Made in China, some outsourcing study i did

[Bran Diezel]

yeah, but les pauls are les pauls, be a man and get a PRS SINGLECUT

fixed

 

[HandyManny]

Now I'm worried I got a Swiss made automatic for a low price...

Ah.....gee sorry.....I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure it's a really good watch.

 

[doctorschmullus]

fixed

Noooooooooooooo not prs!!!!

Actually interestingly enough my guitar from china is becoming a real buzz with all my friends, cos everyone is like get me one! come on.
Lol

Best guitars are
gretsch 6120
gretsch white falcon
fender strat
and Telecaster thinline.

Fender made a telecaster thinline originally for 1 year in 1974, its a tele with an f hole and now i am getting a replica built! with my own loanstar guitars logo and a trans am eagle on it

 

[Bran Diezel]

no the best guitars are

old gibsons made in kalamazoo
prs
mcnaught
any vintage fender
g&l

lol, im just mouthing off but i wish i had time to play again. i spent like 30 grand in amplifiers a couple years ago and now have moved on to tools

 

[doctorschmullus]

yeah lol, i guess everything comes down to personal choice, even tools,

 

[Danglerb]

The trick with cheap vodka is a Brita water filter and pint of good vodka. Start with a sip of the good vodka, then switch to the cheap filtered, and you will never notice a thing.

Doing any kind of business in Asia requires a trusted partner on the ground to look after your day to day interests. Anything else, with the exception so far of buying via ebay, is a total roll of the dice.

 

[doctorschmullus]

yeah well, i only spent a hundred bucks on the guitar, its something thats not really gonna matter if it doesnt work out 100 percent

 

[hguerrero]

keep in mind a place like Burger King deals in QUANTITY not quality.

I'll once again point out restaurants. Yes, you could get a double cheeseburger at Burger King for 99 cents, but what does that really mean? Not much. You will still have regular quarter pounders, and there will still be quality burgers offered at fancier restaurants.

Will fancier restaurants switch over to offering BK double cheeseburgers because it's dirty cheap? No. Some fast food restaurants might focus on the cheaper value sandwhiches more, but distinct quality tiers will more or less remain intact.

These ratchets are so cheap because production is half-assed. And as mentioned, even with am extremely high failure rate, they'll still be dirt-cheap. Some companies won't care, but others do.

Companies outsource because it saves them a lot on labor costs, but when they start saving money on materials and processing, product quality will drop.

I have a ratchet that probably came out of one of those $3 per ratchet factories. It's an absolute POS. Feels like it was made out of recycled aluminum.

Many companies that outsource are not public companies, but still outsource to "lower costs to remain competitive".

 

[Boiler]

I am a member of the "younger generation" (well somewhat, I'm 29). I also shop at Harbor Freight and online often, and buy foreign products if the price difference is large. I recently went to sears and now understand what you guys are saying about buying US made though, and for once in a shopping outing I was shopping the US made section exclusively. That being said, Sears Craftsman sets were significantly higher cost than the Evolve made in china stuff. No discernible difference in quality looking at the stuff in the package.

I will say this however: Sears/America in general needs to get it's US made products at least remotely close to the Asian product prices.

As a price conscious buyer, your thinking is what has destroyed our job outlook. Quick searches online show that the average individual in the US makes 10x more per year than the average individual in China.

Now I don’t care who you are, if we lower all of our prices to china levels, were all going to make china incomes. What’s the point??? By buying all of their products because they’re cheap, we’re ensuring the trend of stagnant wages and decreasing job availability. And you privledged few that don’t manufacture, having less manufacturing paid customers / clients will affect you as well.

Besides that, the Chinese government subsidizes their manufacturing to make it cheaper for them to make stuff to sell us.

I can buy a decent quality set of sockets online or even from Sears for $10 and the Sears US made socket set of the same variety is $30-$50. Does it require that much labor to make those products? I would really like to see an investigation over how much more it really costs to make products like sockets and other tools that are made in an automated press system.

The key to bringing down the cost of products is automation, and unfortunately we are shipping a lot of machines overseas to reduce their labor component. It really is sad. America is moving backwards as far as manufacturing goes. Wealth is leaving this country at breakneck speed.

On one hand you argue that we need to lower our prices to asian levels, mention that you buy asian when the price is right, and then you say that it is sad that we are moving backwards and that wealth is leaving this country at breakneck speed. YOU sir and your 10 million friends are the REASON for this problem.

It's always buyer beware, no matter if your dealing with the Chinese, Russians, Germans, our own domestic, or even the Swiss......sometimes I think especially the Swiss....neutral my ***, just self absorbed that's all.

I don't blame the Chinese for bad products, they're every bit as capable of producing good products if a corporation is willing to pay to have a high quality product outsourced. I blame the domestic company who outsources and goes with the lowest end maker in China just so that domestic company can save a buck and keep shareholders happy. Every country is capable of producing high quality and every country is capable of producing junk. I keep coming across plenty of products that have USA stamped on them these days that aren't quite up to where they should be in the quality department. I've owned a few products made in Germany that were not that great to be honest.

I agree 100%. Quality of a particular item is not determined by COO. It is determined by design, quality assurance, and the will for a company to make a quality product. Unfortunately the overwhelming majority of Chinese manufactured products are built there strictly because the outsourcer wants the best looking, cheapest product possible. You really don’t even need a warranty if it looks good enough and is cheap enough. If someone’s $5 item breaks 6 months after they bought it, throw it out and buy another!

I think if most Americans were yellow skinned, you'd likely see more acceptance with Chinese made goods, as it turns out most Americans are of mixed European origin and therefore are more forgiving of European made goods or at least see them in a better light even if quality sometimes slides with European products. Somehow its become erroneously interpreted that only quality products are made in USA, or Germany, or Switzerland, or England, etc. Not the really case.

I do not agree with this at all. I in fact know a couple asian guys that I’ve heard say “china ****” when looking through tools at a flea market. I don’t think every USA made tool is great quality. A trip through sears and I’ll show you what I mean. What I do believe wholeheartedly is that in general the average USA, England, German, Swiss, & Canadian made tool has better quality, by a wide margin, than the average Indian or Chinese made tool.

You are right about one thing, quality can come from China, but it costs more so most outsourcing does not specify this high level of quality. The whole point of going to China for production is a great price.

Even if quality were the same, the argument to NOT buy from China can be made solely on this fact: if we continue down this path were on, of buying rock bottom cheap items from whatever country is the flavor of the month cheap outsourcing location, eventually everywhere in the world will average about the same income level. Now some look at this as good, that the other countries of the world should be able to live well and make good money like we do. The problem is, we are in the vast minority when it comes to making money. If you averaged out the entire worlds income levels, the bottom dwellers would only go up a little, while the few on top would fall greatly, due to the number of people at each level. And it will continue to go this way until equilibrium is reached.

Pretend America is a bubble with 10 people living in it. Of those ten are a doctor, teacher, banker, welder, plumber, farmer, blacksmith, chef, salesman, and an importer. If more value of materials and finished goods have to be imported than those that are exported, the lifestyle of all of those individuals will diminish over time. Even if you’re a doctor living high on the hog now, as all of your patients have less and less money, so will you. Capitolism dictates that we do all we can to make money for ourselves, so like most these people will even import food if it was cheaper than what the farmer in the bubble with them could provide. Even though this will be to their own detriment in the future.

Yes, it may be too late to avoid this shift, unless we have some sort of isolationist legislation put through, but I for one will not go out of my way to speed up this phenomenon. Personally if I need things that I can't afford a quality USA product of, I'll try to find it used online or at a flea, auction, or garage sale.

 

[HandyManny]

Maybe Boiler, but even Wright Tools used to say in their 100% USA made section of their cataloge that we cannot survive financialy alone by doing each others laundry. One way or another to some degree we still need a global market. Even in the good old days of American industrial superpower we were still not that isolated. We imported raw materals even then and always have going back to the days of the colonies.

I also don't agree that high quality Chinese made products are as much if not more than domestic made products. I've used a lot of reasonably priced Chinese made driver bits and other tools that were better in durability than some of our own domestic stuff. Times have changed. I recall how back in the 1950's everyone here said that Japanese made products were junk. In fact Japanese made products have always been top notch, it's just that Americans at the time were very bias. It wasn't until the 1980's until most Americans fully realised just how superior Jap made stuff really is. Japan is one country who doesn't fool around, they don't tolerate mediocrity or failure all that much in their culture. Of course I'm not camparing the Chinese with the ****. There was a time in this country when we didn't tolerate poor quality either. American made generally used to mean pretty good quality at a reasonable price. Not so anymore. We also produced very high quality at a higher price tag too, but quality always comes at a price. Quality has dropped with a lot of our own domestic product these days, and prices haven'r dropped either. But not entirely, there are still a few great companies producing excellent stuff on our soil.

 

[Boiler]

Yep, it has dropped. Its equilibrium at work. Price competition & unwillingness to create a quality product that lowers our quality. If nobody will pay for it, why make it?

 

[HandyManny]

Yep, it has dropped. Its equilibrium at work. Price competition & unwillingness to create a quality product that lowers our quality. If nobody will pay for it, why make it?

Good point. If you really think about it we as Americans are paying far less for products in todays dollars than we did back in the so-called good old days of America. Even gasoline prices from the 1950's and 1960's was more expensive for people in those days when compared to todays gas prices in todays dollars, when you take into account inflation, fuel economy of todays vehicles, etc.

Back then there was no Walmart Superstore, Super Target, or Costco, or Sams Club. Nothing of the sort availbale to the average individual retail consumer back then. Yet your average ambituous idividual could get an okay paying job right out of highschool and make a liveable wage. I think we have largely become very spoiled and used to accepting low prices today. Few are willing to pay what people paid for things back in those days. Few today are less willing to make the small sacrafices for things than people did in the past. COO sadly doesn't matter to the vast majority of Americans anymore. In fact I get criticized by younger folks tday for saying I like to buy American. It's not PC to them, but I don't care.

 

[doctorschmullus]

Interestingly enough, you think all the shops would discount products made in there country to get more out the door,
I mean I wouldnt mind paying 10-30% more for a product in my country, but when snap on costs 397 dollars for 7 spanners and asian companies like sidchrome charge $110 for reasonable quality I kind of know where Im going, lol. Joking
Stahlwille represents good value for money actually,the other day saw 13 spanner imperial set for 163