"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Tom Gardner" wrote:

Most all of the products that were our bread and butter...and a nice
portion
of jam, are made in China now so we had to develop niche products that are
too few or too difficult for the Chinese to make. Wal-Mart buys a
shoe-handle model wire scratch brush for 19 cents delivered, that they
sell
for 99 cents. It costs me 25 cents to buy the wire in coils that have to
be
cut yet. Hard to compete even though mine would out-last the China model
by
ten to one. The consumer doesn't care.


We sold an Index G200 that was fully amortized though it had mainenance
issues because the
parts it was making could be bought from Korea for less than the price of
American raw
materials. Sucks for a hard working American to be told his or her job
went away because
no matter how hard you work, you will still cost more.

Wes

Chances are foreign governments subsidize some industries. We used to make
millions of 1/4" stem mounted hardware quality brushes. The Spanish prison
system make them with rejected tire-cord wire. That's the brass-plated wire
you see everywhere, it's crap.