Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire On the "cheap Chinese goods" conversation-

Y'all might find the book "Poorly Made in China" , by Paul Midler, to be interesting.

What’s it say?

Poor quality. Obfuscation. Subterfuge. Culture clash. And, with humor. By a guy who was an insider and dealt with hundreds of Chinese suppliers/manufacturers in various industries.

It's from 2011, is out of print, and I had to find it from the used book market.

Look on Amazon, read the reviews. Most interesting.

I will add this.
People do not enlist product production from China for,limited quantities. This generally means the same mass production machinery is used there versus anywhere else. Labor difference per piece is miniscule.
Most people cannot fathom the layers of taxes on for instance a product made of metal in the US.
Most people don't understand all the regulation/cost they are paying for the above product.
Most people would not believe the legal costs associated in all phases of above product manufacture in the US.
There is more to this as well.
I didn't realize these things until I lamented to my accountant that we could not bring my product to market here at an affordable price as hard as I tried. He gave me a much more in depth lesson than the abbreviated one I post here.
Government and the legal system ( tort reform please ) have been far and away the primary reasons China is as deep in our lives as they are.

Osky

Pard,,,,,,,you nailed it to the wall.

I've posted this before, but it's worth posting again:

I will never patronize Walmart or Sams. I hold them primarily responsible for the rise of Chiner as a world threat and for America's reliance on and addiction to cheap crap.

I hope and pray that this is a wake up call for America to rebuild and repatriate our world-leading manufacturing capabilities and companies, respectively. Perhaps Trump will be instrumental in accomplishing this goal, but I'm doubtful it will ever happen.

***

Now for my rant regarding Chinese crap, which, I penned about a year and a half ago. I've posted this before on the 'fire:

I won’t discuss my personal experiences and examples here, but every single time I have purchased a Chinese-manufactured product, I have been disappointed. The fact is that Chinese made products are built to a price-point, which often results in major quality issues. Companies choose to manufacture their goods in China for one reason and one reason only – to increase their profit margins. While there are certainly some Chinese-made products and parts that are built to a relatively high standard, i.e. Bosch, the great majority of these products are much lower quality and use inferior materials and labor than their American, German or Japanese counterparts. Even the highly-specified products Bosh has manufactured in China do not match the quality of those they once produced in Germany.

Personally, I am not interested in supporting or enriching China by purchasing their products. China is not our friend and they have all but declared economic war on America. From their currency manipulation to their push to undermine the U.S. dollar as the world’s preeminent reserve currency, China is giving their companies an unfair advantage in the world market and they are doing so at America’s expense.

Too many companies and people in America do not understand the true cost of buying products made in China. Failure to consider all costs is a problem we face as Americans when we choose a product based upon price alone, a price that is invariably cheaper for Chinese-made products.

Take, as an example, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn and Staten Island. $35m in steel production was outsourced to China, never mind that Chinese steel is inferior to steel produced in America and never mind that six bridges in China collapsed since July of 2011 (as of this initial writing(6/18)) due to inferior Chinese steel. Even the official Chinese news agency acknowledged shoddy construction and inferior building materials as contributing factors to these failures. If this isn’t enough, consider that California purchased Chinese steel to renovate and expand the Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Numerous problems with faulty Chinese welds and inferior steel led to huge delays and massive cost-overruns, which far outweighed the cost savings CA was expecting by purchasing Chinese crap. Not to mention the fact the Chinese steel production is heavily subsidized (subsidies which are illegal under international trade agreements) by the Chinese government. As more and more cheap Chinese steel is dumped onto the American market, more and more American jobs are lost as Chinese jobs increase. EDIT: Trump’s tariffs have done much to rectify this situation, but there’s much more to accomplish in this arena.

All this doesn’t even take into account the vast increase in pollution Chinese steel mills produce compared to their American counterparts, pollution that is crossing the Pacific on the jet stream, which ends up in America. Chinese industry does not have to meet onerous EPA regulations either. Nor does this take into account the fact that purchasing Chinese-made products supports an authoritarian/Communist regime (albeit one with a Capitalistic storefront).

Obviously, this is not limited to the steel industry, but the steel industry is one which is easily explained.

Regarding contracts American companies have with Chinese companies, contracts are viewed very differently in China than they are in the United States. Regardless of the contract, Chinese companies start cutting corners as soon as production begins. While American companies demand low prices and expect a certain level of quality, the Chinese manufacturer simply does what they want, without regard to the agreed upon contract. What many don’t understand is that any company doing business with China largely does so on a cost basis. Choosing a Chinese manufacturing company based upon the lowest-bid will invariably result in tainted, inferior and sometimes dangerous products.

The Chinese handle business a great deal differently than Americans. They are unconcerned with contract law, copyright law, patent law, safety issues and environmental issues. Redress with Chinese companies producing inferior products is often an exercise in futility regardless of contract as most are not written to the standard required for iron-clad guarantees and even if they were, good luck prevailing in a Chinese court. They simply do not believe in a level playing field, regardless of what they might say in negotiations.

Although I am not wealthy, I would rather spend a more on a known, quality product that does not support Communists and does not encourage economic hardship for America. I'd rather know that the odds were in my favor that I'll be happy with the quality, performance and warranty, which I expect from a quality manufacturer. And it goes without saying, but I’d rather support American companies.

Obviously, people are free to make their own choices. I would only, respectfully recommend that Americans consider the true cost of that Chinese-made crap-product that saved them a few bucks.

Komatsu comes to mind with the Japanese.

Russians have never built anything worth a scchitt except for the AK which was cloned from the Germans and made cheaper. One could argue that the Russian T-100 tank was robust and effectively efficient..
Other than that, well, some beautiful women. No small thing.

They've built some pretty advanced ice-breakers - an order of magnitude better than our ageing fleet..

Good point. They do.

Anything else come to mind ?

You don’t see too many free world businesses and manufacturers running to Russia for their needs.

Off the top of my head:

Bonded industrial diamonds - some of the best diamond sharpening stones I've ever used.

Aerospace & ballistic missiles. Not quite up to the level of ours, but impressive, nonetheless. They can rain down death just as effectively as we can.

I think you hit the proverbial Nail on the head ,when Government controls that much of your business who can say it is not socialized.

EPA LMAO does anyone remember the bulldozer that accidentally dumped tons of poison into an otherwise pristine Colorado river? Under the Obongo administration that was cleaned up in 1 month. Communists cured China of Covid faster then we did.



GMAFB.

Thank you William Jefferson and Loral.

Thats because we don't want to invest or have lagged behind in developing them. I doubt they would out technology us on a reinforced steel hull.

Certainly true, but the fact remains that they've done it and we haven't.

Our ice-breaking "fleet" is a joke.

Animas River that flows right through Durango on down through Aztec, N.M.

As long as we have lawyers and politicians American made will never be as cheap as it should be.

That settles that.

Yep, case closed.... wish more would see it

They have a greater a much greater need for an icebreaking fleet then we do. That said we have a 1/2 dozen scheduled sometime this decade.

Would you trust a Nuclear Russian design whether an Icebreaker, Sub or a power station in the middle of nowhere:?