3240

I don't really agree with that. The average Chinese or Taiwanese company strives to make about the same in GP% as most American companies.

NapervilleEVO

its a little bit of money on an individual basis. that woudln't be needed if the competition did not sell out and outsource. (disclaimer: not all outsourcing bad but in this case). besides there are other effects this has on our economy that greatly outweigh a rich middle man getting richer. not that david is but this other company seems to be now. you are taking money out of americans hands and giving it to other countries. the less money our country makes as a whole the less your dollar is worth, inflation increases, interest rates increase, the government spends more to counteract these effects and you have higher taxes all of the sudden, foreign investors get scared and pull their money out of our economy. its a viscious cycle. that is, in part, why our dollar has sank so much this decade. america is filled with soft money, services, and not so much hard money, manufactoring. america only manufactors a few products (diesals most notably), so lets keep as many as we can. and as dave said the savings is not passed along to the cutomer, or us, anyway.

so dave, keep up the great work and keep those morales so many people have seemed to lost. we the people, appreciate you and the quality.

SuperHatch

iTrader: (23)

Something about that military grade highway China is building across their nation... across a majority of country that doesn't even have cars. The highway heads straight west, the middle-east is that way, China needs oil. I wonder where this is going?

That's completely off topic though...

agolgan

iTrader: (4)

trinydex -exactly my point when I said if we were smart enough. Now the highly educated no longer have to come to america to live good they can stay at home with thier families and make a good living and have the things they want.

Also the thing about the wages of other countries and how they live. I rember the first time I went to thailand as an airman I earned more in a month than the average family did in a month by a pretty vast margin, and the military actually live below the poverty level in America. Which is kind of ironic because even the poor in america have it better than middle class in most countries. Europe still baffles me, after living in Germany for two years I still don't understand how the Germans have the largest economy in Europe. I guess they are just smarter cause I know they don't work harder. It's definetly complicated and I agree with Ludikrat that we have it so much better than anyone else arond the world and eventually it is going to "flatten out". Today's empires, tomorrow's ashes.

NapervilleEVO

+10 for a fellow accountant and for trinydex not understanding sales controls spending accountants/finance report on that spending.

ludi-i don't know where you were in europe but when it was all over scandanavia and england/italy/spain/france their standard of living was close to many american cities if not higher in some case (i.g. Spain uses BMWs for cabs). i went to major cities and out in the boonies where i lived with poor families eating once a day to rich familes who owned city blocks. but maybe your forgeting, living in Chicago suburbs, there is a very high standard of living for us. now go south to Danville and tell me their quality of life is as good as the Sweedish. and i think america will prosper for years to come. we are a resiliant group. hopefully us young ones can keep up that tradition. i think it is more likely the standard of living in these countries will increase more then ours will decrease.

RyanM

iTrader: (1)

Another major problem in the United States is Walmart. I'm not talking about the displacement of local jobs, that’s to be expected with globalization. The corner grocery cannot compete at this stage of the game. I'm talking about the almost complete outsourcing of all man hours and material requirements by Walmart to Chinese manufacturing. It is a great travesty that so many people are dependent on Walmart only to have their money indirectly funneled overseas. There are literally hundreds of websites you can go to that outline how absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible Walmart is as a corporation. No accountability, no ethics, no regard whatsoever for how they are single handedly eroding the economy in the United States.

If you don't want to sleep well at night, read the following...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159...lance&n=283155

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159...lance&n=283155

Silvercar

iTrader: (10)

Wow.. That makes me want to buy more stuff from Dave. He really cares. Weird tho most people are out to make a buck. Dave your my hero. (Your a Captain America)

Ludikraut

iTrader: (17)

One of the main reasons that American companies seem to be "raping us on price" is the simple fact that the labor costs are MUCH higher than the overseas companies they are competing with. For example, a white collar job in the Phillippines pays approximately $6 per DAY - simple labor work can pay as low as 50 cents per hour. Compare that to having to pay someone $10-$20 per hour to manufacture stuff for you (and that's if you hire them, not going to a 3rd party). American companies aren't really trying to rake anyone over the coals, their hands are simply tied by comparatively astronomical labor costs. Anytime a company can manufacture an item, ship it halfway around the world and still undercut the loca manufacturers, something is seriously out of balance.

This is where appearances can be very deceiving. Most European countries look nice (cool architecture, clean, lots of social places to hang out), but when you sit down and do the math, it's not even close. I will skip over the details (PM me if you're interested), but in the case of Denmark and Germany, it basically boils down to this: If I were to work at my job (same company, same job) I could afford to either:

a) Own a car, live in an apartment
b) commute to work, own my own home (this is generally not an option in Germany these days)

Compare that to the US, where I own my own home, have 3 nice cars, a motorcycle, etc. etc. As I said, it's not even close. Many people in my generation face a very tough job market in Europe on top of a very structured employment culture (e.g. they will ask for your high-school grades, you must have a degree to attain certain positions, etc.). These illustrate just some of the reasons why I don't intend to move back to Europe (parents moved to the US when I was in middle-school).

l8r)

evolve_

much respect

Kwman

iTrader: (4)

David, in all seriousness....



You make me horny too.

x838nwy

Well, that mainly depends on what you make. If you're making mass-produced stuff designed and developed by a large company with very rigid design programme and operating structure, then it will probably work. If you're talking about a medium/largish company making fewer parts of higher value (say thousands of parts per year) you can't really design or develop a machine or parts of it properly if you don't manufacture at least a good proportion of it. In an ideal world, you can send any capable workshop in the world a decently prepared drawing and get the same thing, in the real world this doesn't happen and in China even if you manage it to happen there's no guarantee that it will keep on happening.

There's also the thing about know-how and technical expertise that you want to keep. People keep saying that the Chinese copies everything, but there's a lot of drawings being sent there of complete machines and so on. If you want to keep your patent/design/process then you've got to keep it in-house. If your costs dictate that the selling price is high, then you'd better make sure that know-how is worth every penny.

Anyhow, even if you do you manufacturing in China, there are things whose design and development costs overshadows manufacturing costs. Specially non mass-produced items. Once you add on the extra costs and hassle, it's not really cheaper. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd prefer to pay slightly more to source from companies that have proper R&D with the latest (but applicable) technology than one that makes mediocre things while not knowing what exactly it is that they're making. It doens't exclude China from having decent R&D, but it's usually the case.

Things will change in the years to come. From my perspective, it will force the higher-cost operations to specialise. Unfortunately it will adversely affect a lot of companies, but as long as people stop thinking just about the bottom line (as somebody mentioned) of just how the raw costs add up, it shouldn't be too bad for everyone.

DynoFlash

iTrader: (91)

Some random thoughts from the newspapers I read on my airplane flight to denver today

Some researchers are talking about some reasearch on a "human" trait in Chimps - they can "COOPERATE" with each other which is supposed to be one of our biggest advantages as a species

16 of the worlds 20 most poluted cities are in CHINA

Including one city the leader there jokingly called the "invisable city" which is so covered with coal smoke that it can not bee seen from a satlite image

research is showing that the ice caps in the poles are disapearing at a rate that will cause the oceans to rise greatly and cause continued disruption of weather

China released toxic chemicals into the rivers which posioned the drinking water for milliosn of russians

THIS IS ALL FROM TODAY"S Wall Street Journal and New York Times

I read this crap every day

I am am AMERICAN I love my country and I buy USA made goods when ever possible

I also personally BOYCOT CHINESE GOODS

My point - if civilized nations can not cooperate to thrive economically while preserving the environment then we are WORSE than chimps

I wont support a country which executes thousands of innocent people a year, supresses human rights, polutes the earth and all at the same time is building the biggest military ever amassed

If we want to do something postive in our lives we should focus as much energy as possible in helping the Chinese citizens over throw the dictatorship which runs that place as we all saw when the WALL was broken down in Germany

It amazes me how easily people are willing to over look all these nasty realities of the Chinese reality in order to save a few $

DynoFlash

iTrader: (91)

I concur with you that many US business are all too quick to exploit the profits which can be made with China goods

What makes this society so good is that we have the opportunity to express these view points and not worry about being arrested and locked in jail

Also - we all have the power to spend money where we want

The sad reality is that as time goes on it becomes more and more difficult to but NON china made goods as the American competition is going out of business

Once the Chinese take over a market - they really take advantage, the future is very bleak indeed

for exmple here in the states it is illegal for companies to o join together tmanipulate retail prices of goods

in China it is illegal for companies not to follow goverment directives TO manipulate the price of goods

mdesi

Wow, great post. It has opened my eyes to a lot of things. You guys are right about it being harder to buy non china products. Even the home depot tools (husky) are made in china.
I'm going to have to start reading the paper or at least watch the news.
Once again Great post!

SP00LIN

iTrader: (6)

Without going through all these comments.... the movie Jerry McGuire comes to mind. LOL - Was this your mission statement?