"It's very well made in Taiwan"

if you don't want to buy from the mainland

I just had my kid's 4 runner started rebuilt by a local guy. Hispanic dude uses cheap Chinese parts. I ended up buying the parts from another place and had him do the work. Still he charger me 60 bucks like he normally would only with the crappy parts. Now the better question is, why can we rebuilt a original GM power steering gear box without having to pay 1300.00 for a racing bomb proof box?

Allegedly awesome shoes can be had at the right thrift shops. For less awesome, Allen Edmonds still does some US made work. Same for Hickey Freeman on suits. Alden shoes of course but you're getting into some dollars there...

Luggage? IDK - but Osprey, Eagle Creek and Briggs & Riley have awesome warranties. I think most of them have a "shoot it, drag it from an elephant, whatever" policy. Delta airlines gifted me a broken, supposedly unbreakable, B&R suitcase. They didn't exactly give me a new one for free, but they did give that price on a new one.

Something we agree on.

Taiwan use to make a bunch of junk also, but they have gotten much better over the years. Japan started it first and the Korean and Taiwanese were next. I just saw a Utube vid on Chinese bicycle components. Cheaply priced, but they seem to work ok according to the tester. I wouldn't put them on my race bike, but for general riding to the park or Starbucks, sure, why not? Shimano DuraAce group is 3500 bucks. The cheap Chinese knock off is 1300 bucks. What's not to like. Yes, we keep feeding the monster, but without the feed, they can't advanced. We are going run ourselves into the sand bar and get stuck there one day with the Chinese. They will have us by the balls.

They've had us by the balls for awhile now. With heir fang fangs dug right in.

Well not us, really. But Eric Swallwell and Hunter Biden for sure. Maybe even Diane Feinstein. Oh wait, she doesn't have...nah...her, too. Ya never know about these people.

China has taken the playbook of a 1980s drug dealer. The ‘goods’ are cheap, almost free so we buy them for a fraction the cost of local product. The reality is that North American companies can’t even buy the material to make this stuff for what it retails for from China.

Let this sink in.

They are obtaining the raw materials, adding value through various manufacturing processes, then it passes through at least 1 middleman (Amazon or whoever), then it is shipped half way around the world for an all in cost less than the materials are worth.

The Chinese government is subsidizing this dumping with the end game of choking out all other countries who manufacture. At that point, there will be no other option (in some cases, there already isnt).

Yep. They can sell a whole sinkbase cabinet, for example for under 350 bucks. 350 bucks will get me 2.5 piece of plywood.

you just described what Amazon and HomeDepot are doing to all the other smaller business within N America.

Money makes the world go around now that they have it, some of our hands are in the cookie jars.

These guys, the Chinese, aint dumb. They have been world power not once but many times over the many centuries and if we don't think it will happen again in the near future, we better sleep with only one eye closed.

I went to a sale of the machinery being sold off in the last of the big factories here in Wellington. In the 1970's we made just about everything, and I loved the big factories. I worked in about six of them. Great employers, everyone got paid well.

I bought a couple of engineers tables, slightly as souvenirs, slightly because I wanted the tables. But it was nice to remember the day of when you bought something it really would last as you would expect it to last. AND some local people made a living by making it for you.

Back in the day it was considered very lower class to work in the factories - but I loved it. Now it's almost a badge of honour to have worked in them, with the dislike of all the Chinese crap that comes into the country and into the land fill/dump before the year is out.

If you want quality, buy direct from the manufacturer. Amazon is full of fake stuff that looks like the real thing. They use the product code of the original, so it will show pictures of the real thing. But it is junk.

This pretty much sums it up. This is China Incorporated we're dealing with here. And having no qualms about stealing intellectual property, permitting unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, or poisoning the environment, it's only a matter of time until they attain their goal. In many areas, highly regulated Western manufacturing processes simply can't complete. The Chinese are patient and very good at playing the long game, while we here in the West are more focused on short-term outcomes.

And as already mentioned, we're all at fault for letting this happen. It seems that no one cares about quality any more...consumers just want to buy everything as cheaply as possible. If the thing breaks or wears out after using it once or twice, so what. Just go out and get another one.

This is World War 4.

WW3 was the cold war with Russia.

Yes, where are these young kids with their social media when you need them. Bring it on kids - start a world wide boycott of anything and everything made in China.

I will only buy Chinese made when there is no other options which is very rare.
One option we can all choose is to ask yourself: Do I really need this?

- Is there a Smart Phone that is not made in China?

http://https://www.cashify.in/top-10-non-chinese-smartphones-to-buy-in-2020

I've been doing it for decades! And you may be surprised at how easy it is to do. Honestly I think I've saved money in the long run.

And finally, this has nothing to do with the Chinese people but I will not knowingly support the CCP.
Do I really need to list why?

Back in the days before digital photography I worked in a professional photo lab. We made photographic prints for our customers. When Wal Mar came along they were selling 4x6 color prints to the customer at a cost that was less than our cost for the piece of photographic material buying direct from Kodak with our dealership license.

They could sell a 4x6 print for a nickle. Just the paper was 6 cents for us. Much less the printer which was a 40K machine we needed to expose the print from the negative, the 25K paper processor, and the expensive chemicals the water and employees needed to mix the chemistry and run the printer. That was the start of the end to that business. Digital just drove a stake through the heart of it. And at the time we charge 60 cents for a 4x6 color print. Our print was a good quality proper color print. The Wal mart print was whatever the machine spit out and might be horrid color balance, but it was CHEAP!

Same here. Immersed myself in the wonderful world of tool boxes over the last few days. It's eye opening how bad the domestic tool box manufacturing industry has been destroyed by cheap product dumping from China and Vietnam.

There's only one or two actual domestic manufacturers with factories on US Soil anymore, several years ago there were many more- Waterloo (people who make CMan boxes) started a lawsuit to put tariffs on imported boxes that big box retailers (Lowes Home Depot) sell. Waterloo industries started the action.


https://toolguyd.com/what-will-happen-to-pricing-of-tool-chests-cabinets-combos-and-mobile-workbenches/

Anyhow, I bought a Chinese made Homak simply because the only American made affordable boxes (Big box retail) are junk and I didn't want to spend on a Snap On.

Tool porn pics

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1613757386.JPG

What kind of car is that next to the toolbox ?

China courted every single US manufacturer in a certain energy effecient segment.
A particular componet, no option.
As of a few years ago, the last shut down here and opened there.
When we can afford it, we'll make it ourselves.
Even Japan, Korean, etc, still pay a Chinese tarrif as they are importing aspects from China.

70 LeMans Sport- 455 pontiac inside. Finally got motivation to do things to it. It's an eternal project.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1613759945.jpg