[Rant] Chinese animosity

[hamish]

As i have said in more than one post in this thread, we are to blame for continuing to buy their products.

I spent almost an hour tying to type this post, typed a lot, deleted a lot, so here we go

We as individuals buy much of the product based on dollar cost, Re-branding, re-badgeing , all confuse the waters between

Regretfully we no longer have the option. For if I was to go to the grocery store and only buy made in Canada items, I would be at a loss, packaged in, sourced from, made from........................friggin goat rodeo.

We have to buy there products, we cant afford our own, nor can we compete in this day and age with them.

Most vital Canadian product still made in Canada.............Canadian Beer, hell in 85 with the beer strike in Ontario almost cause a civil war.

History prevails.

 

[MustangMike]

What kind of property has a $40,000 tax bill?

Unfortunately in several towns in Westchester County it is not really unusual. There are some nice looking "estates", but even just a normal looking everyday home will be assessed at $15,000 - $20,000. I grew up in Westchester Cty, but when I was old enough to buy a house, I moved North to Putnam Cty, and I have been to meetings to protest tax increases here. When I told them I was not planning on moving again, the room erupted in applause (the County was proposing a 20% tax increase, it did not go through).

North Salem & South Salem (in Westchester Cty) have manicured horse farms that make you think you are in a movie set, and paying $3,000 a month to board a horse (and having numerous horses) is not unusual. It is difficult for normal people to comprehend. I don't know where all the money comes from.

 

[Matt81]

I spent almost an hour tying to type this post, typed a lot, deleted a lot, so here we go

We as individuals buy much of the product based on dollar cost, Re-branding, re-badgeing , all confuse the waters between
Regretfully we no longer have the option. For if I was to go to the grocery store and only buy made in Canada items, I would be at a loss, packaged in, sourced from, made from...................friggin goat rodeo.
We have to buy there products, we cant afford our own, nor can we compete in this day and age with them.
Most vital Canadian product still made in Canada.............Canadian Beer, hell in 85 with the beer strike in Ontario almost cause a civil war. History prevails.

I hear you. It just gets harder and harder to find, and then buy and be able to afford locally made items. Same goes for food like you say. May be made locally but containing imported ingredients and all that crap. I for one do not want to end up eating Chinese grown vegetables and Chinese fish with all the air and water pollution and environmental issues they have with their rapidly expanding manufacturing base. Bottom line: We keep buying it because it is just more and more difficult to find an alternative that we can afford.

At some point the government has to say no more and step in to keep local manufacturing and local industry in business and stop the wholesale selling off to China. America has much better protection and subsidies for farmers and local industry than we do here, and over here it is a huge and contentious subject. opcorn:

 

[MustangMike]

Unfortunately ... just try to by a carb that is not made in China ... U got no choice!

 

[Matt81]

Unfortunately ... just try to by a carb that is not made in China ... U got no choice!

Our main 200T at work has had a new Chinese carb put in from the dealer earlier in the year and it has never ran right since. It does weird things and can be a pain to start warm and the dealer insists that that is as good as he can get it to run. We said that it was not good enough and we wanted the same carb it had before as this one is junk. He told us he cannot get them and the new Chinese ones are the only ones he can source.

 

[WheresWally]

Unfortunately, regardless of how much of a die hard yank or aussie bogan you are, EVERYTHING is made in china, i tried to say it in the nicest possible way before, but some just wont have it... These days so much stuff, GOOD and BAD is made there it will blow even the most die hard locally made fan away,it pays to check with your parents just in case YOU were too...

 

[SEAM]

Well, pretty soon local manufacturing will have lost the skill to build things we can (or better: want to) afford...

Our society is showing some kind of "inverted greed" syndrome - being proud of having acquired something for as little as humanly possible. Quantity over quality, and that is something China is very good at.

 

[Derf]

Unfortunately in several towns in Westchester County it is not really unusual. There are some nice looking "estates", but even just a normal looking everyday home will be assessed at $15,000 - $20,000. I grew up in Westchester Cty, but when I was old enough to buy a house, I moved North to Putnam Cty, and I have been to meetings to protest tax increases here. When I told them I was not planning on moving again, the room erupted in applause (the County was proposing a 20% tax increase, it did not go through).

North Salem & South Salem (in Westchester Cty) have manicured horse farms that make you think you are in a movie set, and paying $3,000 a month to board a horse (and having numerous horses) is not unusual. It is difficult for normal people to comprehend. I don't know where all the money comes from.

Here here!! I've been in Westchester almost my whole life. I'm not going to tell you how nice it is here, or how high my tax bill is, but I can tell you that some people would work almost their whole year to pay it - its LaLa Land.

 

[lknchoppers]

Do you have any idea how many engineers and technical people they graduate every year, and how many products are designed there?

No, How many engineers do they graduate there? Tell me exactly since you are such an authority on the subject. That has nothing to do with the problem anyway. How may Chinese products have you imported and sold as part of your product line?

Not all but many of the Chinese companies have no respect for our country or the products they ship out. They are there to take your money upfront. If you know so much about the Chinese and have so much faith in them go ahead and try to forge a relationship and invest your money then wait for the "Slow Boat" to bring you products. Don't plan on selling all of your product either because your order will be riddled with variations, quality control issues and a bunch of spare parts they throw in so you can fix some of the problems they sent you, but they will promise the next run will be better. Then the next run comes and there are some of the same issues with your product and new ones as well. At this point you have a "Hodge Pogge" of product in your warehouse you can sell so you take another loss and use them to salvage parts to repair the products that are coming back because your customers are returning products needing warranty service. It's a waste of time trying to work things out with the, they hide behind the time difference, the language barrier and cultural differences. The Chinese are "Snakes in Human Form" and their "Word" means nothing when it comes to manufacturing for the US.

I am not impressed with their electronics either, if you look at their circuit boards they are cheap and the workmanship is sloppy as well.

 

[Matt81]

A bit silly to say that EVERYTHING is made in China when It's pretty darn obvious that not everything is. Just the fact that so much stuff is made there is not going to change my opinion and preference of what i would rather buy. I still am buying many locally made products and tools and am still able to avoid Chinese made products and products that contain Chinese sourced components/parts. I know that will change one day as it only gets harder and harder as time goes on, but i will be fighting it the whole way.

A big chunk of my Makita power tools for my work are labelled made in China. I have not noticed any drop in quality or in reliability. Many makita tools i have however are models that are still made in Japan. Seems to be the more specialised ones. From what i understand the made in China ones are really only assembled there from parts mostly made in Japan. There is going to be made in China components obviously in these tools somewhere, you can't avoid it.

Another gripe i have is that it is not made clear where parts of a product come from. Especially food i see labels all the time stating "made from local and imported ingredients" Ok so what came from where? No doubt the local component is the can or the label on the can!

 

[Chris-PA]

No, How many engineers do they graduate there? Tell me exactly since you are such an authority on the subject. That has nothing to do with the problem anyway. How may Chinese products have you imported and sold as part of your product line?

Not all but many of the Chinese companies have no respect for our country or the products they ship out. They are there to take your money upfront. If you know so much about the Chinese and have so much faith in them go ahead and try to forge a relationship and invest your money then wait for the "Slow Boat" to bring you products. Don't plan on selling all of your product either because your order will be riddled with variations, quality control issues and a bunch of spare parts they throw in so you can fix some of the problems they sent you, but they will promise the next run will be better. Then the next run comes and there are some of the same issues with your product and new ones as well. At this point you have a "Hodge Pogge" of product in your warehouse you can sell so you take another loss and use them to salvage parts to repair the products that are coming back because your customers are returning products needing warranty service. It's a waste of time trying to work things out with the, they hide behind the time difference, the language barrier and cultural differences. The Chinese are "Snakes in Human Form" and their "Word" means nothing when it comes to manufacturing for the US.

I am not impressed with their electronics either, if you look at their circuit boards they are cheap and the workmanship is sloppy as well.

I replied specifically to your comment about them not doing any R&D - this is not true. The company I work for was once owned by a huge European engineering company before we bought it back in 2008. I was R&D manager for our small group and went to meetings monthly with counterparts from the other groups throughout Europe, and saw what was on their schedule. I noticed that the largest group, who thought they were so advanced, was really only doing minor modifications. Whenever something difficult came up requiring actual technical ability, it would be farmed out to one of the main technical universities in China. They were just a hollow shell.

As for the rest of your rant, that company had an entire section reporting to the very top that was charged with outsourcing. As R&D manager I blocked a lot of attempts to force substitute Chinese parts into our products, and the manufacturing guys blocked many tries to move manufacturing there too. Actual data showed that our manufacturing was cheaper and better, and the locally sourced parts were higher quality. That higher quality was partially due to the long term relationships with local suppliers we go out of our way to maintain, but also because the Chinese were being specifically asked to make it cheaper.

But had we not bought the company back we would have eventually been forced to outsource.

All consumer electronics is total junk. That is all that is required, as the thing will be thrown out when fashion changes, and it's all that can be afforded at the razor thin margins of such items. Also, lead free solder doesn't actually work, but it's needed since all that stuff just gets thrown out. Electronics design and manufacturing is what I've been doing for 26 years.

Last, your "The Chinese are Snakes in Human Form" comment is beneath contempt, as they are human beings like you or I.

 

[Chris-PA]

Do these engineers do any R&D and designs of their own, or just copy and rip-off someone elses work? Even the Japanese have a long tradition of copying others instead of making innovations - the pacific rim culture?

Of course they do - people have been complaining about manufacturing having gone overseas for some time, but few realize the engineering and design left shortly after. Who do you think does that work - MBAs? Look at all the useless degrees our students graduate with. In way too many cases, when some US (or any western) firm says they designed something, what they mean is that they wrote a specification and farmed it out.

 

[lknchoppers]

I replied specifically to your comment about them not doing any R&D - this is not true. The company I work for was once owned by a huge European engineering company before we bought it back in 2008. I was R&D manager for our small group and went to meetings monthly with counterparts from the other groups throughout Europe, and saw what was on their schedule. I noticed that the largest group, who thought they were so advanced, was really only doing minor modifications. Whenever something difficult came up requiring actual technical ability, it would be farmed out to one of the main technical universities in China. They were just a hollow shell.

As for the rest of your rant, that company had an entire section reporting to the very top that was charged with outsourcing. As R&D manager I blocked a lot of attempts to force substitute Chinese parts into our products, and the manufacturing guys blocked many tries to move manufacturing there too. Actual data showed that our manufacturing was cheaper and better, and the locally sourced parts were higher quality. That higher quality was partially due to the long term relationships with local suppliers we go out of our way to maintain, but also because the Chinese were being specifically asked to make it cheaper.

But had we not bought the company back we would have eventually been forced to outsource.

All consumer electronics is total junk. That is all that is required, as the thing will be thrown out when fashion changes, and it's all that can be afforded at the razor thin margins of such items. Also, lead free solder doesn't actually work, but it's needed since all that stuff just gets thrown out. Electronics design and manufacturing is what I've been doing for 26 years.

Last, your "The Chinese are Snakes in Human Form" comment is beneath contempt, as they are human beings like you or I.

So it seems you basically agree with me except you are trying to be politically correct. We have something in common I too worked in Electronics Research but for only 23 years laying out circuit boards and processing and packaging communication ICs. I also owned and operated a Motorcycle Shop and that is where I had experience with the Chinese vehicles.

So how many Engineers do they graduate? Don't hold me in suspense.

 

[Chris-PA]

So it seems you basically agree with me except you are trying to be politically correct. We have something in common I too worked in Electronics Research but for only 23 years laying out circuit boards and processing and packaging communication ICs. I also owned and operated a Motorcycle Shop and that is where I had experience with the Chinese vehicles.

No, I think the Chinese are people who have motivations other than just to serve us, and who are bright, hard working and very capable. When you ask them to give you something for nothing, you get what you should expect - but that is always a surprise to foolish people who have been taught to believe the world owes them riches. The surprises will continue.

In my comments above I did not blame the Chinese, rather the western managers who live in a world of delusion.

 

[MustangMike]

I have never been to China, but I was often in NYC when I worked for NYS, and there is a large Chinese community there. For the most part, the Chinese are very respectful, smart, and family oriented. At the risk of stereotyping, they are often the opposite of outspoken. I always felt comfortable dealing with them, and never felt like they were trying to pull one over on me.

FYI, I was not naive. Over my 32 yr career in auditing I usually identified millions of fraud & waste every year, caught Rabbi's & Priest's, and even got a conviction in the S. Bronx when there was no dead body (something no one thought I could do). I even tempted fate by twice identifying schemes with mob connections, and the garbage contract we audited even involved dead bodies and trucks with spontaneous combustion problems.

 

[Miles86]

Howdy:

I was having my free continental breakfast at a LaQuita in South Carolina a few years ago, the table next to me was an American and 5 chinese fellows.
The American was a BMW official of some type, discussing the sourcing of parts for BMW's to come from China. I laughed a little to myself, so much for your german car.

I am no economist, but I think that sometimes with a predatory country like China (to the whole world really) (all of europe has lost there factories to China also), and a military ENEMY, the USA (citizens)must:

a.rid itself of tax rules that encourage offshoring, and actually punish offshoring. Also, specific heavy tarriffs against this predator nation's imports.
b. rid itself of political influence from globalist corporations (and CEO's) that have no loyalty to the american values or workers.
c. rid itself of self destructive environmental and labor laws.
d. correct the education and cultural systems that do not value a production economy, and stop promoting a consumption economy.

 

[MustangMike]

Agree with U 100%, just don't see a snowball's chance in H*** of it happening!

 

[MarkEagleUSA]

c. rid itself of self destructive environmental... laws.

Yeah! No more limiters on chainsaw carbs!

 

[Chris-PA]

When industrial manufacturing processes create dangerous waste that pollute the environment, there is a cost associated with this. You can ignore it and pretend it isn't there, in which case the cost gets higher but is passed on to our descendants, or you can account for it in the process. Either way, the cost does not go away.

The Chinese are presently in the former mode, as we were, and it is costing them hugely. They will soon be forced to change this approach.

 

[towingace]

Unfortunately too many USA companies are more worried how they look on wall street instead of doing the right thing. I fight it every day in my business.

I do agree I don't want Chinese products and try not to buy them but more and more is being made there, including products that one would never imagine.

Recently, a buddy went to buy a new American flag. The first store he went to he noticed that the flag was made in, you guessed it, China. They didn't have any flags made in the USA so he went to a second store that, indeed, had American flags made in America. I can't honestly say where my flag was made because it never entered my mind to look. I don't care how open-minded you are, when China makes your American flag, there's something wrong with THAT picture. I guess, on the bright side, he only had to search two stores to find the USA made flag.