Are our trucks now Chinese?

[618 Syndicate]

Until the 16th amendment, the Feds had to rely mostly on tariffs.

That helped keep the manufacturing local and the Fed small.

Now we have neither.

That's a gross oversimplification. Income taxes didn't cause jobs to move overseas.

 

[618 Syndicate]

He didn't go into details, just mentioned the tariffs, and it not making sense financially to use the China factories they were using before. It kicked off more in house production on items we could make. The few items we couldn't, they got from India.

In house production is always better for labor. Question for me then becomes why it moved to begin with...

India or China makes no difference to me, cheap labor is cheap labor.

 

[618 Syndicate]

Now with the economy in the crapper, people are lucky to get a 40 hour work week.

You added a bit to your original, and I think it needs addressed. It seems this depends on what a person is willing to do for work. A lot of unskilled labor positions are available, there are "help wanted" signs all over the place, and "people don't want to work these days" is a common refrain in some circles.

 

[Hipster]

New parts, especially plastic stuff for Silverado's all come in from a Gm dealer marked "Made in China" There seems some minute quality differences from the oem supplied parts to replacement parts. Ie, the truck is built with tier 1 quality parts and replacements are sourced elsewhere Tier 2 . Just my observation.

There are many factors influencing these types of decisions.

We're at the point where you can buy a mexican built Silverado truck full of chinese components and feed corporate greed or a toyota tundra built in the states and at least put food on an American workers table.

 

[Hipster]

You added a bit to your original, and I think it needs addressed. It seems this depends on what a person is willing to do for work. A lot of unskilled labor positions are available, there are "help wanted" signs all over the place, and "people don't want to work these days" is a common refrain in some circles.

Yeah, unskilled labor refuses to work for minimum wage. Wage increases ultimately get passed on to consumer, and though the media doesn't mention it, it also drives inflation. I'm not saying minimum wage increases are good or bad, or unnecessary, but several states already have mandatory minimum wage increases signed into law over the next few years so the costs of the "basics" are going to continue to climb.

 

[Hipster]

That's not what Tier1 and Tier2 mean. A Tier1 supplier supplies the automaker. A Tier2 supplier supplies the Tier1 supplier.

It was just an example so quit nitpicking and get over yourself. I'm pretty sure others understand what I'm saying.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

Capital, like electricity, follows the path of least resistance.

In theory, standards of living should equalize across the globe, but it will take a long time and not fun to see your standard of living decline.

 

[Stumpy]

You added a bit to your original, and I think it needs addressed. It seems this depends on what a person is willing to do for work. A lot of unskilled labor positions are available, there are "help wanted" signs all over the place, and "people don't want to work these days" is a common refrain in some circles.

Unfortunately the work load is inconsistent here. My wife and I work at the same place. I'm salary, she's hourly. She's been lucky to get 40 hours most of the time, but only got 28 last week. Some departments are only working 2 days a week. Other job oppurtunities are getting looked at, but we both have been here 20+ years. Never seen it like this.

Our issue is two fold, I think. One, we lost the MLB license, because Fanatics paid them a large sum of money to go exclusive. This is the time of the year we'd be selling baseball stuff. The second problem, everybody is dealing with, and that's inflation. Everything cost more, and a lot of people probably don't have the extra funds to buy novelty sports crap. We do stuff other than sports too, which has actually grown, to at least match sports sales, if not better.

Most of our product line is BS, that you buy for fun, not because you need it. We've ventured into other aspects, like personalization, which has helped a lot, but business just isn't there like it used to be.

 

[Pinger]

It's important to note that articles made in China cost so little because of labor costs. Production moved to cheaper sources of labor as soon as transportation costs dropped enough to make it a viable option. It's a function of capitalism. Movement from a production based economy to a service based economy has amplified consumption.
Basically what I'm saying is we did this to ourselves when we (the West) collectively allowed capital to dictate market terms without meaningful consideration of labor outcomes.

This is perhaps more pertinent to the UK and USA but here, housing (bought and rented) is so expensive that a worker cannot possibly work for the same pay as someone in China, India, etc. Capital at work again - with zero regard for the consequences.

 

[GrimsterGMC]

This is perhaps more pertinent to the UK and USA but here, housing (bought and rented) is so expensive that a worker cannot possibly work for the same pay as someone in China, India, etc. Capital at work again - with zero regard for the consequences.

This is the same problem here in NZ, the cost of a roof over your head is so high that people are unable to live anywhere near there jobs and the rising cost of fuel has doubled the cost of traveling to work. We have has several minimum wage increases but this has just added to our in 7% inflation rate so it's like a dog chasing it's own tail.