Timken China

[HingsingM37]

Well this week we received our first batch of China Timken/Fafnir spherical roller bearings at work for an aggragate customer. They have a big sticker on the box "made in China". I can't wait for my customer to get them and call me. People ask me for a made in USA product, any more I tell them I can not state its origin untill I have the box in hand . I/R Air tools made in China, Harley Parts made in China, we better learn Mandarin after Spanish.. .

[hbb]

Are you kidding? everything is made in China.before long our beef will be coming from there.

hb

[T. Highway]

It's getting harder to find anything with a Made In USA tag but I will still go out of my way to find it before purchasing.

I was grocery shopping and saw Beef from Mexico, Lake Perch From Turkey and Frog Legs from China.

Bert

[hbb]

It's getting harder to find anything with a Made In USA tag but I will still go out of my way to find it before purchasing.

I was grocery shopping and saw Beef from Mexico, Lake Perch From Turkey and Frog Legs from China.

Bert

Bert,

Well there you go! you can tell I don't get out much.

hb

[majorhitt]

When my boys were in baseball, I went to pick up a few new balls, you guessed it they all were made in china. The American game and you have to buy from china!!

[Wayne64]

I wonder if it is already too late to save America? Recently got something from the NRA, China. Even my Infantry unit sells Chinese stuff. The topping on the cake was the ball cap my lady bought for me. Nice tan color with the Purple Heart badge and embroidered with combat wounded. I like to have a Sh$t fit when I saw the tag, Made In Vietnam!!!
I wonder how much money the politicians, both parties, made on selling the public on the "fair trade" deals.

[M37UK]

I dont know why some people are surprised to find that most things are made in China. Ask any business what their main priority is, and they will say profit margin.
If you dont have any margin, you aint got a business and you are unable to pay overheads including wages, taxes etc etc.
The main reason the West cannot compete with China is simply labor costs. How much do you think it would cost for a Western company to make a baseball cap 2.50/5.00 or more?
when you are paying your workers a few bucks a DAY it is easy to see how they can produce a baseball cap for pennies in comparison.
Its a sad state of affairs, but we enjoy our western comforts and we need to be paid enough to afford and keep them and thats why we need high wages.

Stu

[CTgreen]

I think one of the main reasons manufacturing has left the USA is because of the"new" profit margins required by big company CEO's. It used to be that the guy that owned the factory made an annual salary that was not grotesquely larger than the factory worker. Sure, it was larger enough for the factory owner to have a lot more luxury in his life, but it was also small enough so that the factory worker could also live comfortably. Sure, harder work should bring greater rewards, but how many millions in bonuses does a guy who already makes millions need? here are some statistics:

The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options. It was at 411:1 in 2005 and 344:1 in 2007, according to research by United for a Fair Economy. How can a CEO be worth $26,550,000 a year compared to the guy in the factory making $50,000 a year?

It would be nice if Americans could do something to reign in these ludicrous CEO profits, and make manufacturing affordable in the US again......but how? The ticks are burrowed in pretty deep. I do believe that hard work should bring greater rewards, but enough is enough. And if somebody isn't willing to work, they should be paid accordingly...meaning they get nothing. Sorry, I had to vent. I bought some bearings for my BMW motorcycle, and when I opened the BMW box, they said MADE IN CHINA. I gave them back. I couldn't find any bearings in local bearing houses (Crafty BMW and their odd-sized outer races). I hung my head, and went back to the BMW dealer and bought bearings. I opened the box, and they said MADE IN GERMANY. A small victory. H.

[Tanner]

Make sure that you have ZERO investments in any ties in American firms with Chinese manufacturing before you talk about American companies making something
called 'profits' through outsourced manufacturing... It was forecast & well-predicted 30+ years ago that the US would move out of being a manufacturing powerhouse.
This is not new news. Face the fact that we are all part of a global economy... and I really don't want anyone - individual or government - telling me where I can
manufacture goods, or how much profit I can make. YOU - the consumer - determine the strength & profitability of any company based on the dollars you spend for
goods. And part of the blame on offshore manufacturing & loss of U.S. jobs lays SQUARELY on the shoulders of the consumer, as you spend your dollars on goods at
Walmart & other cheap stores. It's a perpetuating cycle...

[majorhitt]

I stay away from Walmart and other stores that try to lure you in with low prices. What good is it when I purchase an item to only have to go back and purchase it again due to poor quality? I would much rather pay for a better quality item once than pay several times for a lesser quality item. Not to mention if down and loss of production is a factor. If you saw the show about Apple in China, the workers are more or less warehoused at the factory, and paid about $2.00 an hr. work 12 hr days 7 days a week. The worker that was interviewed, said after a few weeks she could travel home to see her family.Then do it all again.

[snowdad]

And can someone explain to me again how NAFTA is supposed to benefit us?

[Tanner]

I do design & engineering consulting work for a Chinese wire & cable manufacturer based in Taiwan, with manufacturing in ShenZhen & HangZhou, China... oddly enough, very near the Apple supplier - Foxconn - that you mention.

We, too, have dormitory style facilities to house the workers, onsite cafeteria & healthcare, and yes, the wages are obviously lower than what the equivalent worker (non-Unionized) would see in the USA. But the wages paid with this company are well higher than what the other company in question is paying. Foxconn is the industry wh*re in that area, and everyone knows that the owner is a bad dude (he's getting his Karmic dues, as his health is in poor condition, as I've heard from reliable resources). It's getting harder to find good employees there, as there have been industry abuses in that area of manufacturing. And I don't condone or support the abuses - most of the employees are young women 18-22 in age, as they are willing to work at doing small part detail tasks - yet we lose about 20% of the employees when they head home 2x year during the week-long Chinese Golden Week breaks... it's typical in that part of industry to lose employees. They typically work long enough to put away $2-3k (US eqv) & then head home with their 'dowry' to get married. I've seen it firsthand for the past few years now - they work 5-6 days/week, depending on business needs, with 8 & sometimes 10 hour days being norm for some.

That being said, when you buy Cisco, Sony, Bose, etc., electronics, you're buying the product I work on. My employer is privately held, the owner is a devout Buddhist, and believes in taking care of his employees. He knows that good help is hard to find in that area, and the employees he hires are making well more than they would scratching a living out of the earth in their villages. We build products that go into consumer electronics, medical equipment, automotive applications, solar panel & controllers electric motors, etc. We are very concerned about the quality of product that we ship out.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for all industry in that part of the world...