If the US govt taxed Chinese imports enough to make it non-profitable, and then gave tax breaks to US manufacturers… US manufacturers would start competing which would lead to superior products. Stuff made in the 70’s (in the US) was rock solid stuff, a lot of it still in use. The mentality nowadays is… if it breaks “ah who cares, just buy a new one.”
I think the problem now is twofold and explains why the imports have taken over domestic products.
1: Quality. There was a time that almost anything made in the USA was the absolute best money could buy. Companies and individual workers had pride in being the best. Then a few things happened to change that. One (which is related to point #2) is price. For some reason it seems that when a large number of American companies tried to compete on price quality was the first thing to go on the product. It is cheaper to produce something if you aren’t that concerned about quality. The other reason for the decline in quality I think is that we as a nation just got complacent if not down right lazy. The American automotive companies are a great example. In the '40s and '50s we owned the automotive market. We made the best cars and we were the envy of the world. Then something happened in the late '60s and continued all the way into the late '80s. We started making junk. The cars were ugly and fell apart. The build quality was garbage. It almost seems as if once we reached the top we stopped trying.
- Price. I think that this is the main reason that our products aren’t being purchased as much. The foreign companies are able to hire labor much much less expensively than we do. Because of this they can make a comparable item and sell it much for much less than a comparable American company. American workers demand more money (I am not criticizing them on that, I think what foreign companies pay their workers is obscene) and if you are going to pay your workers more money you have to charge more for the product.
The American consumer has always, ALWAYS baffled me when it comes to this. I will use my mother as an example. She is very pro-union, working and retiring from a union job. She always complains about companies moving their manufacturing plants outside the US for cheap labor. She says that the jobs should stay here and the products should be made by union workers. She also goes on and states that she loves the unions because “union workers get paid more because they have a union that makes sure they are well paid”. That is all fine and dandy BUT, when she goes to Wally World to buy, let’s say a toaster, her MAIN concern is price. She never, ever buys the most expensive one and most of the time purchases the least expensive one.
Can we see the problem here? I try to explain to her that her logic is flawed. It would be great if everyone here got paid very high wages. However if the consumer refuses to purchase the products they make because they are too expensive and instead purchases a more cost effective product there cannot be the jobs, union or otherwise, in this country that pay high salaries. You can’t have it both ways, high pay and cheap products.
So, that is where I think the main problem lies. We as Americans want to be high paid (and I can’t blame anyone for this), but we don’t want to take that pay and purchase the very products we make because there is a less expensive alternative out there.
I hope that I have gotten my point across in an understandable way. I have a Great Dane wanting my attention as I type so this hasn’t been easy to do!
China DOESN’T make them at comparable quality, though. China is notorious for cutting corners, even to the extent of using poisons in food and toxic materials in children’s toys.
I think that’s the exception rather than the rule, at least by today’s (possibly decreased) standards. Even if they’re not perfect, much of American consumer goods are made in China to a “good enough” quality level.
Chinese manufacturing is only going to get better, too, as their economy, education and technology improves. I’m not so sure we could keep ahead of them on the quality curve for long even if we wanted to.
You are right on the money and that is what I was trying to impress with my post above.
I remember when household appliances were made out of sturdy metals (aluminum, brass, bronze). This made for expensive, reliable products-plus, they were easily fixed.
Now stuff like toasters, blenders, etc., are made from injection molded plastics: this means cheap, fragile, and n-repairable stuff. When it breaks, toss it out.
(You cannot replace broken parts, usually if you disassemble it , parts go flying).
Interesting addition to the thread. You are correct that almost nothing is made to be repaired any longer when it breaks. There have been many products that I have owned and attempted to repair, but you can’t even get individual parts for replacement.
And great point about the materials used these days. The way things are made they aren’t designed to last. Now, the question is: Is that because it is cheaper to make or companies would rather have more sales via planned replacement?
There was a name for the American policy of moving work overseas. I wish I could remember it.
I don’t see why it couldn’t be both.
Not that I think those are the main reasons. Most consumers are willing to accept lower quality for lower price. And sometimes it makes more sense to use cheaper non-repairable products than more expensive repairable ones.
Sometimes, it makes sense to pay a lot for high quality/durability and sometimes low quality/durability and low price are what’s optimal. One is not inherently superior to the other.
To take shoes as an example: If someone doesn’t like China-made shoes, they can go buy Allen Edmond’s. It’ll cost them upwards of 300$, but it’s there.
Or shirts: The ones I mainly wear are made in… (checking) Bulgaria and Turkey and are in the 100-200$ range.
I have found that non third world shirts and third world shoes are optimal for me. For others, it may be the opposite. Or some could find out it makes sense for them to use non third world shoes and shirts. Most seem to prefer China shoes and shirts and China does seem to have a comparative advantage for low quality and cheap manufactured consumer goods.
The US is one of the biggest exporters of capital goods. Most goods that most people see are consumer goods so it may give the impression that manufactured goods aren’t made in the US anymore.
I work in manufacturing in China. The products that I build in China are identical in quality to the products that I build in North America and Europe. If transoceanic transportation were ever to become cheap enough for our large, heavy products, and the Asian market demand drop enough, you’d see no difference.
And there’s no incentive that the government could provide to replace those American jobs that didn’t steal money from someone else. :rolleyes:
This sort of policy is called protectionism, and apparently it’s held in low regard by mainstream economists these days.
That is the essence of Chinese industrial strategy. You cannot manfactre in China without a Chinese partner. You also cannot import into China, especially if what you sell competes with Chinese manufactures. What the Chinese are doing (in essence):
-copy western goods
-sell those goods on the domestic market for high prices
-export copied goods at very low prices (this competition forces western mfgs. out of bsiness)
Result? China builds up huge surplusese in trade, and eliminates its competition. But the US Congress doesn’t care-they like the payoffs from Chinese lobbyists too much.
So now we have no more industrial jobs, and get to pay the cost of maintaining huge military forces around the world.
Kinda like the Spain of Philip II!
Chicken or egg? Consumers search, in large part, for the least expensive good. Companies respond by producing cheap goods. There are niche products and markets where a small subset of consumers are willing to pay for perceived or actual quality, but there is money to be made from the mass market and manufacturers respond to the demand.
This is all true, but the last point in particular is important. It’s not the Chinese selling this stuff overseas. It’s people in your own country importing the stuff for sale. The Chinese manufacture, but they don’t market. It’s not their fault; it’s our fault.
First, China’s becoming expensive to manufacture in. Too expensive. But, they have the tech and the education now to compete the way we do: innovation and engineering. They still lag, but they’ll get there.
Second, the USA still has the largest manufacturing base in the world. People are too short sighted. The real money isn’t in manufacturing cheap plastic cups at Walmart. Let the Chinese build that shit. We build the shit that builds that shit. Just last week I was in a Chinese steel mill, and all of the machine labels were hand-printed and taped on top of the English instructions provided by American manufacturers. The Chinese can’t and don’t do any of this stuff yet. They’re not likely to do so any time soon, either.
We’ve had these discussions before, but this is just utter baloney. Stuff made in the 1970s absolutely sucked, for the most part, and that’s why so much of it is in the junkyard.
There’s a reason there used to be people whose full time job was actually to come out and fix your TV; they broke down all the time. Cars were absolute crap as compared to today. If I just look at a picture from my childhood the background’s full of shoddy furniture and appliances that were famous for thier proclivity for breaking down.
I tried to buy American as long as possible. I prefer supporting my own economy and US goods were top quality.
Today it’s hard to know what’s American anymore. American Brands like Zenith have moved their production. Seems like any classic American brand is now building their stuff overseas.
Even when you see a made in America sticker in Walmart it’s hard to know if everything was made here. Sometimes they buy parts around the world and just assemble in America these days.
Actually I worked at a plastics factory in Kansas from1996 to 2004 that produced plastic cups, bowls, & plates for Wal-Mart. The last time I checked I couldn’t find any of their product at Wal-Mart but still see them in C-stores and restaurants. They also do a lot of dairy containers. Most of the time I worked in the tool room but my last job was in scheduling. The volume they were doing was mind blowing. Sure, they weren’t as profitable as investment banking (although they were owned by Goldman-Sachs for a while) but they were profitable and employed 400 people in just that one factory.
They do it by investing big money initially in the injection molding presses (now thermoforming), molds, and automation. This allowed them to have a very low production cost. For example, every 10 seconds they were producing 32 12-oz. kids cups that the robot stacked into the box count. All the operator had to do was make the boxes, put them over the cups, tape the box once the automation flipped it, and stack it on a pallet. This was done 24-7 for most of the year with breaks only for machine and mold maintenance.
It is possible to make commodity items and higher-end products in the US if you are willing to invest in modern equipment. It also takes being willing to manage the manufacturing side which is not easy. It is easier to contract it off-shore. Middle volume and price goods are harder to do because it becomes harder to justify the investment.
Many of us Americans believe that whatever’s cheapest is always the best, and damn any other consideration, whether it be product quality or a healthy domestic market.
I’m sure it’s been touched on already, but part of the challenge is simply finding locally-made goods nowadays, at least in my experience.
I am a Vimesian when it comes to product quality and total cost of keeping my feet dry.