really ? Yea that must be it. The economy is not a bunch price demand curves of varying elasticities. Not everyone buys the cheapest stuff they can find. And many that have to don't like it either. And contrary to your government programs to fix this shit, you forgot what Regan said that the government helped create this shit. So go ahead and buy your cheap stuff, pay higher taxes to fund your government programs to help the little people, and drag down our economy to the lowest common denominator with China stealing our lunch money into the forseeable future. I'm glad you know how to fix it, with more help from the government and ECON 101.

You seem to be very angry at me, economics, and God knows what else. Still you have not offered any solutions. So if it's not with a carrot and a stick, how do you propose we get them to return manufacturing to the US? How do you guarantee costs stay the same as producing overseas? How do you get goods into the hands of those that can barely afford to buy things now?

Your statement "How many people would be willing to not only give up their cheap goods, but also damage our economy for nearly a decade to pull it off?", seems to imply:

1. Not many people would be willing to give up cheap Chinese producs. That statement sounds condescending and insulting to a very large segment of American buyers who are begging and waiting for any US manufacturer to make anything they're forced to buy from China today. I know lots of people in this group. I'm one of them. I don't know anyone who doesn't want to give up (not "their", but China's) cheap goods.

2. Americans who would otherwise buy US made products, if they could, would be damaging our own economy. That sounds like something a communist would say or maybe someone who hates capitalism based economies or soneone who hates our country. Or maybe I'm not as smart as I think I am, and you're not explaining yourself very effectively, or both.

3. I don't think it would take a decade to pull anything like that off. And what the hell is pulling what off and by how long ? I buy US made tools, when I could have bought lesser tools from China. And it didn't take a decade. Taking a decade to buy any US made products sounds like you're insulting Americans who purchase US made products on purpose every day all day long.

4. What the hell is ECON101? Are you insulting eveyone who knows a little more about the economy than some pinhead professor who never ran a business or met payroll ? Why insult good Sigforum people like they forgot anything they learned in some freshman college course. I hope you were kidding.

And FWIW, I'm just generally pissed about anything China for lots of reasons everyone on this board already knows about.

And don't forget, but you obviously DID - Trump started us down that road in 4 years by taking names and kicking ass and shitcanning pinheads that sound like the solution you just gave us, aka the impossible you apparently believe.

I don't like defeatism when it comes to America.

Quick Made in America story.

Friend of mine owns a small business that makes photography camera bags and straps. Made in the USA. All materials sourced in USA.

He set out to find a supplier of a simple "made in USA" tag that could be sewn to each bag/strap. Took him 4 weeks to find a supplier of this item that was not in China.

Short answer? Absolutely not.

Long answer? Still no, but you wouldn't want to, globally we can however move away from Chinese manufacturing. That is a step that's occurring now with moves to SEA and the Indian sub-continent. Chinese labor costs are on the rise and that's going to price them out of the market, additionally they're not in a place to move to a more service based economy either as the central planners don't have the means to plan that sort of economy, nor do they have the ability to move into high tech manufacturing as the designs would be stolen that's why South Korea and Taiwan lead in that space. Of course the designs for that high tech still come from right here in the good ol' US of A.

You want people to do turn 160 degrees and start making good decisions ?

Not one of America's strong points.