C G wrote:


USENET READER wrote:

I am starting a DYI home-improvement project and I notice that
few power or hand tools are made in the USA. Even most of the
Craftsman brand tools are made in the USA. Some are made in
Taiwan (a democracy I have no problem doing business with) and
Red China (perhaps I should call them Fascist China, a country
where the factories are owned by the state and staffed with
slave labor).


Are you stuck in the '80s? Most Chinese companies have been
privatized.

And who owns these private companies? Mostly it is well-connected
members of the ChiCom party - so for all intents and purposes, it
is still owned by those who run the government.

Still stuck in the '80s. The ownership has been changing for quite
a while now, but I would not have expected you to be informed
enough to know this.

No actually - your head is up your ass. Can you tell me who owns
the private companies if not the party elite? They just privatized
these factories and now they split the profits not with the workers,
but with their American investors. So you tell me how while it has
changed in shape, the end result isn't really different?

Seems it's your head up your own ass. China's got a thriving stock
market and ownership is shifting to individuals. I wouldn't have
expected you to know this, it bursts your bubble of ignorance.

Bullshit - you can say that there is a stockmarket and that is
supposed to mean that your average rank and file Chinese citizen can
own stock? that is such bullshit - that whole thing is set up to
attract foreign investment capital and to also make it easier to
reward the party bigwigs. Their system is more fascist than
free-market capitalism. They could still take it all back and leave
their overseas investors hanging - what you gonna do when they do
that? Sue them?

You've just proven you do not know what the hell you are talking about.
The average citizen DOES OWN STOCK. Give up, you obviously are
clueless about this subject.

The average citizen in China doesn't own stock. Do you know what the
per capita or average income level is in China? There are like 1.5
billion people over there. Can you show a cite where you an prove that
the average chinese citizen owns stock??

According to the news sources I have, even though the companies are
being privatized, the new owners are still the party elite and their
overseas business partners. Employee or other non-management stock
ownership is being held to 20% or less. So how the **** can you say
that the average Chinese citizen owns stock? Prove it - show me a cite!


Almost everything in Harbor Freight (except for the
reconditioned DeWalt tools) is from China. The stuff is garbage
and usually dies after a short period of time. Grinders and
drills come with extra electric motor brushes which almost
always get lost by the time you need them - and you will. HF
always tries to sell you an extended warranty program, and most
people I know don't buy them - even though for all intents and
purposes, if you buy the EW, you can bring back the tool and
swap it for a new one anytime the older one doesn't work. So
other than the time you lose always gong to HF to exchange
tools, that does seem like a good deal. How can American
companies compete with that?

They can't as long as American consumers puy the cheapest product
they can find. IMO, Harbor Freight should not even be in
business, but as long as people keep buying the junk, they'll
survive.

It's a vicious cycle - people's wages don't keep up with
inflation, so they either look for cheaper stuff or they have no
other choice. And when a store finds it is stocked with goods no
one can afford to buy, they go with cheaper stuff to stay in
business. It's everyone's fault, but mostly with big business for
going overseas in the first place.

The problem didn't start with wages, it started with American
consumers wanting the cheapest possible price, with little regard
for quality. Look at shop tools. When companies like Grizzly came
on the scene, people endorsed their products because they were a
few bucks cheaper than someone like Delta.

Part of American workers wanting cheaper goods is them not getting
paid enough to afford higher quality goods. Remember that fascist
Henry Ford? Instead of lowering wages, he gave his workers more,
realizing that if he paid them more they could afford to buy the
cars he was making. Today a Wal Mart worker - if they pay rent,
make care payments on a cheap car, pay for their own medica
insurance, etc - they can't afford to shop in Wal Mart to buy all
their family's needs. They can do that if they go on the dole -
food stamps (which some of them qualify for even if they work fulll
time) and if they put off regular health care and use the emergency
room for chronic health care needs.

I'm not arguing against many not getting paid enough. However, for
many, it's just wanting (not necessarily needing) as much stuff as
possible. Even people who could afford better often choose cheap
import over better quality.

And when you are trying to compete with some other contractor who
hires Mexican illegals, you gotta try and cut your costs as much
as you can.

Yes, you do.

WHy not get the government to come and haul the illegals away and
bust the contractor breaking the law? Thay way he won't be
competing illegally with you.

A conttractor who is breaking the law like that is the equivalent of
someone who cuts costs by stealing stuff to sell, or buying stolen
property.. Should you compete with someone who steals or buys stolen
goods by doing the same thing? Or shouldn't you insist that other
employers not have an unfair advantage by obeying the laws?

No argument from me.

If the government enforced it's immigration laws, fined or
arrested employers for hiring illegals, shipped the illegals back
over the border, and sealed the border up with higher walls that
couldn't be cut through or climbed over.

No disagreement here. For the past 4 years I've been working to
help someone from another country come here legally. It ****es me
off that the government makes all kinds of exceptions for illegals,
and that so many people look the other way so they can take
advantage of the cheap labor that illegals represent.

But I was talking to two buddies of mine and then mentioned
something about the construction trades which made me wonder if
any more tools are going to be made in the USA?

There are some, but do you and your friends try to find them? Are
you willing to pay a higher price to buy them?

Actually - yes I am - but it is a lot of work trying to find
American made tools.

One guy works as a stone mason and he is finding it harder and
harder to find American made tools of his trade in the stores.
The Chinese-made crap (his words) are cheaply made, don't hold
up to continued professional work, rivets pop, everything rusts
unless you soak it in oil (which is not good for the mortar or
cement, mason's hoes break after one use, etc.

That's what happens when you buy the lowest cost tool.

If that's all the stores sell, you either buy it or you don't work.

It's all the stores sell because years ago people voted, with their
money, for cheap imports. It also happened because in many cases,
the American products were overpriced junk.

Why was the American stuff overpriced junk - was it the rank and
file worker who decided to come to work and make crap regardless of
what the bosses told them to make, or was it management who had them
build the crap because there wasn't anything else available?

Some of it was the workers, some was the management.

Sorry - most of it was management trying to do stuff on the cheap and
then cutting their own throats. American workers are some of the most
productive workers in the world, if their managerment gets their heads
out of their asses!


Some American workers are productive, others will do as little as
possible to get by. Same with management. You continue to try to place
the blame on one group, but that's just not the case.

Sorry - labor doesn't decide what to produce and how to produce it -
that is management's job. I place the blame on the crap on the market
with management.


Sure - when the Japanese made better stuff for the same money, you
bought the better stuff. You didn't want to throw your money away -
you got more value for your money. Then when American goods caught
up in quality, the Japanese moved there factories to Thailand or
other cheaper countries, and then eventually Amerfcan companies
couldn't compete on the price of the goods and also on the return on
investments. So don't go blaming the consumers only - greedy
investors who want 40% return on investments are to blame too!

I didn't blame consumers only, but I think they are more to blame
than business and investors. You seem to be trying to blame
investors and business only.

Nope - sorry - in the USA the consumers have been getting the shaft
for years. How do you blame someone who has lost their job, or who
has not gotten a pay raise for years, or in fact has had to take less
money, from having to make the difficult choice to buy some cheaper
goods in order to pay for medicine, a visit to the docs, etc. After
all - the cheaper goods wouldn't have been there for the consumer to
buy had the business owners not made them first.


Again, you are trying to blame the business instead of the individual.
There are many factors at work, not just the business trying to sell
cheap products. Many people have chosen cheap, low quality, not for the
reasons you state, but just because it's cheaper and they can have more
toys than if they had bought a better quality item.

Many didn't have a choice.


The other guy runs a catering truck that runs around to
construction sites. He says that, except for the licensed
trades (electricians and who are mostly younger white guys), the
plumber (who are mostly older white guys) and the bricklayers
(who are mostly African American) - everybody else is Mexican
and they almost only speak Spanish and need a bi-lingual
supervisor on the job. This supervisor - who is not dressed out
for work - usually stands around talking on his cell phone,
looking at his steel and gold Rolex watch - is a white guy.

That's different than the crews I've seen. And the Mexican
laborers I've seen are usually working their asses off. Can't
say the same about some of the "American" crews I've seen.

They work their asses off - not neccesarilly getting anything
done, or working smarter either. Can't tell you how many cut
phone and cable lines, water pipes and ther stuff that gets done
by this hard workers.

That is most likely the fault of the contractor, for failing to
have the said line marked, than the workers.

You ever try to call those guys to come out and mark the lines? I
had to call three or four times and had to wait weeks when I wanted
them marked. So if you are a contractor and you have to wait for
weeks to start a project - you work without.

I guess they don't like you. I've always had good response from
them. And if you're a contractor, don't wait till the last minute
before calling them. If it takes weeks to get them to come out then
call weeks ahead. A good contractor understands these things and
schedules appropriately.

You don't know the situation and it is nothing like you say it is.


I know the difference between a good contractor and a bad one. I also
know the locating company has always responded to my requests.

On the other hand, the American crews I have seen usually know where
the lines will be buried and can dig around them carefully and not
break the lines - it takes longer and you have to work smarter and
more carefully, and few of the illegal crews can do that - or want
to. They just don't give a crap if the family in the nice big house
has cable or not.

It's probably not the crew that's insisting that the job be done
sloppy, it's most likely the American supervisor. I've found that
the crews will work in the manner that makes their boss happy. If
they're told to be careful, they will. However, the bosses who hire
illegals are most likely looking for fast, not careful.

That is the whole problem with hiring illegals and buying foreign crap
- everyone up and down the chain doesn't seem to understand that it's
all a race to the bottom!

Also - they seem to die or get injured in the workplace either
because the bosses don't want them to work with safety equipment
or use safe workplace practices (because it costs too much) or
because they didn't work that way back in Mexico. My friends work
hard, work smart, work careful, and do good quality work. They
pay there self-employment FICA, state and federal taxes, they pay
their insurance, and they buy good quality american-made tools
when they can. They just keep getting underbid by companies that
hire illegals.

Yup, and unless we all do something about it, the problem will
continue.

Well - the real question is - are any of the largely illegal
immigrant construction workers buying quality American-made
tools, or are they spending as little money as possible on tools
as they might either get them stolen from a job site, or because
they might get deported at any time and don't want to have any
more money invested in tools than absolutely necessary?

They probably represent a small total of the tool buyers. Don't
try turn this into someone else's fault. The American consumer
is choosing the cheapest product, which is not going to be made
in the US.


The American consumer isn't always choosing the cheapest product -
sometimes it's all the consumer can find. When a company like
Lowe's can buy cheap chinese made crap for 10% of what they pay
Marshalltown, and can sell it for half of what an American made
product sells for, they will not want to have so much money tied
up in inventory and they realize that they can make more money
selling crap that falls apart and needs to be repurchased more often.

I'd say most American consumers shop by price, with quality
factored in to some extent, rather than by country of origin.

Most Americans can't afford to do otherwise these days. But then
again - some middle class peope will go buy food at Wal Mart and not
at a regular grocery store even though by doing so, they are cutting
off their noses to spite their faces - Wal Mart won't carry all the
variety of foods that you get in a regular grocery store.


Neither will Sams Club, BJs, Costco, etc.

I don't buy my food there either. Wal Mart already controls too much
of the retail business as it is, and I won't give them one more dime!