Heres a link from a recent CNN article done in my shop 
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2007/11/19/hunter.made.in.the.usa.still.cnn
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2007/11/19/hunter.made.in.the.usa.still.cnn
made in the USA? Where has it gone?
- Thread starter got hp
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I've tried to stop buying any made in china crap for the last year. Its really tough but its possible. Anything from food to clothes to electronics. I dont mine supporting any of the other places like India, Malaysia, Taiwan..etc...just not China.
There are so many horrifying stories that chinese companies have done to cut corners and make more money, at the expense of our health and safety (the pet scandal, fake toothpaste...etc) that I give no more of my money there. None.
Heck even my trusty old cast iron skillets were made in china stuff but because of the principle of it, I gave them to a charity and I went and purchased Lodge because they are still made in USA (I'm canadian but I dont mind supporting my friends down south)
I want my money to go somewhere which shows they pride themselves on what they make. The toughest thing is electronics and computer stuff but even those you can get non made in china stuff. My stereo is from the 80's and early 90's and its bits of British and American stuff so I'm all good there.
Hmmm I wonder. Is it only low end stuff that gets outsourced to China? Like lets say I purchase an SLR camera vs a consumer camera. Is it possible they'd ship the cheap stuff to be made in china and the better stuff in Japan? Gotta investigate to see if different product lines within the same companies get made in different places.
There are so many horrifying stories that chinese companies have done to cut corners and make more money, at the expense of our health and safety (the pet scandal, fake toothpaste...etc) that I give no more of my money there. None.
Heck even my trusty old cast iron skillets were made in china stuff but because of the principle of it, I gave them to a charity and I went and purchased Lodge because they are still made in USA (I'm canadian but I dont mind supporting my friends down south)
I want my money to go somewhere which shows they pride themselves on what they make. The toughest thing is electronics and computer stuff but even those you can get non made in china stuff. My stereo is from the 80's and early 90's and its bits of British and American stuff so I'm all good there.
Hmmm I wonder. Is it only low end stuff that gets outsourced to China? Like lets say I purchase an SLR camera vs a consumer camera. Is it possible they'd ship the cheap stuff to be made in china and the better stuff in Japan? Gotta investigate to see if different product lines within the same companies get made in different places.
Heres a link from a recent CNN article done in my shop
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2007/11/19/hunter.made.in.the.usa.still.cnn
Thanks for pointing this out, as the father of a 15 month old who is going to be getting this type of toy junk in the future I have a brand to look for. We bought alot of fisher price stuff and it all seems to be from overseas.
I've tried to stop buying any made in china crap for the last year. Its really tough but its possible. Anything from food to clothes to electronics. I dont mine supporting any of the other places like India, Malaysia, Taiwan..etc...just not China.
There are so many horrifying stories that chinese companies have done to cut corners and make more money, at the expense of our health and safety (the pet scandal, fake toothpaste...etc) that I give no more of my money there. None.
Heck even my trusty old cast iron skillets were made in china stuff but because of the principle of it, I gave them to a charity and I went and purchased Lodge because they are still made in USA (I'm canadian but I dont mind supporting my friends down south)
I want my money to go somewhere which shows they pride themselves on what they make. The toughest thing is electronics and computer stuff but even those you can get non made in china stuff. My stereo is from the 80's and early 90's and its bits of British and American stuff so I'm all good there.
Hmmm I wonder. Is it only low end stuff that gets outsourced to China? Like lets say I purchase an SLR camera vs a consumer camera. Is it possible they'd ship the cheap stuff to be made in china and the better stuff in Japan? Gotta investigate to see if different product lines within the same companies get made in different places.
My low end nikon "coolpix" picture taker is built in vietnam.
so would it be wrong to eat chinese food?
LOL
LOL
Unions are not responsible for corporations seeking out cheap labor. The fact of the matter is 2 dollars an hour and free lunch for a Mexican is living a life of lavish. Here in the states I have friends that make 11 dollars an hour and have to go days at a time without an actual meal just to pay for a small apartment, without benifits I might add. You can't afford to live in a first world country making third world wages unless of course you've accepted the fact that were not capable, or deserving, of handling a reasonable quality of life in the US anymore.
Also to those of you who carry the thick head, insurance is very expensive here in the US, which is another good reason our companies outsource. Why pay more for benifits here in the US than materials that go into making the product when you can just move your company to a country that has taken the socialized approach to health care and cut out that cancer all together?
Anyway, I used to be into the import thing, but times have changed, and if we don't start supporting what we have here the only thing America is going to have left is its name.
Oh so they went overseas because they had/have friends there? It's all about the mighty dollar in case you haven't noticed! I live near two Ford plants and every time negotiations come up all the employees bitch because they might have to pay a dime more for insurance or .......... I'm like STFU do you even realize how overpaid and over compensated you really are? The reality is they are doing $14 an hour jobs and they should have decent insurance to go along with it. UNIONS SUCK!!!! They are paid at least $8 an hour over what they should make. Now let's do simple math on 2,500 employees.
2500(employees)x24(an hour)=$60,000 and hour
60,000x24(3 shifts per day)=$1,440,000 a day
1,440,000x250(rough#of work days in a year)=$360,000,000 per year
now let's compare
2500x$14(what they should make)=$35,000 an hour
35,000x24(3 shifts)=$840,000
840,000x250=$210,000,000 per year
Now break it down
$360,000,000-$210,000,000=$150,000,000 savings per year!
or
$1,440,000-$840,000=$600,000 a day savings!
Now I realize the hourly top pay could be close to $16 an hour but I also didn't take into count their insurance. Which would easily tack on another $3/$4 per hour.
That my friend definately helped to push things over the ocean!:-D
Do you keep up with current events? You got your wish. If you want a job at Ford you will start out at $14 an hour. You can get up to $16 an hour. Congratulations. This was negotiated in the new contract that was just ratified. New hires, up to 20% of the plant's hourly employees, will be in this income bracket. Later, as the old farts retire these people will be able to move up to the higher, current wage.
As for getting paid "just to tighten screws" as someone else mentioned, as well as being overpaid for the work being done, here is some insight....
Have you worked on an assembly line? Have you ever ran in 1,200 10 MM screws a day (without stripping or cross threading any), along with making the assosicated wire connections, install seat frame cover panels, and pulled seatbelt retractors through the slot on those panels? This was all done on one job over 1 minute and 20 seconds in a 20 foot long work area including time to gather up your correctly colored parts for the specific vehicle and as you walked along with the vehicle.
Still doesn't sound like much? Figure out how to carry all your panels, screws, air gun (now electric, corded to a controller) or guns, and pull hook in one trip to the vehicle. Ok, not real difficult.
Then lean sideways into the vehicle to shoot the front seat mounting screws while also looking for any defects in the area you work in the vehicle (quality control). Now make the appropriate seatbelt minder and power seat wire connection and secure the connectors to the seat frame. Go around the post of the vehicle carrier and climb into the sliding door opening of the van (Mercury Villager when I worked on the line) and get on your knees with your shoulders against the back of each of the front seats for leverage to pull the seatbelt retractors through the slots on the inside seat frame cover panels. Get out of the vehicle and run the back two seat bolts. After all the bolts are installed to torque spec then stamp the "compliance" sheet with your NAME to verify that you are legally responsible for the compliance of those screws to government safety regulations for 10 years.
This was done 358 times a day. That's 1,432 screws a day, 8,592 screws in a 6 day work week, with every third Saturday off. There's a lot of responsibility there for the next 10 years.
If it is 90 degrees outside that day it is 100 degrees in the plant.
Now do this for 30 years and see what shape your body is in. Your joints are made to work X amount of times in a lifetime and working an assembly line really uses up those cycles.
The workers make the work look easy because they've done it a hundred thousand times......LITERALLY. What have you done one-hundred thousand times?? Talk about being intimately familiar with the job? If your air gun loses 5 newton meters of torque you know it because it just doesn't sound right, or it takes 0.3 of a second shorter to run each screw. More quality control.
Yup, some jobs are easier and some are much easier. We should pay these people less for those jobs, right?
For those of you that take your car to a shop to have it repaired you pay a flat hourly shop rate for labor. Let's say the rate is $65/hour, which it is in many places. Whether you get your heads changed or if you are just getting a muffler and tailpipe put on you pay THE SAME HOURLY RATE. Makes you say "HHHhhmmmmmm......" But don't worry, while you pay $65 an hour no matter which job you are getting done the guy changing the heads is being paid more than the guy doing the exhaust......but you are still getting charged the same rate.
Yup, sometimes you get a good job, sometimes a killer job, but in the end the assembly line can eat you up.
Steve
Doesn't matter to me. We live in a global economy, if I can buy the same product of equal quality and performance at a cheaper price just because it happens to be made somewhere else, you can believe I'm going to. I think as many of you have pointed out its not always that simple, many times there is a trade off between quality and price. And depending on what it is I'm buying, I will take that into consideration. But just like voters who blindly vote down party lines, only buying products made in the USA without really comparing them to what else is out there is foolish. Competition, domestic and foreign, is ultimately good for the consumer.
We`ve been transitioning from a production to a service economy for quite some time now.
We still produce alot of highly-technical products, I am not too upset about missing out on t-shirts, shoelaces, and buttons.
We still produce alot of highly-technical products, I am not too upset about missing out on t-shirts, shoelaces, and buttons.
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