[ViperTX]

Well, guys firstly the government won't and can't really fix things without really screwing up everything, so that said.....what's happening?

Well, if you think back a few decades....well let's use President Lincoln's terms "...4 score and 7 years ago..." at the start of the Industrial Revolution in the US....we drove alot of European Guilds out of business as we pushed "mass production" into being. It was really a shift in our "value system".....we went from "custom made" to "cookie cutter products".....

I really could "trip the light fantastic" by continuing with the dialogue, but I'll stop and let you think........

[ESjaavik]

There is one very big business that so far is just in it's infancy. That is protection and rehabilitation of the environment. As far as I can see, most of it will have to be done in the developed countries. But first it has to be seen as something we are willing to pay for. After that, a lot of development have to be done (work). Then the improved/new products have to be made (work). And there will be spin-offs (more work).

But first it takes some political guts to decide it will be done even if the costs are high. The cost will however turn around and come back as a benefit. I believe the space program back in the previous century showed how a large spending can create so much activity and sideeffects that in the end it pays for itself.

I'm not a tree-hugger. I just see it coming because the evidences are getting pretty hard to overlook. And looking at the efficiency of our cars, air conditioners etc. there is a huge improvement potential if it is universally agreed it must be raised.

[Dan S]

My father is in the steel industry, and I will just repeat what he has said many times over.

“If the America is to be competitive again we only need to export two things, environmental protection laws, and unions.”

[sendkeys]

My father is in the steel industry, and I will just repeat what he has said many times over.

“If the America is to be competitive again we only need to export two things, environmental protection laws, and unions.”

hehe how can you be competitive with slave labor and zero environmental laws It's not going to be long befor people in china will not be able to go outside without a gas mask. They already full of "orange days" were they are told not to go outside at all.


http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/s.../GD07Ad06.html new story i saw not to long ago.


Also you can never be competitive when all out piracy happening to companys work and ideas(not talking software but goods).
Pay millions of dollars for research just to come out witha product that some company in china makes illegal copies of .

thats not even getting into the deal with china manipulating there currency value.

China isn't playing by the rules and we are too dumb to call them on it That counts me too,with some of my china made tools here :P

(p.s i know there are some good chinese companys just like there are some bad American companys but just talking overall)

[JavaDog]

Well, I just found out that as of August 26th - I will no longer have my job. I am a Technician at a Fortune 100 IT firm. They decided that they were going to outsource to India.

Now, I had always been an oddball that said "Well, if they can do the job the same (or better) than I, for less money, who am I to complain." To a degree, I still beleive that. Thing is, I talk to "techs" from India all day long and I know that I can run circles around them. The firm I work for was one of the last in the IT market to outsource, we didn't think it was going to happen. But, no surprise, the company values it's bottom-line more than they value their customer or their employees. It is a companies job to answer to, and make money for, their shareholders.

America will make a comeback by providing the creativity for the world. We can invent and dream up new technologies, and let others build them. Or...who knows...

[Chris D]

If any of you get Modern Machine Shop, take a look at one of the column they publish in every issue ( I believe it's in every issue) about where the machine tools are being manufactured and where they are being shipped to.

You will see that China is currently at the top of the machine tool purchasing list. China is also a large mfg. of machine tools. During the past few years, much of Japan's machine tool output has been going to China.

This tells me that not only is China a current threat to global manufacturing jobs, but in the coming years, it is going to get worse, much worse. As they gear up their heavy industries, you will begin to see more and more manufacturing jobs dry up here in the states.

When Japan (and later Korea) became global manufacturers, their wages rose with their productivity. They eventually rose to the point where they were no longer "Cheap labor" and the prices of products manufactured there were comparable or more than the prices of products made in the U.S.A.

China however is more problematic. That is a communist country wherein the goverment "Keeps the people oppressed" and really doesn't want their population to "Rise up". So, if the goverment keeps their people oppressed and keeps the wages down (Basically only a rich and poor society - no middle class), they will dominate manufacturing for a very long time. Unlike Japan wherein their rise and peak took about 20 years, I don't see that happening in China as long as the government controls the people like they do.

I don't like to sound like a "dooms-day-er", but I frankly cannot see how any country is going to compete in the long term with manufacturing in China. The only resolution I can see is if the people here (USA), take a more European (and developed asian) approach to global trade. Purchase American made products with pride - pay more for them, and have less crap overall in our lives.

We as people would have to drive our cars for 150,000 miles or more, buy furniture for our homes with the expectation of having it for life and applying that belief system to everything that we purchase. We are very spoiled in this country with how much crap we buy and throw away a few years later. I am not any different than most people in this regard, I have a TV in just about every room of my house, my car is only 4 years old with 60,000 miles on it and I want to replace it, there are about 20 different things (Electronic gizmos) that I want to buy right now while knowing they will be obsolete in a couple of months.

The downside to this rant, we went through this during the last 20 years as Japan as a manufacturing nation rose to power - remember all the "Buy American" and "Proudly made in America" signs and bumper stickers? Well, we didn't do it then, and we won't do it now - or at least untill a total collapse of our economy forces us to do so :-(

Sorry for the rant, just needed to get that off my chest.

[heilcnc]

this thread was in 2005 its 2009 see how bad machine shops and machine tool
sales have gone he is right we have not learned from the past!

[Kevin Taylor]

Don't forget the internet I had a customer yesterday remark I'm going to the net for my part's because he know's it will be cheeper without even asking nevermind the shiping and handling and the time to wait I'm going to laugh when he want's to know howfast I can get it done when he arives with his offshore piston for his jap atv and cry's about it going to take two day's to get it back in line why don't you try the internet LOL Kevin

[BodylinezCNC]

Here is something from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki, about the last great depression in The United States.

It sounds very similar to the situation we are in now, I am an optimist, but things are getting a little scary.

"Two economists of the 1920s, Waddill Catchings and William Trufant Foster, popularized a theory that influenced many policy makers, including Herbert Hoover, Henry A. Wallace, Paul Douglas, and Marriner Eccles. It held the economy produced more than it consumed, because the consumers did not have enough income. Thus the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920s caused the Great Depression.[22][23]

According to this view, wages increased at a rate lower than productivity increases. Most of the benefit of the increased productivity went into profits, which went into the stock market bubble rather than into consumer purchases. Say's law no longer operated in this model (an idea picked up by Keynes).

As long as corporations had continued to expand their capital facilities (their factories, warehouses, heavy equipment, and other investments), the economy had flourished. Under pressure from the Coolidge administration and from business, the Federal Reserve Board kept the discount rate low, encouraging high (and excessive) investment. By the end of the 1920s, however, capital investments had created more plant space than could be profitably used, and factories were producing more than consumers could purchase.

According to this view, the root cause of the Great Depression was a global overinvestment in heavy industry capacity compared to wages and earnings from independent businesses, such as farms. The solution was the government must pump money into consumers' pockets. That is, it must redistribute purchasing power, maintain the industrial base, but reinflate prices and wages to force as much of the inflationary increase in purchasing power into consumer spending. The economy was overbuilt, and new factories were not needed. Foster and Catchings recommended[24] federal and state governments start large construction projects, a program followed by Hoover and Roosevelt."






So, as the productivity rates continue to increase the workers continue to make less money, leaving more product on the shelf. Which in turn leaves less needed workers because there is an overstock of goods due to the lagging wage growth.

I predict a day where things are going to change radically. There will be less people with jobs because there isn't enough capital flowing to keep everyone employed. It seems like we are already at that stage, though.

I am still waiting for the Government to realize the problem at hand, before it is to late.

Brent

[DMF_TomB]

http://www.hardinge.com/
they make Bridgeport mills

2008 revenue by Geography
North America 31.5%
Europe 46%
China & Others 22.5%

from http://www.hardingeus.com/index.asp?pageId=124

Since it is a International Co. it would not be surprising some parts are foreign. Nuts, bolts, electrical stuff much is made any where in the world.

Just showing and this surprises a lot of Americans that if you say mexico and canada as not made in usa then over 70% of there business is exported out of the usa.

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Where does it say any production is left in the USA? The list of Hardinge manufacturing companies is all over the world including Hardinge Taiwan and Hardinge China.

If Hardinge is still making (not merely assembling) Bridgeports in the USA, I wish they would say so.

Dick Z

[emoran]

:cheers:In reply to the "China Syndrom" you guys are right on the money but a few things have been left out and those are:Greed,morality and patriotism.All can be applied to the Large companies and some small private ones that are not satisfied with enough $$$$$$$$.They give nothing for the working guy that helped get them there but a pink slip while they think of the money they are saving and the increase in profits.This statement includes all three,greed morality and no patriotism.Not too many years ago no none would do business with a Communist Country.I could continue this story but I need to get back to work to save the customers I still have.

[Torchhead]

So, as the productivity rates continue to increase the workers continue to make less money, leaving more product on the shelf. Which in turn leaves less needed workers because there is an overstock of goods due to the lagging wage growth.

I predict a day where things are going to change radically. There will be less people with jobs because there isn't enough capital flowing to keep everyone employed. It seems like we are already at that stage, though.

I am still waiting for the Government to realize the problem at hand, before it is to late.

Brent

This showns a total lack of understanding of macro economics and reality and falls in the lap of "Socialism for America" claptrap. Any comparsion of the current economy to the pre-depression 1920's is like comparing a Wright Brothers Flyer to a Boeing 767. Yes, they both have wings and use the same basic aerodynamic principles but telling the Boeing engineers they need to revert back to wooden props and open cockpits might meet with resistance.

Redistribution of wealth? Give the downtrodden workers more money so they can buy more? And what do you think they will buy more of? Electronics from China and Korea. Cars from Japan, Korea and plants in Brazil and Mexico. More trips to the much hated Walmart? We produce so little of what the average consumer wants/needs above food and housing , to say we are overproducing is laughable. The redistribution of wealth goes on the premise that lower income persons spend "better" than rich people. So you have to accept that rich people don't spend on things like food, entertainment, transportation, electronics, housing, etc and that they keep all that money out of circulation and stuffed in a mattress.

We as a nation have to come to grips that we are not on the planet alone and the business will go to the lowest cost producer as long as the quality is acceptable. It won't always be "fair" and it may be that some segments of the populace will be impacted faster than others is part of the reality. Athletes, movie stars and politicians will always be paid more than they are worth but even then they pump that back into the economy and its the flow of money that is important not where it comes from.

One of the reasons we go outside our country to buy goods is that we have raised the workers standard of living to the point the products cost more than it costs to build, transport and distribute it from halfway around the globe. When you pay a line worker $45/hr + health insurance and benefits to put headlights in Buicks it forces a price structure that drives consumers to other sources.

To those of us that are in business (gasp: to make money) its not the Government that is the solution, it's the Government that is the problem!

Those of you that hold the idea that China (being communist) can hold down the demand of workers to raise the standard of living has already been proven false. China is not a "pure" communist state. They figured out a long time ago that communism (as developed my Marx and Lenin) is not a workable system. If you take private ownership of business and the goal that the people at the top can make a lot of money then you get a stagnant system. That in turn causes the "workers" to demand more (they don't have to work for the filthy businessman if the government gives them the same amount of money to do less demanding jobs) and it drives up the cost of manufacturing. There are already rumors that China is starting to outsource some manufacturing to lower cost areas like Indonesia.

This is an interesting list to post the "Buy American" on. The large majority of the persons here are small shops, individuals and hobbyists that are absolutely low price shoppers. They care less about the country of origin than getting the lowest price. There is nothing wrong or evil about that. Virtually everything made in America has foreign labor or parts involved.

So, let's close down the borders (but let the illegal's in) and force everyone to buy goods made ONLY in the USA. Lets' raise taxes on fuel to lower demand to what we can produce and make sure we punish over-consumers. Let's dictate that no businessman can make more than twice what their lowest paid worker makes. Let's force industry to buy all their products and machines from domestic sources by putting huge import taxes on anything foreign. Let's raise the minimum wage to $20.00 and force companies to NEVER layoff a worker. We need to stifle productivity and create enough high paying jobs in America to guarantee every person can have a new home, new (AMERICAN) car and at least 3 flat screen TV's. Food will be really expensive because all of the foreign exports will dry up so we will force more farmers out of business and have to give them jobs that let them make a good living. Let's go raid the bank accounts of the Fat Cats that created all those immoral companies and make them live like the rest of us. We have to KILL outsourcing. There will be plenty of jobs because the Government will need lots more Czars to watch over us and lots more federal workers to make sure the new programs are working (and we ALL know how well the Government runs programs)

We can do this! We can implode back to protectionism and stick our heads in the sand of global economics. We don't need to help other countries or try to be competitive....we will be totally self sufficient! There might be some slight problems with inflation, quality and the cost of goods but HEY sacrifices need to be MADE! It's for the good of the masses. The cost of freedom and self-determination has become too great!

[BodylinezCNC]

Torchhead,

I don't really have anything to say after you made your statement.

Brent

[SteveS]

Torchhead,

I just want to add another piece of the pie. Publicly traded companies have had serious problems with long range planning since the CEOs real boss (stock holders) demanded quarterly stock price increase and dividends. Everyone with a 401K (look in the mirror) was concerned with that bottom line increasing each quarter. Increasing profit in the short term was a mantra and required selling out the three years from now planning for three months from now report.

China was a convenient way to make a short term gain. Problem with that is after you have the 30% cheapest widgets in your product, what do you do the next quarter. Actually the share holders answer that question for you by dumping your stock from their portfolio or mutual fund and let you sink. True capitalism.

Buy American is even hollow. Do you buy from an "American" registered company or a foreign company that manufactures in America? What percentage of raw material or content makes something "American." Do you buy a Ford made in Mexico or Honda built in Ohio? [BTW - Fusion is world class]

How many people have crackberries, I-pod/phone/... totally manufactured in China. I saw where an I-Phone can be bought in modular pieces on the streets of China for less than $60 and assembled for $10 more. Who in "America" is benefitting from the additional $300+ each? [I am too technologically challenged to have one.] Remember, it is an "American" registered company selling it.

Need to take a breath.

[Kevin Taylor]

The chine's Restruant I like has Mexican's in the kitchen so I wounder who the ileaglas will exploit. If you close the bourder's tourchhead I don't think you will have a flatscreen TV unless RCA start's back up and how much of our tecnoligy has left our country since nafta was pased I gues everbody has become complasent with the wall mart quality as long as it's cheep two generation's ago saved for a year to buy a set of lawn chair's and they lasted twenty year's and now one or two is accetbile same with a lawn mower or a vacum cleaner It's no wounder the landfill's are geting full of junk
The way they make money "WallMart " is they don't even own it untill it's checked through the checkout line and then they proubly have sixty to nighty days daiting after that to pay for it. The employ's aren't making much more than min. wage either. I looked real close at two thing's last week one was the suport the troup's magnetic ribon's and a westcoast choper key ring and they both had made in China on them !!!!:stickpoke

[dertsap]

the US is proud to say that it is a capitalist society , it's said that capitalism is a social system based on individual rights. closing boarders and forcing people to buy within the country infringes on those rights , is America willing to give up it's rights and loose some of it's freedom ? I honestly don't think so
the problem is to convince people to support the countries products and convincing them of the reasons that they should pay more for their products , which isn't easy

I think its a slump and things will turn around , what I've experienced is the fact that many companies had nowhere to turn to for help with small quantities or the ever so "machine damaging steel jobs " . I've watched so much work get turned down over the years , some places would only do large production quantities of aluminum or nothing , now they are doing nothing , the only companies that I see that are doing good are the companies who took advantage of that ugly market and expanded machine power and operations to accommodate it , even they have slowed down . Obviously China took advantage of the same market and only expanded from there . I personally put the blame where it belongs and that is the manufactures who had the horn of plenty and threw away all the fruit that had seeds

[heilcnc]

I hope that we start to make more things in the usa again more jobs for us
machinist its the only way to fix the problems of this great country its good
to see there still are many still in this trade here i would like to here more on
this from others thanks

[service_bb]

Nothing is wholly made any one place.

[vacpress]

Something made in America: The AllIn1E portable smoking system i designed! Seriousely though, It is getting manufactured, finished, packed, and sold all right here!

We found a shop in Chicago area (where we are) that was able to work with us. We had some quotes from China, Showed them to him, worked hard with him getting his process in shape and now we get a great quality product, miles ahead of China, for just a bit more and he has 3 shifts working 7 days a week for us!

In general though.. I have lost a job to Poland outsourced engineering, and now I was recently laid off due to global economic turmoil in the building markets (i worked in high end architectural design).. Sigh....


www.allin1e.com