Where Have Real American Factories Gone?

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That should be the good Lord's 11th commandment.......Thou shallt not use American names on your Chinese junk.
 
oldrider said:
That should be the good Lord's 11th commandment.......Thou shallt not use American names on your Chinese junk.
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AMEN !!!
 
Hmmmmmz....
It makes me wonder though: How american are those 'American names'..? Let's take 'Chicago' for instance...

From Wikipedia:
The name "Chicago" is a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, meaning "wild onion" or "wild garlic," from the Miami-Illinois languageThe first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir written about the time. The wild garlic plants, Allium tricoccum, were described by LaSalle's comrade, naturalist-diarist Henri Joutel, in his journal of LaSalle's last expedition.

:wink: :wink: :wink:
 
herr_rudolf said:
Hmmmmmz....
It makes me wonder though: How american are those 'American names'..? Let's take 'Chicago' for instance...

From Wikipedia:
The name "Chicago" is a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, meaning "wild onion" or "wild garlic," from the Miami-Illinois languageThe first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir written about the time. The wild garlic plants, Allium tricoccum, were described by LaSalle's comrade, naturalist-diarist Henri Joutel, in his journal of LaSalle's last expedition.

:wink: :wink: :wink:
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cool.
 
This discussion reminded me of an article I read about Snapper a few months ago. There are still a few businesses that insist on manufacturing here, but they're almost always going to come with a premium price tag.

Also, more on topic, here's a great page that lists all the current bike manufacturers and traces where their products come from. http://allanti.com/articles/where-was-my-bike-made-pg328.htm
 
I was involved in selling Snapper mowers for over 35 years. Starting out working in my parents business selling Snapper and later working for an independent wholesale distributor of Snapper. That was a real fiasco for Snapper selling to Wal Mart. It was not Mr. Weirs decision to sell to Wal Mart but rather a last ditch effort by Fuqua Industries, the former parent company of Snapper. It drove many long time dealers and distributors away from Snapper. Snapper and Simplicity are now wholly owned by Briggs and Stratton Corp.
 
Where I am in Ontario we have some options on what we buy. Buying Canadian is always better for us. We don't seem to grasp the concept up here of how to make money. We sell oil to the U.S. unrefined, they take it and refine it and sell it back to us at a ridiculous price. Then we go to the gas station to fill up and gripe that the price is up. Yet we blame the oil prices from overseas. Confused yet? We then complain that our jobs are being taken away and outsourced overseas and whenever you call the "help" line you can't understand what the other person is saying. Yet we had helpful people here that could do the job fine but their union stepped in and said their job was "demanding" and they deserved more money. Everyone demands more money because the cost of living keeps going up. Why is the cost of living going up? Because we import stuff that we can't get in our own country and have to go to an outside source. The outside source can't understand why we have such quality of living and they have squat so they jack up their price knowing that we'll pay for it because we can't get it anywhere else. Canada and the U.S. export raw material all over the world that is only available here in North America. We charge outrageous prices because we know they will pay for it if they want it bad enough.
Bottom line is this. We outsourced too much because of cheaper labor costs elsewhere. Labor here only costs what it does here because the cost of living went up so much. The cost of living went up simply because somewhere along the line some jerk got greedy and had a monopoly over something. In turn someone else thought "If he can do it, so can I" and it's snowballed from there.
Eventually a large group of us will get tired of it and turn our backs on everything. We will fight the system and say "No more!" Live off our own land and take care of our own.
Or we'll move to the moon...whichever comes first. :p
 
Great thread. It is definitely a shame that manufacturing in this country is getting to be nonexistent. Confiscatory taxes, labor union abuses, high insurance costs and poor political policies (nafta, cafta etc...) are no doubt at the root of this problem. The current mantra spewed forth from the fountain of academia that we are simply in a part of a natural socio-economic cycle, whereby a society goes from being agrarian based, (farming) to industrial/manufacturing based to our current position of "technology" based, is little more than a useless observation of the obvious. It doesnt give us a clue as to what comes next, or if it is healthy. What happens when China (currently in its "industrial/manufacturing" phase) moves into its "technology" phase? Where do we end up, when we no longer have the means to produce and our technological contribution can be obtained from China for cheaper? We borrow money from China, our Government peddles it out US consumers through ridiculous bailout schemes, US consumers spend the bulk of it on Chinese goods. The money they lend us is the profit from the goods they sell to us. I'm no economist, I'm not even smart, but that just doesnt seem to be wise. Proverbs 22:7 "The rich rules over the poor,and the borrower is the slave of the lender."
One of the interesting byproducts of the current "green" trend is that many people are looking to purchase more domestically produced products to lessen the environmental impact from shipping and to avoid supporting overseas factories that are less "environmentally concience". I'm no tree hugger, but I find this facet of their movement to be somewhat encouraging.

I have recently been researching the feasibility of building a US made bike, and there are a ton of custom bike builders in the US, and it is a trend that is on the rise. Its pretty slim pickins on components though. Pauls Components and Snap BMX are 2 that come to mind, but from what I can find there are NO US tire manufacturers, No US made pedals, and I think Aerospoke is about it for US made wheels. Perhaps some of you know of some others, and the mods here could keep a list of US bike/parts manufacturers stickied somewhere. The site http://www.stillmadeinusa.com/ has compiled links to US manufactures of all types of goods, from clothes to sporting goods, including bikes. This is something we can do to try change things, word of mouth advertising for US manufacturers, and the discipline to spend a little more on the goods they produce. We certainly cant rely on the government to fix anything, and really we never should anyway. Free people promoting a Free market.
 
Great speeches guys but I'm afraid there just is not enough marketing of American goods.
What I mean by that is this:
Where do people shop? ........................... Wal-Mart, Target, K-mart, exc.
What do they sell? ................................. Chinese junk.
What do we buy? .................................. Chinese junk.

What president Obama needs to do is lower the minimum wage so companies can afford to hire more people. Labor costs go down and we can start making things again and get competitive in the market. Right now the American worker has gotten lazy and demands a lot of money for basically sitting on his behind and pretending to work. I know a guy who works at Chrysler and takes a game-boy to work to keep himself busy. But yet makes $20+ an hour. What is that?

That salary could easily hire two people who currently don't have jobs who would gladly do the same amount of work for $10 an hour and actually DO the work. That will be the downfall of this great nation, people who only work hard enough not to get fired.
 
theyve almost all gone to mexico(getting to pricey now so most are moving again),china,and,
india.
they outsourced a lot of blue collar jobs and may make some money....but i hope they realize the main ones running the show will soon be outsourcing the white collar jobs as well and they better hope they saved some serious $ for the day that happens and they get a lay off notice.
guess what comes around goes around :|
 
One interesting note is how much greater our gross domestic product is over China's. While it's hard to believe since everything we see has "Made in China" on it, the U.S. is still the largest exporter of goods on the planet.

What's even more interesting is when you compare the GDPs of the U.S. and China and then factor in the population of each country, we're still even further ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... nominal%29
 
the little town i live in is a coal mining town, in fact my house is a 100 year old sears kit house that was built for mine employees, the whole neighborhood is that way. about 30 years ago the coal mining sorta slowed down and then the fact that the coal contains so much sulfur sort of killed it all together for a while, in the past 10 years the mining has fired back up and the nations largest producing coal mine is a few miles down the road, one of my best high school buddies loads the train cars ... says its all headed overseas where the sulfur content doesnt matter.
 
I have been to China, seen the factories and trained their engineers. I helped offshore American jobs and then my own. The Chinese are not to blame, they don't take our jobs, we give them away. The Chinese people are intelligent, warm, friendly, humorous, and just want a better life for their families. Quality in China is entirely dependent on what you want to pay. I could tell you a lot more but I won't, at least not now.
 
blackdiamond said:
Hey, if i get my way, ill reopen the AMF factory in little rock arkansas,and bring back the good old bicycles, the spaceliner, the twin bar, and maybe a few bluebirds.

Well.... no one knows what could happen.
well thats my dream and im stikin to it.
Click to expand...

If that dream ever comes true I'd want to buy the first ones. Especially a bluebird! :D
 
Has nothing to do with most of things mentioned. Tariffs on imports used to average about 30%, that balanced out all other factors mentioned , like cheap labor. Since Reagan tariffs in reality are nothing averaging less than 3%. Germany doesnt have that problem cause they have tariffs to protect their industries. It is unheard of in the rest of the world for people of their own country to be cheering the demise of their industries like you had Americans cheering for the demise of GM, Ford and Chrysler. Obama still getting .... about saving the auto industry even though it has been a resounding success. The governments of every other nation supports their own industries in every way they can. There is a small international elite making huge profits importing products here with no tariffs, until that is remedied the 50,000 factories moved overseas in the last 10 years will just increase.
 
As far as I'm concerned Chrysler has been digging their own grave for years. They bring out WAY too many "New models" and none of the parts are re-used from other vehicles they make. All that new tooling costs big money. It seems like they have no feel of what the market wants. I will say the new Challenger is awesome though and might be the only thing to save their bacon.

GM at least know how to take the same parts and turn it into something else and make people buy it, they been doing it for years. If you don't believe me look at the Blazer, Bravada, Typhoon, Jimmy, S-10, and Sonoma. I do still wish the HHR would have been offered with a frame and an LT1.

Ford knew to stick to their guns and what they know will sell, they re-designed the Mustang with a retro look and they were a hit. They re-designed their trucks to have a stronger frame which cornered the market and they sold well as they always did. And people wonder why Ford did NOT take any of the bailout money? They were smart enough they didn't need it.

I still wish they'd take a hint from all the retro cars thet have done so well and bring back some more such as the Hemi 'Cuda, Road Runner, Super bee, Demon, Duster, El Camino, Chevelle, Nova, Ranchero, Deuce coupe, Torino, and the Cougar.
 

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