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Silver lining of the Pandemic. Countries rethink China supply lines.

tim9lives

Hot Rolled
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Location
new orleans
A few excerpts below. Bottom line is when we get past this mess....maybe Americans will demand more from it leaders. Like manufacturing of important products to be made here in America. Furthermore...maybe the USA and Europeans will rethink a better relationship between their trade partners who can be depended on. And tell China to screws themselves.

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China’s Aggressive Diplomacy Weakens Xi Jinping’s Global Standing - The New York Times


China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has used the coronavirus pandemic to shore up his political power at home, but the tools the Communist Party has exploited to do this are threatening China’s international standing.

China has demanded fealty and praise of Mr. Xi’s handling of the pandemic as a price for the country’s provision of medical supplies and expertise. It has accused Western countries of failing to protect their people, unleashing vitriol usually preserved for domestic audiences on the world, provoking anger.

In the past week officials in France, Britain and nearly two dozen African nations have rebuked actions or statements by the Chinese government. Mr. Xi’s government has now been accused of hypocrisy and hubris, for obfuscating the origins of the coronavirus and for portraying Western governments as ineffectual compared to China’s own response.

There’s no doubt: We can’t have business as usual after this crisis, and we’ll have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and about how it could’ve been stopped earlier,” Britain’s foreign minister, Dominic Raab, said on Thursday.

The lasting effect on Mr. Xi’s global ambitions could be profound. China’s relationship with the United States has already cratered, despite a rhetorical truce reached between Mr. Xi and President Trump. Now there is evidence the pandemic is forcing other countries to rethink relations.


Japan has pledged $2 billion to help companies move their production out of China because of concerns about the country’s reliability. President Emmanuel Macron of France questioned whether China’s response was a model for democracies to follow, disputing the narrative Mr. Xi’s acolytes have tried to spin. “Let’s not be so naïve as to say it’s been much better at handling this,” he said in an interview with The Financial Times.
 
Small user of tooling and inserts so impact from my purchasing means zilch.

But right now scrolling past anything that infers small packet delivery and China as the source forces a look elsewhere. And yeah I realize that the vendors just about all source their stuff from China.

Again, makes zero difference but right now I expect that there are others who see it the same way.
 
The situation is definitely out of hand.

The other day I bought a box of facial tissues at a convenience store. The bottom label said A Proud American Company but if you tilted it 90 degrees it said "Made in PRC".

Made in People's Republic of China, and likely with pulp made from USA forestry products. As I recall not so many years ago "non-industrialized countries" were the ones that mainly exported raw materials.
 
The situation is definitely out of hand.

The other day I bought a box of facial tissues at a convenience store. The bottom label said A Proud American Company but if you tilted it 90 degrees it said "Made in PRC".

Made in People's Republic of China, and likely with pulp made from USA forestry products. As I recall not so many years ago "non-industrialized countries" were the ones that mainly exported raw materials.

I'm surprised that the shipping cost doesn't make it prohibitive.

As Motion has indicated, there are many makers of tissue in the US of A

here is a new-ish one:
First Quality | What We Make
 
China has demanded fealty and praise of Mr. Xi’s handling of the pandemic as a price for the country’s provision of medical supplies and expertise.

That sounds vaguely familiar to a problem the USA is dealing with:scratchchin:

I agree we need to bring back manufacturing, needed a few general household items from a big box store last week, every damn one was "Made in China", I did think about not buying them, but no idea where I would find a plain pipe fitting or light bulbs that were from USA. So either I bought them, or I went without water or light, please forgive me.
 
I kinda doubt it.

Once it is decided to offshore, a company becomes an importer, not a manufacturer. different thought process, different skill set

Plus we are addicted to cheap junk


One stupid example

IIRC in 1978 a Kraco car cassette deck was like 49 bucks at Kmart

42 year later you can buy 8 different car decks on Crutchfield for under 50 bucks

In the early 90's a standard 19 color TV was 300 bucks for a brand name

look what you can buy for 300 bucks now

That is the problem, so much cheap junk
 
The question is where does this move to.
The move out of China was already underway, just ask Vietnam, India and others.
Out of this one expects new health and safety, screening, etc. rules here in the states. This will raise US manufacturing costs.
So called third world countries will not have these regulations or union rules.

I have no idea how some think this will be good for USA manufacturing or bring that work back.
If anything it accelerates what was already happening. On shore costs will go up, off shore prices will decline.

I do not like this viewpoint expressed here by myself at all and for sure do not want to say such,..... but reality sucks.
This could be a big turning point. I do so hope it turns into US making but odds seem not in favor of such.
Bob
 
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That sounds vaguely familiar to a problem the USA is dealing with:scratchchin:

I agree we need to bring back manufacturing, needed a few general household items from a big box store last week, every damn one was "Made in China", I did think about not buying them, but no idea where I would find a plain pipe fitting or light bulbs that were from USA. So either I bought them, or I went without water or light, please forgive me.

I think crappy Chinese pipe fittings are why teflon tape was invented.
 
Nothing is gonna change.

A few months after this is over, and it will all be forgotten.

Purchasing Agents only want one thing PRICE !

And who is back up and running, delivering product first ? China.
 
Nothing is gonna change.

A few months after this is over, and it will all be forgotten.

Purchasing Agents only want one thing PRICE !

And who is back up and running, delivering product first ? China.

just look at what got us into trouble in 2008. The dust hadn't settled and the banks were back to their old shenanigans.
 
The question is where does this move to.
.
.
This could be a big turning point. I do so hope it turns into US making but odds seem not in favor of such.
Bob

Disagree. DECADES have passed. Not only CNC, but robotics have made leaps and bounds of progress. No need of "cheap" labour if NEW US plants can be highly automated ones, waste and pollution management included.

These won't BE like the old Brute Force and Bloody Ignorance factories that were shut-down and offshored to cheaper and less-regulation constrained "offshore BFBI". Less labour leveraged by investment into higher per-head productivity we have had good results with for a long time already.

No one really wanted a min-wage job "putting warshers atop a shock absorber" or sewing buttons onto cheap shirts all shift long, anyway. Jobs that we lost won't "come back". New jobs could yet arise. Just fewer OF them and more "brain intensive", less "hand" intensive.

Lower headcount for the same deliverables is not a worker's paradise, of course.

That part we shall still have to deal with.
 
I'll believe reshoring is a thing when you can buy ball bearings made in USA. I won't even qualify it by stipulating they have to be cost competitive within, say, 500% —which would mean a $1 bearing from China could be made and sold here to the same quality spec for $5. Not gonna happen, not even close, unless you get a Gene Haas type interested in it.
 
I'll believe reshoring is a thing when you can buy ball bearings made in USA. I won't even qualify it by stipulating they have to be cost competitive within, say, 500% —which would mean a $1 bearing from China could be made and sold here to the same quality spec for $5. Not gonna happen, not even close, unless you get a Gene Haas type interested in it.

Wouldn't rule that out. Time was we had a Harry Timken "type" interested in it:

Henry Timken - Wikipedia

And then there was the New Departure DOORBELL Company!

NEW DEPARTURE STARTED IN 1889 AS A DOORBELL MANUFACTURER - Hartford Courant

And THESE guys didn't have CNC, nor modern metallurgy, nor modern metrology.

Largely, they had to INVENT even their own machinery of production.

If any of that was as hard today as it was THEN, China wouldn't be making roller bearings.

We can take that back if we want to do badly enough.

I'd rather we started with ethical pharma, though.

"WE" don't need a "Government" to take-on the risk, subsidize nor "shelter" us.

Never did.

All we need is what has always WORKED, prehistory to the far future.

People.

With guts. And determination.

"Skill" ain't bad either, but it is a damned sight easier to HIRE that part if need be!
 
I kinda doubt it.

Once it is decided to offshore, a company becomes an importer, not a manufacturer. different thought process, different skill set

Plus we are addicted to cheap junk


One stupid example

IIRC in 1978 a Kraco car cassette deck was like 49 bucks at Kmart

42 year later you can buy 8 different car decks on Crutchfield for under 50 bucks

In the early 90's a standard 19 color TV was 300 bucks for a brand name

look what you can buy for 300 bucks now

That is the problem, so much cheap junk
The price of electronics is as much related to advances in technologies as it is to where its manufactured. And although it’s not going to be cheaper to manufacture everything here....I do think when it’s a national defense priority...price becomes a minor percentage of the equation.
FWIW....if a cruise ship wants to operate on a US based river....then that ship must be made in the USA. It has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with government regulation.

Why there is only one cruise ship in the world with an all-American crew - Marketplace

It can happen. But for it to happen we...the American public must demand it. This is pure bullshit that doctors and nurses are risking their lives because they don’t have surgical mask. And it’s all because of short sighted bean counters. It’s not that I’m blaming the bean counters. I blame American Business Colleges and American Legislators.
 
Impossible to turn back the tide .....the time was twenty five years ago when the Asian factories were just modernizing and coming out of the clothing era.....now Asian factories are world leading standard in everything ,with a few exceptions like chips ,and that wont last much longer....Who likes to buy cheap stuff ,and have everything ?....Is it me ?....
 
Cast your minds back maybe 30 years ,maybe longer .....interesting telly program....closure of the last US factory making televisions?..shirts?..refrigerators?..Interesting programs like Kelly Springfield factories being moved to China...politicians saying how good healthy competition was ......good for an hours entertainment?....Not really ,change over to the Simpsons see if there are any episodes not seen before.
 
I'll believe reshoring is a thing when you can buy ball bearings made in USA. I won't even qualify it by stipulating they have to be cost competitive within, say, 500% —which would mean a $1 bearing from China could be made and sold here to the same quality spec for $5. Not gonna happen, not even close, unless you get a Gene Haas type interested in it.
I agree. And I do buy cheap bearings for those non-important projects. But, at the same time I also go out of my way to buy US bearings for more important things like repairs to a machine tool or a motor. And yet...it’s more trouble to source those USA Timken or even a Japanese Nachi bearings. Hell...I know I’m not helping a USA company when I buy Nachi. But at least I’m helping an ally and not supporting China.
China is not our friends. They just aren’t and they can’t be trusted. China is patient and they despise American Democracy.
 








 
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