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Default Rethinking "Made in China"

This post is aimed at all you sinophobes out there.

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".

Now it is true that a lot of crap--boatloads of it, literally--does come
from that great country. We've all seen it, used it, chucked it out.

But bear in mind the historical precedent: some of you are probably old
enough to remember the similar tarring of anything that had the label
"Made in Japan" on it. Anything Japanese was considered worthless.
Compare to today.

I'm finding more and more that "Made in China" really doesn't mean
anything about the quality of an item. Clearly, Chinese workers, as
underpaid as they may be, are quite capable of making anything as well
as anyone else in any other part of the world.

Part of the problem is that we're placing blame in the wrong place. The
*real* problem seems to be "Made in [anyplace] but designed in the U.S.
[or some other place]". A lot, if not most, of what I would call
"Chinese junk" is actually made as well as the design would allow for,
including the materials used and the amount of labor committed to
finishing the item. So in many cases Chinese factories are making
faithful copies of a ****ty design that may well have come from some
designer's computah right here in The Greatest Industrial Power on Earth
(the US of A).

I predict the Chinese are following the same arc that the Japanese did
after WWII, with variations, of course; there's no Marshall Plan, and
the countries are vastly different. Nonetheless, I can forsee the day
when "Made in China" is no longer a call for derision.

By way of showing just how wrong people can be when predicting who's
winning the industrial game, here's a hilariously and astoundingly wrong
prediction about the Japanese and American photographic industries from
1946: http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-136.html


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Default Rethinking "Made in China"

On 12/16/2009 01:39 PM, David Nebenzahl wrote:

I'm finding more and more that "Made in China" really doesn't mean
anything about the quality of an item. Clearly, Chinese workers, as
underpaid as they may be, are quite capable of making anything as well
as anyone else in any other part of the world.


True.

However, going by various comments written by people in the industry,
there also seems to be a cultural impetus to try and push the lower
boundaries of the quality standards. So if a Chinese factory contracts
for a given level of quality there is a tendency for that level to drop
over time unless the company that hired them keeps on top of things.

I suspect this holds true to a certain extent in many places, but he
impression that I have gotten (from various places) is that this is
worse when dealing with Chinese manufacturers.

Chris

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Default Rethinking "Made in China"

David Nebenzahl wrote:

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".


You mean like drywall, C-Less' "64GB USB Drive", and the stuff at Harbor
Fright?

A rose by any other name ...

**** China, and "Made in USA", for that matter ... I'm buying "European"
like Laguna, Festool, Omer, et al products every chance I get these days.

I want value for what few of my hard earned $$ I get to keep, not some
price point engineered POS with an advertising budget.

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Default Rethinking "Made in China"

On 12/16/2009 02:09 PM, Swingman wrote:
David Nebenzahl wrote:

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".


You mean like drywall, C-Less' "64GB USB Drive", and the stuff at Harbor
Fright?

A rose by any other name ...

**** China, and "Made in USA", for that matter ... I'm buying "European"
like Laguna, Festool, Omer, et al products every chance I get these days.


Funny you mention Laguna...some of their stuff is made in China.

What about Lie-Nielsen and Starrett? Or General and Veritas and Oneway
from Canada?

Chris
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Default Rethinking "Made in China"

David Nebenzahl wrote:
This post is aimed at all you sinophobes out there.

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".

Now it is true that a lot of crap--boatloads of it, literally--does come
from that great country. We've all seen it, used it, chucked it out.

But bear in mind the historical precedent: some of you are probably old
enough to remember the similar tarring of anything that had the label
"Made in Japan" on it. Anything Japanese was considered worthless.
Compare to today.

I'm finding more and more that "Made in China" really doesn't mean
anything about the quality of an item. Clearly, Chinese workers, as
underpaid as they may be, are quite capable of making anything as well
as anyone else in any other part of the world.

Part of the problem is that we're placing blame in the wrong place. The
*real* problem seems to be "Made in [anyplace] but designed in the U.S.
[or some other place]". A lot, if not most, of what I would call
"Chinese junk" is actually made as well as the design would allow for,


Anyone who wants to sell anything in a competing market has to make it
as cheaply as can be done in Mexico, China, Bangladesh, etc....what they
make is done under an entirely different labor economy (and socialized
medicine, probably). But you know that already.

including the materials used and the amount of labor committed to
finishing the item. So in many cases Chinese factories are making
faithful copies of a ****ty design that may well have come from some
designer's computah right here in The Greatest Industrial Power on Earth
(the US of A).

I predict the Chinese are following the same arc that the Japanese did
after WWII, with variations, of course; there's no Marshall Plan, and
the countries are vastly different. Nonetheless, I can forsee the day
when "Made in China" is no longer a call for derision.

By way of showing just how wrong people can be when predicting who's
winning the industrial game, here's a hilariously and astoundingly wrong
prediction about the Japanese and American photographic industries from
1946: http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-136.html


When I was a little kid, we always included "the starving children in
China" in our prayers (hadn't discovered Africa yet). Just to show how
times have changed.....just the other day, this wonderful, sweet
missionary knocked on our door. He handed me $5, a bag of rice and a
dead duck. He didn't speak clear English, but left a pamphlet in
Chinese and badly translated English inviting all of the neighborhood
children to Buddhist services. It also mentioned that all the
neighborhood children would be welcome at classes to learn to speak and
write Chinese, gardening, raising livestock, building inexpensive
housing, cooking with a wok, using alternative fuels, and respect for
elders. It also said that the Chinese had saved so much money, they
were buying America and sending homesteaders over to run the country
properly. ;o)


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Default Rethinking "Made in China"

On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:39:07 -0800, David Nebenzahl wrote:

This post is aimed at all you sinophobes out there.

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".


They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There are
talented folk there, same as anywhere else - but if people want to pay
for crap that breaks after a few months so that they then have to go
out and buy more crap, then that's what the Chinese will happily make...

Problem is, *everyone* does it. It's almost impossible for a company to
exist on the basis of making a 'quality' product any more - which means
that even if the individual wants to pay extra for something that'll last,
the product simply doesn't exist.

cheers

Jules

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Jules wrote:

They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There are
talented folk there, same as anywhere else


They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality, from handsaws and screwdrivers, to
spaceships.

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Swingman wrote:
Jules wrote:

They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There
are talented folk there, same as anywhere else


They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality, from handsaws and screwdrivers, to
spaceships.


The Europeans built a spaceship? I think Flash Gordon was an American...

Last I heard, the Europeans were trying to put up their own GPS satellite
system - for reasons passing understanding.


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On Dec 16, 4:20*pm, Swingman wrote:
Jules wrote:
They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There are
talented folk there, same as anywhere else


They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality, from handsaws and screwdrivers, to
spaceships.


Yeah, Japanese saws suck.
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David Nebenzahl wrote:

snip

I predict the Chinese are following the same arc that the Japanese did
after WWII, with variations, of course; there's no Marshall Plan, and
the countries are vastly different. Nonetheless, I can forsee the day
when "Made in China" is no longer a call for derision.

By way of showing just how wrong people can be when predicting who's
winning the industrial game, here's a hilariously and astoundingly wrong
prediction about the Japanese and American photographic industries from
1946: http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-136.html



In UK in the late 1950s already, when I was becoming seriously
interested in photography, I don't think any American cameras were
considered high quality. The really good stuff was Leica (German) and
Hasselblad (Swedish? -- both mucho expensivo). Praktica (E. German) was
OK. Some of the Japanese brands were coming onto the market, IIRC. I'm
not sure that Kodak was considered a serious photographer's camera.

Perce


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Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
David Nebenzahl wrote:

snip

I predict the Chinese are following the same arc that the Japanese did
after WWII, with variations, of course; there's no Marshall Plan, and
the countries are vastly different. Nonetheless, I can forsee the day
when "Made in China" is no longer a call for derision.

By way of showing just how wrong people can be when predicting who's
winning the industrial game, here's a hilariously and astoundingly
wrong prediction about the Japanese and American photographic
industries from 1946: http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-136.html



In UK in the late 1950s already, when I was becoming seriously
interested in photography, I don't think any American cameras were
considered high quality. The really good stuff was Leica (German) and
Hasselblad (Swedish? -- both mucho expensivo). Praktica (E. German) was
OK. Some of the Japanese brands were coming onto the market, IIRC. I'm
not sure that Kodak was considered a serious photographer's camera.

Perce


Olympus made at least one fantastic camera around that time - or was it
the early sixties? I had an Olympus PenE, half frame SLR that took
fantastic pictures.
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"Chris Friesen" wrote in message
el...
Funny you mention Laguna...some of their stuff is made in China.


I suspect Tiawan, I could be wrong. Also Bulgaria, and Italy.






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"Swingman" wrote in message
...
David Nebenzahl wrote:

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".


You mean like drywall, C-Less' "64GB USB Drive", and the stuff at Harbor
Fright?

A rose by any other name ...

**** China, and "Made in USA", for that matter ... I'm buying "European"
like Laguna, Festool, Omer, et al products every chance I get these days.



You got something Italian on order again? Lagu....


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"HeyBub" wrote in message
...
Swingman wrote:
Jules wrote:

They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There
are talented folk there, same as anywhere else


They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality, from handsaws and screwdrivers, to
spaceships.


The Europeans built a spaceship? I think Flash Gordon was an American...



No, Flesh Gordon was the American... ;~)


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When I was a little kid, we always included "the starving children in
China" in our prayers (hadn't discovered Africa yet). Just to show how
times have changed.....just the other day, this wonderful, sweet
missionary knocked on our door. He handed me $5, a bag of rice and a
dead duck. He didn't speak clear English, but left a pamphlet in
Chinese and badly translated English inviting all of the neighborhood
children to Buddhist services.


THIS PART is the best.....

It also mentioned that all the
neighborhood children would be welcome at classes to learn to speak and
write Chinese, gardening, raising livestock, building inexpensive
housing, cooking with a wok, using alternative fuels, and respect for
elders. It also said that the Chinese had saved so much money, they
were buying America and sending homesteaders over to run the country
properly. ;o)



Seems like this has already happened with the Japanese and Germans


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Default Rethinking "Made in China"


wrote in message
m...
Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
David Nebenzahl wrote:

snip

As another poster said. They make what we ask them to make, or they make
what we will buy. I think the latter is the truer statement. If everybody
who said (myself included) "I am sick of buying cheap crap from China"
actually stopped buying cheap crap from China. They would make better crap.
How do we all stop buying stuff made in China. I have no idea. While
picking up the family Christmas cards at Wal-Mart tonight the kids wanted
Santa hats. $1.50 a piece - made in China. I bought 2, my Dunkins this
morning cost more.

To the poster who mentioned about how Japanese made used to be a joke. When
I was a kid, I am 46 now, my dad owned a NAPA store. I can remember the
comments when a customer came in to purchase parts for a Datsun or a Toyota.
The joke was the price of the replacement part would double the value of the
car. Not so much anymore.


Larry C

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HeyBub wrote:
Swingman wrote:
Jules wrote:

They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There
are talented folk there, same as anywhere else


They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality, from handsaws and screwdrivers, to
spaceships.


The Europeans built a spaceship? I think Flash Gordon was an
American...

Last I heard, the Europeans were trying to put up their own GPS
satellite system - for reasons passing understanding.


As for European engineering in general, anybody who thinks that it's all
high quality hasn't fettled a brand new British-made Stanley shoulder plane.

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On 2009-12-16, Swingman wrote:

They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality.....


What nonsense. I've had plenty of Euro made items that were junk,
including German made. Italy makes enough crap to drag the whole
continent's curve below avg!

nb
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HeyBub wrote:
Swingman wrote:
Jules wrote:

They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There
are talented folk there, same as anywhere else

They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality, from handsaws and screwdrivers, to
spaceships.


The Europeans built a spaceship? I think Flash Gordon was an American...

Last I heard, the Europeans were trying to put up their own GPS satellite
system - for reasons passing understanding.


Tsk, tsk ... you get into space on "rockets", Bubba ... Wernher Von Braun

Nuff said ...

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On 2009-12-16, Larry C wrote:

To the poster who mentioned about how Japanese made used to be a joke. When
I was a kid, I am 46 now, my dad owned a NAPA store. I can remember the
comments when a customer came in to purchase parts for a Datsun or a Toyota.
The joke was the price of the replacement part would double the value of the
car. Not so much anymore.


Then the pendulum swung the other way and Japanese products were
considered the best (cameras, electronics, etc) when, in fact, they
were no more great than when they were considered crap. I had a
closet full of dead Japanese stuff that barely made it to warranty.
Perception is a lot of it.

The price thing about car parts is a little more complicated. When
Japanese cars first hit our shores, parts were insane. $600 for one
CV joint for a Civic. Later, aftermarket mfrs/rebuilders got
into the act and drove prices waaaay down. I bought a PAIR of rebuilt
joints for the same car for $125. Later, when rebuilding a Honda
alternator, I got Honda parts cheaper from the dealer than the local
discount parts store. Pays to shop around.

nb


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On 12/16/2009 3:03 PM Percival P. Cassidy spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

By way of showing just how wrong people can be when predicting
who's winning the industrial game, here's a hilariously and
astoundingly wrong prediction about the Japanese and American
photographic industries from 1946:
http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-136.html


In UK in the late 1950s already, when I was becoming seriously
interested in photography, I don't think any American cameras were
considered high quality. The really good stuff was Leica (German) and
Hasselblad (Swedish? -- both mucho expensivo). Praktica (E. German) was
OK. Some of the Japanese brands were coming onto the market, IIRC. I'm
not sure that Kodak was considered a serious photographer's camera.


Kodak did make some cameras used by serious photogs, even after the
Japanese kicked our asses in that arena, but they were mostly obscure
models used by specialists. Like their view (studio) cameras and lenses
made for aerial photography, to name a couple. Their one top-of-the-line
35mm camera (the Ektra) was already out of production by that time.
After that, about the best they could come up with were consumer-level
cameras, like the Instamatic, which they did sell by the millions. But
all high-quality stuff was, as you point out, either German (Leica,
Voigtlander), Swedish (Hassy), or, mostly, Japanese (lessee: Nikon,
Canon, Ricoh, Minolta, Miranda, Yashica, Olympus, Bronica, Fuji, etc., etc.

The single exception I can think of is the Graflex press cameras (Crown
and Speed Graphics), made here in the US and used around the world up
through the 1970s.


--
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Planet Earth on a spot of land called Canada. We have noisy neighbours.

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On Dec 16, 3:27*pm, Jules
wrote:
On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:39:07 -0800, David Nebenzahl wrote:
This post is aimed at all you sinophobes out there.


I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".


They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There are
talented folk there, same as anywhere else - but if people want to pay
for crap that breaks after a few months so that they then have to go
out and buy more crap, then that's what the Chinese will happily make...

Problem is, *everyone* does it. It's almost impossible for a company to
exist on the basis of making a 'quality' product any more - which means
that even if the individual wants to pay extra for something that'll last,
the product simply doesn't exist.

cheers

Jules


Interesting discussion.

I think also much of the "blame" is upon the buyer.....how much will
each of us pay for more quality?

We get what we pay for...if you want better, then vote with your
dollars and companies will hear you.

TMT
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notbob wrote:
On 2009-12-16, Swingman wrote:
They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality.....


What nonsense. I've had plenty of Euro made items that were junk,
including German made.


What nonsense? ... you can't be that dense, eh? **** happens in every
country, culture, civilization - past, present, and future.

Italy makes enough crap to drag the whole
continent's curve below avg!


Then there's my handmade, Omer pin nailer, one of the best engineered
nail guns that money can buy, made in Italy.

Once again, there is NOTHING like it, and it is "European engineered".

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In article , "J. Clarke" wrote:

As for European engineering in general, anybody who thinks that it's all
high quality hasn't fettled a brand new British-made Stanley shoulder plane.


Or owned a Fiat...
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David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 12/16/2009 3:03 PM Percival P. Cassidy spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

By way of showing just how wrong people can be when predicting
who's winning the industrial game, here's a hilariously and
astoundingly wrong prediction about the Japanese and American
photographic industries from 1946:
http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-136.html


In UK in the late 1950s already, when I was becoming seriously
interested in photography, I don't think any American cameras were
considered high quality. The really good stuff was Leica (German) and
Hasselblad (Swedish? -- both mucho expensivo). Praktica (E. German)
was OK. Some of the Japanese brands were coming onto the market,
IIRC. I'm not sure that Kodak was considered a serious
photographer's camera.


Kodak did make some cameras used by serious photogs, even after the
Japanese kicked our asses in that arena, but they were mostly obscure
models used by specialists. Like their view (studio) cameras and
lenses made for aerial photography, to name a couple. Their one
top-of-the-line 35mm camera (the Ektra) was already out of production
by that time.
After that, about the best they could come up with were consumer-level
cameras, like the Instamatic, which they did sell by the millions. But
all high-quality stuff was, as you point out, either German (Leica,
Voigtlander), Swedish (Hassy), or, mostly, Japanese (lessee: Nikon,
Canon, Ricoh, Minolta, Miranda, Yashica, Olympus, Bronica, Fuji,
etc., etc.


The high quality Japanese stuff came a decade or more after the high quality
German stuff. But then the Japanese did the thing that they do best,
fiddling with the design to see what people like and what people don't like,
and ended up eating the Germans' lunch--the Germans were so sure that they
knew the _right_ way to do things that they wouldn't fiddle around with the
design to compete with the Japanese. But the Germans still excel at optical
design--Panasonic and Sony both use the Germans for lens design.

In some markets though that approach didn't work, computers being one.

The single exception I can think of is the Graflex press cameras
(Crown and Speed Graphics), made here in the US and used around the
world up through the 1970s.




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Doug Miller wrote:
In article , "J. Clarke" wrote:

As for European engineering in general, anybody who thinks that it's all
high quality hasn't fettled a brand new British-made Stanley shoulder plane.


Or owned a Fiat...


Then there's Rolls Royce, Bentley, Mercedes, BMW, the Lamborghini
Reventon , Maserati, the Bugatti Veyron, the McLaren F1, and the Pagani,
to name just a few examples of "European engineering" that there is
NOTHING else like.

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Chris Friesen wrote:
On 12/16/2009 01:39 PM, David Nebenzahl wrote:

I'm finding more and more that "Made in China" really doesn't mean
anything about the quality of an item. Clearly, Chinese workers, as
underpaid as they may be, are quite capable of making anything as well
as anyone else in any other part of the world.


True.

However, going by various comments written by people in the industry,
there also seems to be a cultural impetus to try and push the lower
boundaries of the quality standards. So if a Chinese factory contracts
for a given level of quality there is a tendency for that level to drop
over time unless the company that hired them keeps on top of things.

I suspect this holds true to a certain extent in many places, but he
impression that I have gotten (from various places) is that this is
worse when dealing with Chinese manufacturers.

Chris

Hi,
Not only Chinese, that is human nature. You have to be vigilant on quality.
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Swingman wrote:
David Nebenzahl wrote:

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".


You mean like drywall, C-Less' "64GB USB Drive", and the stuff at Harbor
Fright?

A rose by any other name ...

**** China, and "Made in USA", for that matter ... I'm buying "European"
like Laguna, Festool, Omer, et al products every chance I get these days.

I want value for what few of my hard earned $$ I get to keep, not some
price point engineered POS with an advertising budget.

Hmmm,
Made U.S.A. Made in EU" Really? 100%?
Economy stands on bottom line these days.
You can't **** China, she is too big/powerful now.
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On 2009-12-16 16:12:26 -0500, "
said:

Anyone who wants to sell anything in a competing market has to make it
as cheaply as can be done in Mexico, China, Bangladesh, etc....what
they make is done under an entirely different labor economy (and
socialized medicine, probably). But you know that already.


This is called marketing to a price point. One interesting extension to
this is Fender guitars -- how much to you want to pay for your Strat?
Indonesian, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, or American?

From the audience, they all look pretty much the same*. But to the
experienced player...

*Except for the ones "lovingly" aged, that is, and you'll pay dearly
for someone beatin' the Hell out of your axe.

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"Tony Hwang" wrote:
Hmmm,
Made U.S.A. Made in EU" Really? 100%?
Economy stands on bottom line these days.
You can't **** China, she is too big/powerful now.


You don't usually **** your banker or a big customer.

Lew





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Tony Hwang wrote:

You can't **** China, she is too big/powerful now.


When "she" starts making quality, innovative, well engineered tools like
Festool does I'll start buying Chinese. Until then, in a tool buying
sense, **** China, and the US also ... just in case you think there is
discrimination involved.

People who work with their hands know the difference ... keep that in mind.

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Steve wrote:

This is called marketing to a price point.


Much worse than that, with regard to quality, is 'engineering to a price
point".

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Swingman wrote:
Tony Hwang wrote:

You can't **** China, she is too big/powerful now.


When "she" starts making quality, innovative, well engineered tools like
Festool does I'll start buying Chinese. Until then, in a tool buying
sense, **** China, and the US also ... just in case you think there is
discrimination involved.

People who work with their hands know the difference ... keep that in mind.

Hi,
I am not Chinese, LOL!

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Steve wrote:
On 2009-12-16 16:12:26 -0500, "
said:

Anyone who wants to sell anything in a competing market has to make it
as cheaply as can be done in Mexico, China, Bangladesh, etc....what
they make is done under an entirely different labor economy (and
socialized medicine, probably). But you know that already.


This is called marketing to a price point. One interesting extension to
this is Fender guitars -- how much to you want to pay for your Strat?
Indonesian, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, or American?

From the audience, they all look pretty much the same*. But to the
experienced player...

*Except for the ones "lovingly" aged, that is, and you'll pay dearly for
someone beatin' the Hell out of your axe.

Hi,
Discerning hands and ears can tell. Actually real good hands can make
any axe sound good but it is more difficult. Only poor craftsman blames
the tool. BTW, I have quite a few vintage LP, Fender, Gibson, Martin,
etc. and Marshall, Fender, Boogie, etc. in my basement studio.
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On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:58:17 -0800, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
Interesting discussion.

I think also much of the "blame" is upon the buyer.....how much will
each of us pay for more quality?

We get what we pay for...if you want better, then vote with your
dollars and companies will hear you.


Yes, but my point is that there are times you *can't* pay for quality. My
fridge/freezer is over 30 years old and still going - but I don't think I
could walk into any modern appliance store and say "sell me a fridge
that'll still be going in 2039".

cheers

Jules



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"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
This post is aimed at all you sinophobes out there.

I'm getting a little tired of hearing the complaint "___ is a piece of
****: what do you expect? It's made in China!".

Now it is true that a lot of crap--boatloads of it, literally--does come
from that great country. We've all seen it, used it, chucked it out.

But bear in mind the historical precedent: some of you are probably old
enough to remember the similar tarring of anything that had the label
"Made in Japan" on it. Anything Japanese was considered worthless. Compare
to today.



I have made this point on this newsgroup and elsewhere. At the time "made in
Japan" meant junk, I lived in Japan. You could buy anything you could ever
want. The quality ranged from junk to the finest quality you'd find
anywhere. Lots of the technology in common use there had not even been seen
in the US (at least not by Joe Average).What perpetuated the "Japanese junk"
idea was the American importers. Junk was extremely cheap, so much so that,
even with a substantial markup, they could still sell it cheap enough here
that people would buy it. They (the importers) new that high quality was
available but there was no moony in it. The Chinese are in the same position
now. High quality is available in China but no one is bringing it into the
US. There is no money in it.


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"Swingman" wrote in message
...
HeyBub wrote:
Swingman wrote:
Jules wrote:

They'll build what they're paid to build, no more and no less. There
are talented folk there, same as anywhere else
They are excellent copy cats, but there is NOTHING like European
engineering for built-in quality, from handsaws and screwdrivers, to
spaceships.


The Europeans built a spaceship? I think Flash Gordon was an American...

Last I heard, the Europeans were trying to put up their own GPS satellite
system - for reasons passing understanding.


Tsk, tsk ... you get into space on "rockets", Bubba ... Wernher Von Braun

Yes, the success of the American space program was due to imports. They
imported Germany's best scientists.

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On 12/16/2009 4:26 PM Tim Daneliuk spake thus:

On 12/16/2009 5:56 PM, David Nebenzahl wrote:

The single exception I can think of is the Graflex press cameras (Crown
and Speed Graphics), made here in the US and used around the world up
through the 1970s.


These were- and are- wonderful cameras. They're even better when you
throw away the coke bottle lenses (Ektars) that came with them and shove
a nice German Schneider onto the snout of the camera


I disagree; I have a Crown with the Ektar 127mm lens, and it's sharp as
a tack. The lens to stay away from here, apparently, and surprisingly,
is the Xenar, which is usually a great piece of glass but for some
reason the ones found with Graphics usually suck. The Optars that a lot
others come with is just so-so.

What I'd really like to get my hands on would be one of Kodak's wide
field Ektars (speaking of quality American-made stuff). Check these out
on eBay--they usually sell for really big $$$. (Of course, a Super
Angulon would be nice too ...)


--
I am a Canadian who was born and raised in The Netherlands. I live on
Planet Earth on a spot of land called Canada. We have noisy neighbours.

- harvested from Usenet
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Tony Hwang wrote:

Discerning hands and ears can tell. Actually real good hands can make
any axe sound good but it is more difficult.


Well said ...

Only poor craftsman blames
the tool. BTW, I have quite a few vintage LP, Fender, Gibson, Martin,
etc. and Marshall, Fender, Boogie, etc. in my basement studio.


Cool ... my main axe is a '61 Fender Jazz.

Just for grins, some "American engineering" ...

http://www.e-woodshop.net/images/61Fender.jpg

....and it sounds like this:

http://www.wildriverband.com/Media/Let Me Go Home Whiskey.wma


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"Edward A. Falk" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Chris Friesen wrote:

However, going by various comments written by people in the industry,
there also seems to be a cultural impetus to try and push the lower
boundaries of the quality standards. So if a Chinese factory contracts
for a given level of quality there is a tendency for that level to drop
over time unless the company that hired them keeps on top of things.


Keeping on top of things is the key. A friend of mine had a product
made in China. He spec'ed fire-resistant plastic for the casing. As
soon as his back was turned, they switched to cheaper plastic and his
house (where he was storing his inventory) burned down as a result.


How did plastic casings which were not fire resistant cause his house to
burn down? One suspects there was a Lot of inflammable stuff in his house.

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