SocketDeviler
Well-known member
This is a good point. I think many corporations see America as the well-fed over spending wife who has quite frankly become a bore. We're maintenance but undeveloped so-and-so is exciting.
Mac closing Sabina Plant
- Thread starter caper
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This is a good point. I think many corporations see America as the well-fed over spending wife who has quite frankly become a bore. We're maintenance but undeveloped so-and-so is exciting.
some of you claims you love American, but do you even understand the fundamentals of capitalism which this country was built upon: competition.
if you are forcing consumers to buy ***, it's not competition, is socialism. police used be all Harley, now they are riding Kawasaki's and BMW's. are you calling these LEO's traitors? no, because these import bikes are better than the Harley's for their job. if you want them to use more Harley's, just build better ones.
the security guards at the Pentagon use German made H&K sub-machine guns and assault rifles. who did we fight in the WWII?
remember Union members don't drink non-union made beer even they like it? god knows many scientists from all over the world worked at NASA to help us on the space program, they're not force to work with us, it's because ours is the best.
if Mac/Stanley turns their backs on the MAJORITY of their customers(not just you and me American tool lovers), then their deserve to lose the competition and die. that's a perfect chance for another company. there are consumers buy strictly American made tools, that's why Wright has their own group of loyal customers.
untill the majority of their customers turned around only buying American made tools, MAC will be just fine.
if you are forcing consumers to buy ***, it's not competition, is socialism. police used be all Harley, now they are riding Kawasaki's and BMW's. are you calling these LEO's traitors? no, because these import bikes are better than the Harley's for their job. if you want them to use more Harley's, just build better ones.
the security guards at the Pentagon use German made H&K sub-machine guns and assault rifles. who did we fight in the WWII?
remember Union members don't drink non-union made beer even they like it? god knows many scientists from all over the world worked at NASA to help us on the space program, they're not force to work with us, it's because ours is the best.
if Mac/Stanley turns their backs on the MAJORITY of their customers(not just you and me American tool lovers), then their deserve to lose the competition and die. that's a perfect chance for another company. there are consumers buy strictly American made tools, that's why Wright has their own group of loyal customers.
untill the majority of their customers turned around only buying American made tools, MAC will be just fine.
SocketDeviler
Well-known member
For what it's worth I have a pair of US made New Balance sneakers (which I found for less than on their website). They also offer an Assembled in USA line. The US made sneakers are partially made of imported materials but according to NB the domestic value is at least 70%.
http://www.nbwebexpress.com/information/madeinusa.asp
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Mickey O
Well-known member
I have a pair of US made New Balance sneakers as well but they are near the end, got them from a gun buy back program Chicago had years ago (brilliant program), they gave you a $50 or $100 gift certificate for every gun you turned in, I had a federal firearms license and ordered a pile of $25 Lorcin .25's and turned them in for several gift certificates.
Just went to the link you posted, sweet, I thought you were talking about older sneakers, I'll be getting some of those, I like New Balance because they have wide shoes and I got real wide feet, good for stomping.
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Underdog
Well-known member
It's getting hard to buy only US made tools, Went into Ace where I go to pick up single drill bits when needed, always bought the ace brand which i think were probably re branded Hansen's. Well last trip the new drill packs were China, had to dig in the back to find me some US made ones, so in a month or two they will be all gone.
My big worry which I never see mentioned about is all this outsourcing to overseas and the impact it will have on our national defense capability. If or when we ever get into a real war (not Iraq or Afghanistan) how are we to produce war materials. In WWII all consumer production factories were converted almost over night to war production, IE. A lathe doesn't know the difference between a washing machine component and a machine gun component. I can see it now when the war department goes around to different factories looking for machine tools and told oh we sold all our tooling for scrap when we closed down.
My big worry which I never see mentioned about is all this outsourcing to overseas and the impact it will have on our national defense capability. If or when we ever get into a real war (not Iraq or Afghanistan) how are we to produce war materials. In WWII all consumer production factories were converted almost over night to war production, IE. A lathe doesn't know the difference between a washing machine component and a machine gun component. I can see it now when the war department goes around to different factories looking for machine tools and told oh we sold all our tooling for scrap when we closed down.
Mickey O
Well-known member
Not a problem, if we are nice to the rest of the world and kiss their asses, according to some, we have nothing to worry about. I suspect, probably not in my lifetime, it will be China that attacks this country, using the money from GearWrench sales and stolen weapons technologies, they need the space.
it's a tough lesson to learn, a good example is the 3 Korean automakers.
Hunydai, Kia and Deawoo.
they all started small and their car were crappy. Deawoo died out fairly quickly, but Hunydai and Kia started to notice that they had a very small customer group, in order for them to grow, they need to take care of them first, so came the 100k mile warranty which shocked the world. at the same time, they improoved the build quality, copied more styling notes from other successful cars.
now, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan are cutting back on production, the 2 Korean companies are building new plants here in America.
I personally never owned any Korean cars, drove one the very first time, a rental Kia for 6 days last summer in Raleigh, N.C. even with 55k miles on the clock, that car wasn't half bad at all.
why can they make money building cars, others can't.
Hunydai, Kia and Deawoo.
they all started small and their car were crappy. Deawoo died out fairly quickly, but Hunydai and Kia started to notice that they had a very small customer group, in order for them to grow, they need to take care of them first, so came the 100k mile warranty which shocked the world. at the same time, they improoved the build quality, copied more styling notes from other successful cars.
now, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan are cutting back on production, the 2 Korean companies are building new plants here in America.
I personally never owned any Korean cars, drove one the very first time, a rental Kia for 6 days last summer in Raleigh, N.C. even with 55k miles on the clock, that car wasn't half bad at all.
why can they make money building cars, others can't.
X1 Mike
Well-known member
When people are bashing the big three and Detroit I always bring up the arsenal of democracy but it is widely ignored because we are allies with Japan now.
arkangel06
Banned
F*CK MAC tools Ive never bought any of their **** and i never will.
Mickey O
Well-known member
+ Bad Managment and Retirement planning + Big Bonuses when the company is posting annual losses = 2007 Gm sold more vehicles than they ever have and still had lost money.. WTF....
Hyundai is Union operated and those guys dont mess around, When they go on strike they actually go on a hunger strike and they recently kidnapped 11 executives in India till there demands where met. Thats Crazy.... UAW dont have nothing on those boys and they received a 24% raise in pay when they finally setteled.
Bob Heine
ALLIANCE MEMBER
We had a plant closing in my town more than a decade ago. It was the IBM plant in Boca Raton, where the PC was invented, developed and manufactured. At one point 10,000 employees worked here. It closed, in part because the state of Florida got greedy. Florida passed a law that would have taxed IBM's worldwide income. IBM got upset and the law was overturned. It was already an unnecessary expense to ship all the parts into Florida and the finished PCs back out but that little stunt helped the company to decide to simply move the software development to Texas and the hardware development and manufacturing to North Carolina.
IBM's competitors built equivalent machines for less money, partly because most of them didn't provide pension plans or Cadillac health care plans. When IBM's share of the PC market kept shrinking, the simple solution was to sell the PC business to Lenovo, a Chinese company. If you had been willing to pay $5,000 (the original price of the PC) for the American made machine instead of $500 for the Taiwanese equivalent, IBM would probably still be manufacturing PCs here in the US.
Somewhere along the line, IBM realized that high tech companies, like Microsoft and Apple didn't offer pension plans so IBM got rid of theirs (except for those real close to retirement -- oh, and the executives). The Cadillac health plan became a menu of different plans that the employees paid for (free for Geo covage and big bucks for the Cadillac coverage).
It's still too expensive to do stuff in the US so IBM outsourced as much as possible (it's International Business Machines). When most of the stuff ended up being made in China it made sense to move the Purchasing division headquarters and staff to China. That worked so well that the company decided to move a few thousand more US jobs overseas -- with a twist.
When your IBM job moved to China, India, Brazil or an Eastern European country you could move with it. IBM pays for your one-way airfare, visas and some miscellaneous expenses and you get to work overseas for the local wage.
If you want the capitalists to keep jobs here in the US, we'll probably have to do away with public education, minimum wage and overturn child labor laws. No big deal because those are planks in the Communist Manifesto, not our Constitution. Getting rid of Social Security and Medicare should help as well but they're already on their way out.
I buy from Harbor Freight because the alternative is buy nothing. I'll go without before I pay $70 for a screwdriver. But I don't make money with my tools and I can't write them off on my taxes so I understand that those who do are completely justified in paying whatever the tool truck guy charges. SnapOn doesn't come to my house so not buying their tools isn't putting anyone out of work. Much as you hate HF, they are opening stores all over the US and are hiring Americans to work in them.
IBM's competitors built equivalent machines for less money, partly because most of them didn't provide pension plans or Cadillac health care plans. When IBM's share of the PC market kept shrinking, the simple solution was to sell the PC business to Lenovo, a Chinese company. If you had been willing to pay $5,000 (the original price of the PC) for the American made machine instead of $500 for the Taiwanese equivalent, IBM would probably still be manufacturing PCs here in the US.
Somewhere along the line, IBM realized that high tech companies, like Microsoft and Apple didn't offer pension plans so IBM got rid of theirs (except for those real close to retirement -- oh, and the executives). The Cadillac health plan became a menu of different plans that the employees paid for (free for Geo covage and big bucks for the Cadillac coverage).
It's still too expensive to do stuff in the US so IBM outsourced as much as possible (it's International Business Machines). When most of the stuff ended up being made in China it made sense to move the Purchasing division headquarters and staff to China. That worked so well that the company decided to move a few thousand more US jobs overseas -- with a twist.
When your IBM job moved to China, India, Brazil or an Eastern European country you could move with it. IBM pays for your one-way airfare, visas and some miscellaneous expenses and you get to work overseas for the local wage.
If you want the capitalists to keep jobs here in the US, we'll probably have to do away with public education, minimum wage and overturn child labor laws. No big deal because those are planks in the Communist Manifesto, not our Constitution. Getting rid of Social Security and Medicare should help as well but they're already on their way out.
I buy from Harbor Freight because the alternative is buy nothing. I'll go without before I pay $70 for a screwdriver. But I don't make money with my tools and I can't write them off on my taxes so I understand that those who do are completely justified in paying whatever the tool truck guy charges. SnapOn doesn't come to my house so not buying their tools isn't putting anyone out of work. Much as you hate HF, they are opening stores all over the US and are hiring Americans to work in them.
Mickey O
Well-known member
I've worked at plenty of "union leaders" homes, I know who they are and what they do and they are a big problem. I do like when the "leaders" where blue collar clothes when they appear on TV for an interview, too bad they don't film them arriving in their 100k plus cars.
I'm not completely anti-union, I think there are some good aspects especially the ones that have schools and training but of course now they are forced to meet special quotas of who they train, it's no longer the best candidates.
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Mickey O
Well-known member
I'd take the alternative. But you're not exactly being honest here, you can get a USA made screwdriver set at Menards or Sears for around the same money or a few buck more, you can get high quality USA made used ones for the same price or less.
Mickey O
Well-known member
Who are you asking?
There are extreme cases in all aspects of life, The unions get a bad rap because everyone has seen the movie deplicting the "Teamsters" and "Hoffa" Even with all the coruption that was evident back then its still protected the american worker and made there job better in all aspects not just financially. Has the corruption left the Unions? NO!
http://www.railwayage.com/breaking-news/blet-president-arrested-on-bribery-charges.html
and
http://www.nlpc.org/category/keywords/united-transportation-union-utu
They are thieves and im glad they are getting caught, But its no different than any other non union company. There is always someone who thinks they can beat the system and the news is littered with there names. I pay $120 bucks a month for my representation, I have a Cadillac Health Care plan that costs me $300 a month (for me only) $435 when i get hitched in JUNE. With My job being completely unionized they still managed to have a "Net" Income of 1 billion dollars for 2009 with the drowning economy and High Diesel costs. What im getting at is that Union employed companies can still make money but it takes Strong Management.
Mickey O
Well-known member
It's not just the movies, the Teemsters are still carrying on with their tradition of harassment and under-handed methods, I've witnessed it first hand. But your right it isn't just limited to unions, seems to b across the board in this country for the last many years. Both my father an I were in unions, he paid to get in but that's how it was back then but it was a good union for him (they did screw him over a few times, no comp for a bad injury at work, he didn't know "dumb immigrant"), my union sucked. I've also worked jobs along side union guys where the union tried to muscle it's way into all the work. Do a youtube search for the SEI Union and have a listen to their "leader", they'd sell you out in a heartbeat for lower waged illegal immigrant workers, they're the ones pushing hard for amnesty. While I think the some unions are good for the employees, they screw over a lot of businesses and the union "leaders" care only about one thing, and it ain't the worker, it's the money.
More members = more revenue for the Union kitty, There not in the business of losing members. The union doesnt pay me, I pay them. If the union doesnt take care of its members these elected people lose there position. It used to be said that a "Union is only as strong as its members" With all the corruption that is happening now a days thats not exactly a true statement, For instance. Our President recently tried to pass into the bylaws that there position was appointed and not a elected position. WTF... Are these people stupid. Im not defending unions as a whole but i do believe they play a important part in maintaining US jobs and keeping companies from offshoring production via contracts. I would love to know that my employer would provide me with a safe working enviroment, decent wages and affordable benefits without a union, Sadly businesses only care about the Money also.
quattrojon
Well-known member
It seems as though Mac are going down the same road as Britool, and will soon move all manufacture overseas. I don't think Mac can be saved, i believe that the best plan is for you to support a company that has stayed true to it's roots- Wright Tools, and that way you will help keep American money in American pockets.
Don't forget it's not so long ago that Britain had a thriving tool industry which was hit by cheap imports, amongst other things, and we lost some great names such as Gordon, Bedford, and Tipco. Don't let your favourite brands go the same way.
Don't forget it's not so long ago that Britain had a thriving tool industry which was hit by cheap imports, amongst other things, and we lost some great names such as Gordon, Bedford, and Tipco. Don't let your favourite brands go the same way.
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Link please?
vssjim
ALLIANCE MEMBER
just put in US made or american made clothing in a search and you will get links to stillmadeintheus.com and many many more places that sell US made products and lots of them are clothing.
Mickey O
Well-known member
It'll be a little while, my regular computer took a ****, I'm using a netbook that doesn't have any of my **** on it.
vssjim
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Other than King **** and some Sykes Pickavant tools who else makes tools in England now and how can you tell if a product by these mfg,s are English made or imported and just name stamped tools not english made.
vssjim
ALLIANCE MEMBER
http://stillmadeinusa.com/
http://buyamerican.com/index.html
http://madeinusaforever.com/index.html
here are three and there are alot more if you do alittle looking
http://buyamerican.com/index.html
http://madeinusaforever.com/index.html
here are three and there are alot more if you do alittle looking
Mickey O
Well-known member
I'm just waiting for Chinese pizza and hot dogs, mm mm good.
tonydanzah
Well-known member
i saw chinese garlic at the ultra grocery store last night
quattrojon
Well-known member
Thor copper/rawhide hammers are made in the Midlands, and Footprint still make hammers in Sheffield. Do King **** still manufacture here?
vssjim
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I have three sets of the 150th anniversary wrench sets and they were made in England and the web site says they are still make tools their as well but some of the tools look alittle funny so I don't know as I haven't called them to find out.
quattrojon
Well-known member
I've never really looked at King **** (perhaps i should), the majority of my customers want U.S made tools.
This "Buy American" song has been going on for about 10 years now and it's getting old, and only a small minority is listening.
No, I'm not saying it won't make a difference. And I don't know if 300 million is the magic number. I'm saying that the tide has already changed, and even if you convinced every GJ member to buy only American, there are millions of other consumers that buy on price and perceived value only. Right or wrong.
I agree that the monetary system is manipulated to China's advantage, but China has started to level the monetary playing field by choosing to buy bonds outside the US. The question is, why hasn't our government responded to make manufacturing in the US more attractive?
Buying American by itself isn't the answer. It will only slow the migration. The only way to revive manufacturing in America is to be able to compete globally on price and quality. Then Americans won't buy just because it's made in America, they will buy (and other country's consumers will buy as well) because it is the best value.
Dale
vssjim
ALLIANCE MEMBER
The King **** wrenches I have are well made if they still make alot of their tools in England I'm sure they would be a good choice for you to sell over some of the asian tool lines you now carry like Brittool. I only have two metric wrenches from Britttool that were brought back from England in the nineties before Brittool was turned into a asian tool company by Stanley that just sells cheapy tools under the Brittool name. I see in the lines you carry that many were 100% US made tools until about ten years ago but many lines are now loaded up with asian rebranded tools under the US made name which is a shame. Plus the SK french/Facom tools which everybody knew about for along time.
Zrexxer
Well-known member
To add an additional twist, I don't see how they could do much worse... personally I don't think MAC has made a tool that's worth a **** in 20 years. I hate to say it, but sometimes "Made in USA" doesn't necessarily mean it's GOOD...
MAC's definitely my least favorite domestic hand tool company.
Mickey O
Well-known member
And now the tide is turning, shortsighted greedy idiots didn't realize there was a price to pay for cheap Chinese ****, as they find themselves in the unemployment line they are starting to wise up. In addition China and the other Asians countries can't provide cheap goods indefinitely.
Mickey O
Well-known member
Smart bunch and we have people living here with easy access to top quality US made tools and they still buy Chinese ****.
toolnut
Well-known member
Blackhawk - Don't forget them
toolnut
Well-known member
How long is the list of stuff still made in the U.S.???