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Bill Hamilton

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Did you all see that Diane Sawyer has a special report coming up this week on this very subject. They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family
 
So why quit after one month? That's the problem in America, no will power to go the distance.
 
This 'don't buy China' has been in the news with various programs for the last 3-4 weeks. It's an interesting series, but here is the real problem.



We as Americans are demanding affordable prices and lower prices. This is in big part, the reason why WalMart has been so profitable and why their market share keeps going up.



Anyone remember when 'Sam' used to advertise and promote the 'Made in America' theme at WalMart? It was the cornerstone of his stores and marketing. Certainly don't see that today.



Additionally, many products that we consider essential, are simply not made here in the US anymore. The list includes (but is not limited to):



Applicances

Televisions (long gone from our shores)

Clothing

Computers

Food products that are out of season (we want them year round, no matter where they are grown)



And the list goes on.



Tex

 
I buy US when I can, and if not at least this hemisphere. We all should consider the sources...... sometimes you MAY have to pay a pinch more but is worth it, at least to me. I'm in the rag business and even though most Central American products may say Made in Honduras or El Salvador, 95% of the components are still from the US. So given the choice, most Western manufactured goods often do still help the US economy. Plus most of these countries do respect us. It is not common to find US components in Far Eastern products. There are still ample, competitively priced items from this hemisphere, some electronics not so much.
 
OK... after hearing this for about the millionth time, I decided it was time to "bone up" on some real world Macroeconomics, and my class and the subsequent research that went along with it verified what I have been thinking all along.



First off, lets deal with Diane Sawyer. Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in English. One semester of law school. Then, directly into journalism. She served in politics starting in 1970, specializing in journalism. Later, she moved on to being a correspondent, co-anchor, and finally anchor. Pure journalist. Guess she should have spent some of those early years in politics boning up on Economic policy, because she's going about her research and reporting in a very one-sided way, which doesn't tell anywhere close to the whole truth.



Secondly, let me state this publicly - I'm an American, a Veteran, and a Taxpayer. I lean FAR to the right. Just so we are clear on that. :D



Ok... moving right along to why I'm posting here - People aren't seeing the WHOLE picture. Instead of retyping everything I just wrote for a Macroeconomics course question response, here is the cut and paste of my actual submission to the question "Discuss the ideas in Real World Applications on: "Made in China". I didn't pull this out the old rear end folks. I researched it. Here is my response. You don't have to agree with it, but please think about it for a minute, and conduct your own research before jumping on the "Don't buy Chinese Products" bandwagon. Yeah... it may not be MADE here, but Americans are still involved in "Made in China" - So if you don't buy Chinese (or other countries products), your actions aren't totally aimed at the foreign countries - you are also affecting TONS of American jobs.



Here is my reply:



"Items
 
Bill, the wife & I have been trying to buy USA for the last year it is hard to find some things but it can be done. The worst place is the grocery store not just China any foreign country we try to buy only USA.:wacko:
 
Glenn- Like you say "you" are not an economist, nor am I. My post was meant to open up a dialogue about wwbuying from a country who has labor laws which can undercut ANYTHING we can do with the price of a product. I am old enough to remember when my father would say don't buy J*p junk (no offense meant) It used to be absolute junk but now they make some of the best electronic stuff in the world. Goes to show you. Maybe we can hear from an economist on the subject. I too try and buy American but didn't realize it branched out into the food we eat also. Sorry if I offended anyone
 
Bill,

You didn't offend, and I sincerely hope I didn't either. That was not my intention. My intention was to tell another side of the story. My professor (Dr.) is an economist.

All the best,

Glenn
 
Glenn some of your points are valid, but the merchandising and design work is shifting towards the country of manufacture, and in addition many products are being cloned or even illegally copied. It is not a fair and level playing field. Take IBM Thinkpads. Lenovo now owns the brand, manufacturing, design, etc. Granted this is not the norm, but if it becomes more the norm, there will be significant losses. I visited a factory a few years back in Asia that had over 100 design and merchandising staff. That will get your attention. What they try to do is to charge very low amounts for the service, then you restructure as you then don't need these functions. Once they are gone, they are gone for good. It is a tangled web, and not everyone knows how to negotiate it to protect the long term business, especially when short term dollars can look so attractive. Now, let's go fishing.
 
I wonder how much of our fishing gear is made in another country- depth finders, GPS, electronic fuel injection systems, reels, line, lures, tow vehicles.



Im just saying............
 
Thats a good question Ken s. maybe one some don't want to know the answer too!!
 
I'll weigh in not as economist, but from the perspective of a real live US business professional and my company's real experience. First of all as it relates to the Diane Sawyer perspective, I agree probably geting a partial story to support whatever position they decide to take on the issue.



Now on to a real import story. My company is an private family owned business located in the USA. We are considered the industry leader in our markets with innovative/pateneted products and have been around since the mid 70's. A few years ago we started getting calls into our service looking for service parts on our products. When asked where the person on the phone had purchased the product the stores(well known big box stores)were not ones that we were selling product through anymore. We had, but mysteriously after a number of successful years and no real reason they had not renewed the business that year. As the calls for warranty parts increased we began to investigate in more detail and asked one of the customers to send in the owners manual to make sure that they were ordering the right parts. What we received in the mail from this customer was very disturbing and the beginning of what ultimately became a 2 year(and 7-figure legal bills) trek through the International trade commission and world trade organization mazes. What did we receive in the mail. It was our own owners manual directly copied on a cheap copy machine with another Chineese companies name and logo page replacing our front page only. We then had the customer ship us the actual product and it turned out to be a direct, but cheap copy of our US patent protected product being produced in a factory in China. Not only did they copy the product they were so bold to actually use our own manual with our part numbers and our own customer service numbers so we were unknowningly providing warranty coverage for thier products before we figured out something was wrong because we never experienced this type of warranty percentage on ours.



Turns out they were importing copies of complete products to our retail customers at what we were paying for material only. Now both me and my company are capalists so the issue is not competition, but FAIR competition. Fortunatley, we were able to prove through the anti-dumping lawsuit that the Chinese imports were being heavily subsidized through low cost government tooling, currency manipulation, labor abuses, patent infringment, etc. In fact our government was so overwelmed with our data/facts that the penalty phase of the trial resulted in double the penalty tariffs than what we requested to only level the playing field on the cost side. They were still allowed to import, but now on a level playing field.



The result was all of our customers came running back to buy American once all things we equalized. Now fast forward to today. Once again for 2011 we lost a few accounts that we had seen issues with before with no notice. Once the stores were stocked for the spring season guess what we found. The same chinese product back on the shelves without the leveling tariffs being paid. Upon further investigation we found that to get around the anti-dumping lawsuit the products were being re-directed through Taiwan so they appear to not be coming directly from the same factories in China. Obviously we are headed back down the same legal road as before.



Sorry for the long post, but I have very specific and direct knowledge of the details of what really goes on as it relates to low cost country sourcing and it definately is not fair or legitimate in some cases. This story is sad for both the cheap copier type companies in china as well as the unscrupulous domestic buyers that keep looking for loopholes. I could go into much greater details on exactly how the bad chinese companies game the system from my direct experience, but long enough already.
 
Born In the USA..I buy In the USA...I would hope WHEN you CAN you will buy made In the USA.. I just ordered a new set of Ping golf clubs and now they are made In China,Assembled In the USA,I never thought that would happen..Sad part they are all made In stalls In China,side by side.....JR:D
 
Obviously, Downstream has a very valid point, and that type of situation infuriates me. Totally wrong, and we should have better enforcement policies in place to avoid the legal hassles and costs to legitimate US companies.



However... Thats an example (a very good one) of the wrong way from a Chinese company. Because that company did it (and yes... There are many more like it) we should boycott ALL Chinese made products?



Same thing happens right here in the states folks! That's why we have patent laws. But even then, all the competitor has to do is change something a certain percentage and it's around the patent. OR - the company is so large and powerful they simply say "sue us", and the small company lawyer has to take on the well versed big-dogs... And still end up losing. Or the small company can't even afford to bring a big manufacturer to court. So do we boycott American products as well that fall under those situations? You might be surprised to know that some of your favorite brands exercise those types of business practices all the time, and Americans continue to support them.



All the best,

Glenn
 
We've lost sight of something Bill mentioned in the beginning and that is safety of the products coming from China. I saw a documentary a few weeks back that reported on seafood and other food products being imported from China to the U.S. Cameras followed the product from beginning to end. Tilapia and shrimp from one source were being raised within 50 yards downstream of an open sewer! The mandrian oranges that were mentioned above have the membranes removed with lye. Now I don't have a problem with that if it is FOODGRADE lye (hominy is made this way), but the report showed the use of industrial grade lye to slip the membranes. Our FDA is not doing enough on our end to protect the American public (and that is why they exist)from tainted, toxic, and generally unsafe consumables coming from China and elsewhere.



Scott
 
Glenn, I agree with you but the real question is "why" the Chinese, Japanese or other countries can produce and assemble cheaper than we can here. I don't want to get into a Union slugfest but I suspect our American worker is afforded a much higher standard of living with greater benefits. Just because the American consumer wants it cheaper they, for the most part, will not understand or care if it was manufactured in a sweatshop with near slave labor. We as a nation are to blame for this and not the foreign manufacturers. Do you think "The People of Wal-Mart" will understand this concept? I know I went to the bottom rung and we all fall somewhere between them and a PHD Economist but Bill's post just indicates the degree to which we depend on foreign manufacturing. Personally, I just want a choice and it is a shame that other red-blooded American companies cannot compete with the overseas market. If the product you buy is a pie, in your senerio the American portion is a small piece of the crust. With the amount of $$ we are talking about, we deserve more especially since it is the US consumer doing the buying. Mac can chime in on the import tariffs on US autos. If we charged them at the same rate they charge us, the US would be flush with profits. Politics can be blamed for a lot of that as well.



Downstream made a perfect point. When the competition becomes illegal, you need to attack it but as he found out, after a cooling off period they are right back at it. Here's my little contribution. I was at an upper management meeting in Washington about a month ago and for a speaker we had one of our own internal Economists. I'll bet we went through 20 slides of "economic indicators", "indexes", "economic trend forecasts" "profitability and manufacturing" stats, "economic growth measurements", "banking trends" etc. ad-nausium... Then this expert got to one slide....."JOBS"....it was a negative, had been a negative for a long time and was predicted to continue to be in the red going forward.... meaning we are losing jobs and not replacing them. At this point I raised my hand, walked up to the microphone and in front of around 200 senior executives I asked one question. "If we are losing jobs, where is the money going to come from for our economy to recover?".....and I went on to say that every chart, graph, trend and forecast is totally mute/irrelevant if we, as a functioning economy, cannot create and sustain jobs. It's like a body with no blood, it will not survive. His response........... "It's always fun to play stump the Economist isn't it?" I was appalled and shocked that a pure novice could, in essence, stump an "Economist". I finished up saying that once the Federal Government stops the wholesale printing of money and ends all of the "stimulus", then and only then will we recover and have it be sustainable. He was red-faced and I saw the meat hook coming from behind the stage so I quietly sat down.



TOXIC
 
Hi Glenn



Now that this country has gone half cycle in this situation, I think people have learned first hand the consequences of buying products made outside of this country. A lot more people are now prepared to by US made if they have the choice even if the cost is higher.



Regarding your premise that losing blue collar jobs results in more white collar jobs ... does this assume that more product is sold if manudactured overseas? If the same amount of product is sold independent of where it's made wouldn't the number of white collar jobs (sales, marketing, distribution) be the same and the net is a loss in jobs? I know there will be some additional white collar jobs to manage the overseas business, etc. but my guess is that does not come close to making up for the loss of blue collar jobs.



Paul
 
We need jobs and if we(Americans) are not producing products then, what are we producing?
 
If we're not producing "goods"...then we're only producing "services",..and that's where this country is headed,......and even the "services" are being outsourced...ever call a help line for anything?? Chances are you'll be speaking to a foreigner.



It's all about PROFIT and PRICE in this country,......and deffinitely DON'T blame the chinese....they're only taking what we GIVE them....and with the BILLIONS of people they have in their labor force,..they don't have to pay them squat, because they have no healthcare, no unions, no benefits and virtually no power to demand anything. If a worker doesn't like his/her environment or terms...there's 1 billion other people there that will gladly accept those terms.



All we care about here is "how much is this going to cost ME?!" VERY few Americans give a 2nd thought to what their purchase means to "other Amercians" in the long term. We are a very self centered, all about ME society.,...and now, we are seeing what happens to an economy when that kind of thought process goes into a purchase.



The fact that China OWNS most of the US debt,..not to mention our property is downright scary...blame the big business and our own gov't for selling us down the river in that boat....but if China ever made us "pay up NOW or we repo our assets"....we will be the "United States of China". It's not their fault.......we did it to ourselves in the name of profit, greed and low prices..........and a few billion in "stimulus" bandaids!!:angry:
 
Yeah but dammit, what about me?:p



You hit the nail on the head! Cheaper is not better:angry:
 
If we're not producing "goods"...then we're only producing "services",..and that's where this country is headed,......and even the "services" are being outsourced...ever call a help line for anything?? Chances are you'll be speaking to a foreigner.



It's all about PROFIT and PRICE in this country,......and deffinitely DON'T blame the chinese....they're only taking what we GIVE them....and with the BILLIONS of people they have in their labor force,..they don't have to pay them squat, because they have no healthcare, no unions, no benefits and virtually no power to demand anything. If a worker doesn't like his/her environment or terms...there's 1 billion other people there that will gladly accept those terms.



All we care about here is "how much is this going to cost ME?!" VERY few Americans give a 2nd thought to what their purchase means to "other Amercians" in the long term. We are a very self centered, all about ME society.,...and now, we are seeing what happens to an economy when that kind of thought process goes into a purchase.



The fact that China OWNS most of the US debt,..not to mention our property is downright scary...blame the big business and our own gov't for selling us down the river in that boat....but if China ever made us "pay up NOW or we repo our assets"....we will be the "United States of China". It's not their fault.......we did it to ourselves in the name of profit, greed and low prices..........and a few billion in "stimulus" bandaids!!
Click to expand...



Very well said Mac. Most of what you posted was what I was trying to convey. I fully agree with "Don't blame the Chinese" (except the ones that copy our products and do unscrupulous things like Downstream pointed out). We may not like it, but boycotting Chinese products is not going to fix it.



Unfortunately, we already have moved to a much more service-based vice product-based country. We still produce physical goods, but we also have jumped into the "services" business quite a bit. Our "comparative advantage" is no longer just one of product for product. It's also one of product for services. One of the examples given in my "Made in China" lesson was that of a kids toy. The figures provided stated that out of the $15 retail cost of one of those toys, $12 can be accounted for by something other than manufacturing. The dolls were made overseas, but the other money may have remained here, paying US citizens to do a job related to the toy sales. Not only design and advertising, but also distribution of the product. China gets a $3 cut per toy for the manufacturing in that example. So if you boycott that "Made in China" toy, who are you really hurting? Only 1/5 of the money is related to the overseas manufacturer. The other 4/5 of the lost sale affects Americans as well. Food for thought.



Even large quantity shipping and packaging can be outsourced. I recently picked up a box of blank CD's. The product was noted as "Made in China. Packaged in Japan".



Please also realize that some companies are in-sourcing to the US, just the same as we outsource. Pharmaceutical companies, computer companies, and even some foreign auto manufacturers are now in-sourcing parts and other items to the US. Yes, I know about the tariff injustice compared to American auto's. Who is to blame for that? The foreign manufacturer, or our own government who failed to negotiate or levy the tariffs correctly? Those companies also employ US citizens, even if a large portion of the profits are owned by another country.



I don't understand how to decipher the accounting documents for US debt, but it's available through the Treasury Bulletin. The last figure I have was a December 2008 pie chart. For ownership of Government Debt, this is what it showed:



Foreign individuals and firms - 29%

US individuals and firms - 26%

Other US government trust funds - 19%

Social Security trust fund - 21%

Federal Reserve - 5%



So... most of our government debt is owned by... the US government.



The China college video about them owning us is a wake up, but it's not nearly as bad as some made it out to be. But if we aren't turning it around NOW... it very well could be.



All the best,

Glenn







 
What a can of worms. I am not going to weigh in on the discussion, but I do try to by American made products.
 
The good news/bad news about developing economies such as china is that they are only the latest in what is really a century old process. Robert Reisch(President Clinton's secretary of labor I beleive) wrote a book many years ago called "the work of nations" and it chronicles the process of any developing economic country as it moves from 3rd world to the ultimate consumer based society as ours. It has been going on for much longer than any of us have been around. China is just the latest. We do actually source a few other parts from there and have found a few good companies no different than any here in the states, however here is part of the equation. 5 years ago the average worker in these plants would make the equivelent of $.30-$.50 /hour. Now as they have begun to grow and need more workers to leave the farms and stay in the factory complex they have had to up the wages to about $1.30-1.50/hr. As you can see any part or product that is labor intensive quickly becomes un-competitive even at our minimum wage. You do have to add in transport cost such as $4000-6000 per container etc, but generally you will still see a major advantage. Even if you don't want to head down that road if even one of your competitors does and resets the pricing for your products here in the states you have to follow just to stay even and not loose market share. Somewhat of a death spiral. As China continues to grow a middle class based on more consumer spending their costs will continue to climb and they will progress further down the economic scale. I would put them in the 1920's point of time where the labor class is beginning to realize they have some power to begin to impact the wages and working conditions issues we had back in those days also. This will increase their cost to produce which begins to close the gap between here and there. We had our first major in-source (China back to US) early this year when we moved some parts back to a Midwest supplier after getting them from China for years. Bad news is that Vietnam, India, and South America are right behind China so people will begin to move to those countries next. And then the cycle continues.



My baseline is that I am a capalist that has no problem buying the highest quality product I can from whereever as long as I am reasonably comfortable that the playing field is level. On the other side some people argue that we in the US have some of the most government subsidized industries in the world such as Agriculture, anything "green", States handing out money to companies to relocate or stay, etc so we should also recognize how we may appear to others. Once again I am primarily intersted in a level playing field and then let the best man/company win.



I love a good political debate and have no problem listening to other opposing views. I think it helps us all better understand the reality we live in today.
 
Totally agree Downstream,....that's one of the things I love about this website the most. There's a bunch of bright peeps in here and we can talk about anything with a great deal of passion and facts that make us ALL a little more "worldly" and educated at the same time, without getting nasty and or personal. This place is rare...and we are all better because of it!! I love this forum!:wub:
 
"....until the skirt picture come out....."



Uhhh.... No. That was the BEST part. :lol::lol::lol:



Seriously - a true pleasure to be among such great company here.



All the best,

Glenn

 
I'm suprised it wasn't brought up yet......the Chinese people make the best chinese food!! Maybe it's the secret ingredients, not sure, but I've never been able to make fried rice at home that was as good as chinese takeout!! :D
 
No kidding Bob! Life without the occasional Pu-pu platter isn't much of a life at all! :lol: That aside, I try to spend the majority of my money here in the good 'ol USA. ;)
 
Yhe food does keep down the ferral dog and cat population. Tastes just like chicken. LOL
 
Then noone would buy the big 3 vehicles either. Geez GM closed a plant in LA cuz of parts shortages from Japan, and they make silverados there:blink:
 
Ranger boat - American

Mercury outboard - American

Lowrance graphs - American

Castaway rods - Texan (Still American)

Ford Truck - mostly American ha...

Winchester rifles and shotgun American (back before they started importing)

Remington rifles " "

S&W pistols - made in MA (kind of American)



I do my best to buy American but you have to look closely. And even if you buy American products, they usually have Chinese or Japanese components like my Ford truck!



Bought a new trout rod yesterday. Gander Mtn guide series....made in China. Couldn't afford the St Croix.
 
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