China and Chinese manufacturing discussion

[BehindBlueI's]

And just so you know....Buck and Case went to China WAAAAAYYY before I did brother!!

Yeah, that was largely my point. The big guys did it and now we're stuck where we are. I wasn't disputing the reality of what you deal with and certainly wasn't proposing you are wrong to do so. I was proposing an alternate reality where that movement never happened and playing "what if..." based on that. What if we'd actually retained that capability and talent in the US? What if you didn't have to go to China? And is it possible to ever reverse what actually happened?

[SouthNarc]

The question is, can we get it back? Or are we just fucked in the long term and America and a middle class is a failed experiment because of myopic growth chasing?

In manufacturing? Fuck no. I don't see it. They run rings around us.

[SouthNarc]

Yeah, that was largely my point. The big guys did it and now we're stuck where we are. I wasn't disputing the reality of what you deal with and certainly wasn't proposing you are wrong to do so. I was proposing an alternate reality where that movement never happened and playing "what if..." based on that. What if we'd actually retained that capability and talent in the US? What if you didn't have to go to China? And is it possible to ever reverse what actually happened?

Dude I'll tell you this. I felt like a total un-American sell-out motherfucker when we finally inked our deal with China. After 6 months and a ton of HAPPY customers and more money than we ever made on cutlery? Haven't looked back. That's the reality.

[blues]

Spyderco has a number of their knives made in Golden, CO...and many other models made overseas. Their Taichung (Taiwan) knives are very well received and respected but I try to patronize the USA made blades in an effort to support American industry. They also have knives made in Japan and Italy...as well as China.

If we're ever to bring industry back to the U.S., it's not going to happen overnight. But there's no reason not to foster its reemergence.

[TCinVA]

Dude I tried getting Clinch Picks mid-teched with 6 different companies and individuals from 2004-2010. EVERY, SINGLE ONE......to a MAN....flaked out. That's the knife world bro. I had given up on the knives ever being made again and so had my business partner Shannon. We were out of production for three years until an Austrian kid who was working for my current Chinese manufacturer came to seminar I was doing in the UK and asked if I was interested in Chinese manufacturing. He brokered the deal, the prototyping, and they were the first people I had EVER done business with that had ever actually met a timeline and did what the fuck they said they were going to do. Seriously man I was REALLY averse to it. In fact....if you go run down my posts at TPI, you can see where I actually come into the community and ask how they feel about overseas..specifically Chinese manufacturing.

So....not my first rodeo here dude and as old poleese in his second career trying to figure out business and how to provide a good product I can actually make money on, let me say it AGAIN...I'll stick with China.

China is complicated.

There is an element of China today that is just like China from the fall of the Qing Dynasty until World War II. That was a period where enterprising industrialists invested in new technologies, built factories, and for a period of time managed to flourish. They navigated the network of warlord fiefdoms, western protectorates, natural disasters, famines, and other problems and managed to bring China into the industrial age.

And then Mao took over, nationalized all the factories, confiscated all their wealth, had a bunch of them murdered, and plunged the nation into famine because he did what dipshit socialists always do when they get power and have no idea how anything works.

The modern equivalents to those industrialists from the Chinese Warlord period face the same danger. They have a positive outlook towards the west and would like nothing more than to do mutually beneficial business...but I don't think the Chinese government is going to permit that. Chinese entrepreneurs who have success are generally buying property and assets in other countries so that they have some safeguard against the government repeating Mao's confiscations. And they've usually got low-key bugout plans to avoid suffering the same fate pre-war industrialists faced at the hands of Mao's cadres.

China's government has succeeded massively where the USSR's failed because they have successfully capitalized (irony) on profit motive. The CCP has completely weaponized economics against our interests in a way that America hasn't seen before.

Just as an example, there are Chinese "police" patrolling Italian cities right now. Russian police patrolling Milan in the Cold War would have been unthinkable. But it happened with the CCP and people hardly batted an eye.

I think there's a point at which this all comes to a head, and probably in the not-too-distant future.

America can't go back to "normal" with the Chinese because it's now abundantly apparent to everybody the extent to which economics have been weaponized. China has been growing more belligerent and combative. And telling the world that they could cut off medical supplies to the United States during this 'Rona problem didn't exactly set anyone's mind at ease. That one landed pretty hard and we're likely to hear about it again and again in the next quarter century.

The redefinition will be tricky and I'm not sure DC has the brain power to actually pull it off. They're too busy fighting with each other over bullshit to score short term political points to deal with a long term strategic threat. A long term strategic threat that has made a lot of people in the DC orbit quite rich.

We either end up at war, the CCP gets deposed by an internal revolution (unlikely since the CCP has zero hesitation to run people over with tanks to preserve power), or we see some of the most impressive statesmanship in our lifetime done by some people in DC who wield US military and economic power like a scalpel and manage to cut just the right spots so that the big red dragon hemorrhages at a rate that makes them weaker but not fast enough to realize how badly they're bleeding before they pass out.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that last possibility...

[Joe in PNG]

I really & strongly doubt that the CCP will be here come 2030.

They're a mix of Japan Inc bubble and old USSR internal rot & corruption*- and Corona-Chan isn't exactly going to help with either.

Now, while rolling your tanks over your own people can help in the short run, there's only so many times you can unleash the Cossaks before they stop listening to you - just ask Tsar Nicky or the late Conducător of Romania.


*remember when either of those was supposed to bury us?

[Yung]

I really & strongly doubt that the CCP will be here come 2030.

I would take a second glance at international students at college campuses, and H1Bs in businesses.
Ask misanthropist how he feels about Vancouver and by extension the rest of Canada. He's given a couple of hints before.

Edit: Don't forget about Smithfield.

[Joe in PNG]

I would take a second glance at international students at college campuses, and H1Bs in businesses.
Ask misanthropist how he feels about Vancouver and by extension the rest of Canada. He's given a couple of hints before.

Edit: Don't forget about Smithfield.

Do you think all of them are committed Communist? Selfless New Soviet Men?
They're just Chinese people traveling and working and studying abroad, nothing more. If anything, those who return are less likely to put up with endless nonsense from their government, not more.

The Smithfield thing? Remember when Japan owned everything?

[willie]

It's not just corporations that are better off because of Chinese manufacturing. It's small business too. Like ShivWorks Products Group.

ShivWorks cutlery is more available and less expensive and overall BETTER than it's ever been because of Chinese manufacturing. Period. You have better quality and we make more money than we ever have because of China.

You want a Clinch Pick less than $100? It's coming from China motherfuckers. OUR Chinese manufacturer is HONORABLE, timely, and easy to do business with. When they fuck up they own it.

Clinch Picks were out of production for 3 years because of millennial American fucktards that had neither business sense or manufacturing excellence. I'll stick with the Chinese.

I assume that knockoff copies of your product come from China. If so, does their government make an effort to penalize the trespassers?

[Yung]

Do you think all of them are committed Communist? Selfless New Soviet Men?
They're just--

I was not taking you literally in the post I initially replied to. I incorrectly presumed you knew that.
I really don't have the energy nor patience to for this as I thought I did, so I apologize for saying anything and dipping out right afterward.
G'night.