The cost of Chinese parts going up..

[Bird76Mojo]

Everyone should read and comprehend this post.
Yes stuff is more expensive, you're paying to bring manufacturing back after pissing it away. The end result will be stuff built in the us again. China was nothing until the imf got involved to help them "become a first world country" but it was at the expense of the rich us.

There's no guarantee this will ever happen. Labor will ALWAYS be cheaper overseas, and there will ALWAYS be far less governmental regulations that end up costing companies millions to deal with over time.. Many companies are scared to come back to the US due to an ever-changing tax system on both the federal AND state level, increasing amounts of governmental regulations, etc.. Lots of companies see the writing on the wall. That the US is in it's death spiral..

If there was one single thing that could be done to bring jobs back to America 100%, for certain, it would be to get the government OUT OF THE MARKETS, and OUT OF THE BUSINESS OF REGULATING BUSINESSES.

 

[Bracket racer]

There's no guarantee this will ever happen. Labor will ALWAYS be cheaper overseas, and there will ALWAYS be far less governmental regulations that end up costing companies millions to deal with over time.. Many companies are scared to come back to the US due to an ever-changing tax system on both the federal AND state level, increasing amounts of governmental regulations, etc.. Lots of companies see the writing on the wall. That the US is in it's death spiral..

If there was one single thing that could be done to bring jobs back to America 100%, for certain, it would be to get the government OUT OF THE MARKETS, and OUT OF THE BUSINESS OF REGULATING BUSINESSES.

Get the gov out, I agree 100%! However, the US is not in a "death spiral". Labour will always be cheaper overseas but that is not the single deciding factor. Didn't vote for trump but have to admit he is the best thing that has happened to the country in decades. Not perfect by far but certainly pushing things in the right direction. People will pay more for a German knife than a Chinese one for example. I watched a machine running autonomously stamping out parts on the nightshift. Go away at 8pm, come back in the morning and there are piles of weapons parts stacked up. Labour cost? Zero.

 

[Ranger850]

its just hard to believe that we sent iron ore to china, they refine it into steel, and send it back to us cheaper than we can refine the ore ourselves. Pittsburgh PA and Birmingham AL used to provide most of America their steel. But something happened and china got rich.

 

[G8orFord]

A few years ago, I was in a Walmart right before the 4th of July. They had one of those center isle displays with little wooden items on the end of a 1/4 inch wooden dowel. The items were U.S. flags, silhouettes of Uncle Sam and other Patriotic type things. They were $1.99 each and all had a "Made in China" sticker on them. I'm sorry, but you can't tell me we can't make something like that here for the same price or less. Just the fact that Walmart imported items like that made me ill. China cannot survive at their current level without our money. I have no problem with the tariffs, but then again, I try to buy as American made products when I can anyway, so I'm not that worried about that doohicky at Walmart going from$1.99 to $2.50. Also, the tariffs will not hinder grain our exports to any degree. Folks gotta eat and when you got as many folks as China, that's a lot of mouths to feed.

Does anybody else see the irony in the fact we are selling rice to Asian countries?

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Aside from some electronics (stay major brand) most chinese stuff is crap anyway.

As a parts guy nothing makes my stomach churn like a "Made in China" sticker.

Starter switches, ignition parts (like points), needle and seats, charging system components... all warranty nightmares with no quality US option. If I had the capital I could make a killing making quality starter switches for Farmall tractors. EVERYTHING you can get now is totally crap. Same for torsion seat springs, gonna be buying them every year unless it is a parade queen.

It wouldn't be much out of my pocket without a Chinese option because I generally only take that option when there is no other option.

 

[jtaborsky]

I'm surprised "intellectual property" hasn't come up in this thread yet. China insisted that any technological product they manufactured, they were also entitled to the schematics/programming/software et cetera. Your iphone was manufactured in their country?; they get copies of the blueprints and the coding! That is a small example of the way USA is being taken for granted. America has a 5 BILLION dollar trade deficit with China, meaning we lose five billion dollars annually from trading with China.

Please raise your hand if you don't equate "made in China" with poor quality.

I will gladly pay more for American made products. Otherwise, I would be a member of "garbageimports.com" rather than this website.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I'm surprised "intellectual property" hasn't come up in this thread yet. China insisted that any technological product they manufactured, they were also entitled to the schematics/programming/software et cetera. Your iphone was manufactured in their country?; they get copies of the blueprints and the coding! That is a small example of the way USA is being taken for granted. America has a 5 BILLION dollar trade deficit with China, meaning we lose five billion dollars annually from trading with China.

Please raise your hand if you don't equate "made in China" with poor quality.

I will gladly pay more for American made products. Otherwise, I would be a member of "garbageimports.com" rather than this website.

On a less serious note as soon as Lego started having the Chinese produce stuff knockoff Legos came on the scene. It is rather sick how they can turn and burn out knockoff stuff... and nobody over there cares.

LEGO 75021 Republic Gunship

A Star Wars set released in 2013.

brickset.com

LEPIN 05041 The Republic Model Gunship Bricks Set - Update 2018

• Model Number: 05041 • With 1224 Pcs

lepinworld.com

EDIT: slightly amusing they have Padme's torso backwards. It would be rather... revealing to have the tears in that position on the front.

 

[97RangerXLT]

Here is a thought.... Who owns most of our multi Trillion dollar debt?

What happens when we do something that hurts China's economy (bigger tariffs, blocking goods from China etc)?

They effing own us. they will call that debt in in a heartbeat. As a country we really do need to stop borrowing/ spending like we don't have to pay it back.

AJ

 

[Bird76Mojo]

Here is a thought.... Who owns most of our multi Trillion dollar debt?

What happens when we do something that hurts China's economy (bigger tariffs, blocking goods from China etc)?

They effing own us. they will call that debt in in a heartbeat. As a country we really do need to stop borrowing/ spending like we don't have to pay it back.

AJ

To top it off, that's the precise reason our dollar buys so little now. Runaway government spending. Devaluing our dollar through inflation.

 

[Bird76Mojo]

However, the US is not in a "death spiral".

We're taking the exact same road that the Roman empire did, and there's no sign we're slowing down.

The reality of imperial decline is hard to dispute, albeit with qualifications. There’s always a danger that short-term trends can be mistaken for historical inevitabilities. Paul Kennedy argued in his 1987 book The Rise and Fall of Great Powers that America was entering a period of long-term relative decline. He was prescient in many ways, predicting China’s rise and the Soviet Union’s decline, but premature in predicting the weakening of America, which enjoyed a quarter-century of unchallenged dominance; the relative decline has only just begun.

The American empire, which more mainstream scholars prefer to describe in softer terms as global hegemony or the liberal international order, has always rested on three pillars: economic strength, military might, and the soft power of cultural dominance.
Relative American decline in economic power is almost inevitable given the rising clout of nations like China and India. As Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs observed in 2012:

In 1980, the US share of world income (measured in purchasing power parity prices) was 24.6 per cent. In 2011, it was 19.1 per cent. The IMF projects that it will decline to 17.6 per cent as of 2016.

China, by contrast, was a mere 2.2 per cent of world income in 1980, rising to 14.4 per cent in 2011, and projected by the IMF to overtake the US by 2016, with 18 per cent.

https://newrepublic.com/article/147319/witnessing-fall-american-empire



Failure at the center has left the United States up for sale to the highest bidder.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/02/the-american-empire-is-the-sick-man-of-the-21st-century/



America’s decline relative to a rising China has sparked interest among academics about power shifts in the international order—whether they can happen peacefully and under what conditions; what precedents exist and what they tell us. Now comes an important book, Twilight of the Titans, by Joseph M. Parent and Paul K. McDonald, who use quantitative analysis of power transitions to analyze the problem. What they find provides a warning to a rising China, and a road map for a declining United States to regain its standing.


The Harvard political scientist Graham Allison called the problem “the Thucydides Trap,” in which the country in relative decline so fears the rise of a challenger that it chooses to go to war to prevent it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/how-bad-americas-decline-relative-china/576319/




More than 40 million Americans live below the poverty line, and its total debt stands at 78 percent of the GDP, the highest since the 1950s.

https://www.trtworld.com/mea/is-the-us-on-the-decline-24934





Looking to the Future, Public Sees an America in Decline on Many Fronts
Majorities predict a weaker economy, a growing income divide, a degraded environment and a broken political system

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/03/21/public-sees-an-america-in-decline-on-many-fronts/

 

[booty_malone]

If tariffs stay on prices will go up for a while. Over time these parts will be made in a country other than China, likely Taiwan, Mexico, or heaven forbid, the USA. What we may lose in price we will likely get back in quality and we will no longer be dumping hundreds of billions of dollars a year to our rival China.

 

[Bird76Mojo]

We'll still be dumping billions of dollars per year to China no matter what. They hold 28% (around $1.12 trillion dollars) of our treasury bills, notes, and bonds, which is around $4.07 TRILLION DOLLARS. We still owe many other countries, to a tune of $22 TRILLION DOLLARS total national debt.

Each day our nation pays communist China $73.9 million in interest on our debt. We're making them filthy rich and increasing their power and influence throughout the globe.

China has the greatest amount of U.S. debt held by a foreign country. Japan comes second at $1.08 trillion, followed by the United Kingdom at $317 billion. Brazil hold $311 billion and Ireland holds $278 billion.

China owns us. If they even talk about selling off their treasury holdings, the bottom falls out of the markets worldwide. Just based on rumors alone.

Our politicians and everyone involved in the military industrial complex should be hung by the neck until dead from the highest tree for this treasonous act.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

The people that caused the problem have been dead a long time.

Now everybody just saves it for the next guy to deal with.

 

[19Walt93]

People buying Chinese products should think about what they're voting for with their money. The stuff is cheaper- but it should be- China has nothing like the EPA, no OSHA, no child labor laws, no union retirement funds, no health insurance expenses for the manufacturers. If you want to work under conditions like that go ahead and buy their stuff. Remember that 2 months before the Olympics China shut down 2 manufacturing cities- not just factories, whole cities- trying to clean up the air pollution enough that foreigners could breathe. Imagine how much cheaper American companies could operate without environmental and safety regulations and employee health insurance expense- but is that what we want? The purpose of the tariffs is to make our products more attractive by evening the playing field a little.

 

[19Walt93]

Our national debt is our biggest security risk without question. Every year that they vote in a budget with a deficit those 535 pickpockets in congress should not get paid.