Mark71

I gotta vent a bit... A guy I know said to me recently "why do you spend extra money on US-Made parts? Who cares where the parts come from as long as they fit?"

I know people have been over this already, but here's a decent reason that is right from today's news:
http://tinyurl.com/3wvzvf8

Sometimes I think I was born too late. Sometimes I really think people from my generation are not all that bright.

I just can't get over that we are seeing all these signs and no one seems to care! This isn't about politics - it's bigger than that - so don't say anything political here. Just make sure you look where your stuff is coming from!

<end of rant>

Now I am going to go out and put the top down and pretend I never read that article for a couple of hours or so. Nothing calms me down like firin' up the Rocket. :-)

-Mark

w-30dreamin

I care and I do my best but it's almost becoming impossible.

compedgemarine

a friend of mine runs a big truck parts house. he says that when they get a container of chinese parts the quality is so bad that they have to throw out almost half of it because it is unsellable. he tries to get people to buy the american made or OEM parts but they stock to chinese stuff because some people will buy the cheap parts and replace them 3 or 4 times rather than spend the money up front for quality.

72 cutlass455

This is about economics and the failure of those producing goods for sale to the public not listening, and making items of low quality to compete in a global economy. In 1974 when i was over in Okinawa and wanted to buy a stereo only one american firm was putting out items that were close in quality and they were hundreds of dollars more in price. So I ended up getting a set made in Japan. I owned a luv pickup back in the day they were very cheap. And there in is the greatest problem as Americans we buy what is cheapest and best and have little brand loyalty due to being told what we want to buy not what we need.

Jaybird

Unfortunately the globalists are winning this financial war. We have been dumped by the corporate eleet (sic) and left to fend for ourselves. It is now truly a survival of the fittest and a race to the bottom.
Our best defence is to buy locally whenever possible!
You can not believe anything in the media as well. It makes my blood boil!
And as far as buying from, 'Name Brand American Companies'... Look where things are made (if it says on the box, some don't)! Many large US and International compainies produce their parts in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, etc, etc. AC Delco is just one example.
Another tip is: Barter for goods or services whenever possible. Don't feel guilty doing this because our system is broken and the largest tax dodgers are the multi-international corporations. If the corporations paid their fair share, we would not be having these problems in the first place.
Follow the money trail!

JMHO

Jaybird

P.S. That one word was spelled incorrectly on purpose because the proper word was highlighted by this site.

Also, Thanks to my www.classicoldsmobile.com friends here, I have learned a new word that I now use regularly... "Chinesium".

Urban Dictionary: Chinesium

An element not found on the periodic table. A crappy metal or plastic substance made in China in the manufacture of ALL Chinese exports, "Chinesium".

Redog

I would like to think that I am responsilbe for Tirerack.com putting on their website what country their tires are made in.

I bought 2 front tires for the Delta, 215-70-14. (wrong size I know but the owner before me "ghetto lowered" the car) and I bought 2 BFG tires.

Got the tires and was loving the smell and looking them over and I noticed "Made in Mexico" I called Tire Rack right away and wanted to return them, just for that reason. The operator was flabergasted.

On a side note: My ex-father in law will NOT buy anyhting Amercian. Not a car, appliance, anything, at the risk of helping out a working class union guy such as myself

jensenracing77

i avoid china crap as much as possible. i have uses Red Wing boots for many many years. now all but 3 or 4 models of there boots are made in chain. i will still use Red Wing boots till i can't get a pair made it the USA. after that it is the end of Red Wing for me.

i feel there is only 2 ways to fix it. tax china for the goods they send here or lower some of the regulations on the American companies so they can compete.

OLD SKL 69

I agree, i always try to buy American made parts 1st. It has become increasingly frustrating since now so much is made offshore, and you're right, most of it is junk.

I can never understand it when the news station states, " Good new American manufacturing was up last quarter." WTF? All I hear is how we've lost hundreds of thousands of those jobs. How is that possible? We've been exporting our jobs and money(trade deficit/imbalance) for at least 30 years. It's no surprise to me that China is catching up to us.

billykissell

at the risk of being persecuted, american parts are not necessarily better. maybe in this specific application they are. the fact is that american labor has been driven out of the market by an entitlement mentality. americans feel entitled to top dollar wages but refuse to pay top dollar for goods. the system does not work that way. you reap what you sow.

oldzy

I am starting to concede to the inevitable. Kinda like in Superman II where the villains come... you have to give in at some point. I am even considering taking a CSL course... ya know... Chinese Second Language.

billykissell

even the mom and pop stores that used to sell quality stuff can't compete. folks won't pay anywhere near what they are willing to work for.

Lalo442

Well my two cents is that being a Union man for he last 20 years , I think it is more corporate greed that is ruining our economy and our trade deficit , Big CEO's are only worried of short term stock compensation so they can retire quickly with a golden parachute and not thinking long term about the country or it's workers ....
I recently bought belts for my Cutlass at my local O'rielly's they had the House Chinese brand for $4.50 or the Gates madde in USA for $15 I got the Gates Every little bit counts I try to vote with my wallet also as well as my ballot ...

billykissell

you're right. every little bit does count. things are just so out of whack right now.

Mark71

Hey Lalo - Gotta agree with you there. I'm not in a union but I am also not the CEO of anything. I got people from every party in my family and they all agree that greed has just gotten out of control.

I was pretty PO'ed when I opened this thread and forgot that there may be some folks who take offense to it. I got nothing against people from other countries who came here for a better life. They work every day just like I do and pay their taxes just like I do.

A friend of mine from India happens to be one of the most patriotic Americans I've met, even though he wasn't born here. When I complained that even Levi's aren't made here anymore, he gave me this address: http://www.texasjeansusa.com/

For a long time, both he and I have only gotten jeans there and they are officially the best I've ever had. They hold up to abuse like none other and last through day after day at work and under the Cutlass. The price is about the same as any other pair of jeans, too.

And no, I don't work for them.

-Mark

Lalo442

Hey I might have to try those Jeans always looking for a new set for work and play ...... I think that Greed will be the end of our Country if nothing is done soon , Yes and I agree I was born in Chicago but my Mom was born in Mexico and was a legal resident for 45 yrs before finally being sworn in as a citizen at the downtown courthouse me and my Grandson attended , and if anyone here has ever heard the Judges speach before swearing everyone in the room in it can be powerful , it put a lump in my throat as well as others in attendance ....

Mark71

Lalo - Great to hear the story of a person coming here and making a life for himself.

My (now American) friend who is originally from India is way into Mustangs, so I figured I shouldn't mention it here.

As far as the jeans go, they are solid, no joke. Problem is, you have to find your size. As it turns out, jeans from overseas are made larger than the actual numbers written on them. It's a marketing thing to make you think you're thinner or some BS like that.

Oh yeah, Costco's got USA-Made Goodyear windshield wipers for 7.99 that seem very decent so far...

-Mark

Aceshigh

Agreed.

Decent my ***, they are on every car I own now.
As Tony the Tiger would say.....They're

and they are 1/2 the price of every other quality one's in the stores like them.

Aceshigh

Would be a smart move, and here's why......
The age of America is ending....and the IMF recently quietly posted
their projections of our economical empires demise to China's.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-bud...nd-marketwatch

rustyroger

Every great nation has its era at the top.
The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Mongols and more recently Spanish all had empires built on military conquest.
France and Britain had their turn at the top based on trade (with military backup), ushering in a new kind of empire.
The USA dominated the 20th century because of its huge industrial infrastructure, now China has woken up and is set to outproduce the western world. How is it doing this?, cheap labour and low wages in my opinion; America built its economic power with sweatshops and cheap labour, maybe returning to 60 hour weeks at $3 per hour will bring back economic greatness, it might work over here too but I don't fancy it much.
Most of Europe and the USA has an abundance of shops selling cheap asian junk, however the quality of this stuff while still very poor is improving and it's hard to explain to someone struggling on minimum wage why they should spend twice as much on home grown goods if they cannot percieve that it is better made. "Made in Japan" used to mean cheap rubbish not that long ago, "Made in Germany" was a derogatory term in the 19th century as well. How long before "Made in China" means a quality product?.
Who will take a bet that in 100 years the Chinese will be complaining about being flooded with cheap "Made in India" imports?.
I admire the American work ethic but I deplore its corporate short sighted greed (I'm thinking of Roger Smith as the CEO of GM as an example), Wall Street seems to be happily (and legally) selling America down the river, confident that when they screw things up the government will bail them out with taxpayers dollars.
Britain went down the tubes after two catastrophically expensive wars left us with a resentful workforce and terminally incompetently run businesses, let's hope America doesn't go the same way.

jaunty75

My 4 cents worth:

Every great nation does have its time at the top. China had it once centuries ago, and now it seems poised to have it again.

China has FIVE times the population as the U.S. If each Chinese citizen is only slightly more than 1/5 as productive as an American citizen, China's economy will be larger than ours. The really amazing story is that this has not ALREADY happened.

China turned heavily inward during the middle part of the 20th century when Mao Tse-Tung came to power. He wanted no contact with the western world. Remember Richard Nixon's "China breakthrough" and the "ping-pong diplomats" of the early 1970s that made the first inroads into contact with the Chinese after almost 30 years of their isolation? Had Mao not been the leader for so long, but instead if China had had the kind of leadership in 1945 that it has now, it might have overtaken the U.S. in the size of its economy in 1970 instead of in 2015.

China has problems. For all of its vaunted manufacturing prowess, it is still a very poor country with significant amounts of its population living in grass huts. This is changing, but slowly. Until their government reforms, they will never truly "rule" the world in terms of economic power. The U.S. was at the top for so long not only because of its strong economy, but also because of its freedom and respect for individual rights and property and its observance of the concept of the rule of law. Until and unless China adopts these, it will never be the leader the U.S. and the West have been for the last 100 years. The rest of the world will still look to the West as their role model for these ideals.


A few months ago I went to the hardware store to buy a new flush valve for one of the toilets. Right on the side of the box, it said "American Standard," which is one of the most famous and long-lived names in home plumbing fixtures. One the other side of the box, it said "Made in China."

I nearly threw up.

Oldsguy

No politics, even if we all seem to agree, someone may not.

oldcutlass

I now know why, back in the 60's, all the older generation was always bitter!!! Young innocence and ignorance is bliss!

Don't get me started, LOL!!!!!

Lalo442

That is why I watch Ni Hao , Kai-lan with my Grandson so I can learn the language of the future

NorTown Olds

I'm WITH you Brother!! "Damn GOOD Rant" here IMHO!! I've always looked to see if products etc. were made here before I'd buy; it's really difficult now to find damn near anything anymore..ESPECIALLY TIRES! UGH! Quality Control leaves MUCH to be desired compared to most of our manufacturers and processes.

Red Wing Boots -- yeah, GOOD STUFF! Do what you can gang, do what you can. I for one refuse to give up. (A Green Beret Buddy of mine told me once; "you Buy Quality...You only Cry ONCE!) When you write the check/pay the bill! It's so true!

Aceshigh

You just nailed the problem right there relating to the OP's thread.

If you can't prove to the average poverty wage up to middle class consumer that something "Made in China" is junk,
then they are going to continue buying those products because they see it as money saved in their pockets.

Somethings even if they ARE "Made in the USA" are inferior to somethings "Made in China". Not everything made in
the USA is high quality. That's a fact too.

jaunty75

Not everything made in China is junk. Not by a longshot.

To along with my rant against "American" Standard plumbing products being made in China, I bought a new Dell laptop computer about a year ago. I thought for sure I was buying American because I thought Dell was based in Texas. Well, it turns out that the headquarters might be in Texas, but my new laptop was made in China. It says it right there on the side of the Dell box.

Rest assured that this Dell computer, which I'm using at this very moment to type this, is no piece of junk.

China might be the source of lots of low-end toys and other consumer goods that can be pretty fairly described as junk, but they're a source of a fair amount of quality stuff, too, much of it high-tech.

Heck, who do you think IBM sold its line of laptop and desktop computers to a few years ago? Lenovo, a Chinese company. Their computers are the equal of anything else out there, at least if you go by the reviews those computers receive in the various computer and electronics magazines. There's certainly nothing inferior about them.

NorTown Olds

OK...that's not entirely the point though either. The real concern is; we don't make anything hardly in this country anymore...those stubborn facts and lessons from history; we couldn't have mobilized/defeated **** Germany if we didn't have the manufacturing capacity and SKILLED LABOR to produce that mighty War Machine we did back then...kids we recruit today into the military don't even know how to use common hand tools...we're setting ourselves up as victim's of our own circumstance...as others have said; "The only thing we export is our American Jobs"

Plenty of things made in China have proven not only to be junk; but to be harmful/fatal to Children here...remember the lead-laden toys, paint and other products? The Faulty Baby Cribs etc. Sure, for all things there are exceptions; no doubt. Anyhoo...onto something else...in the spirit of this original rant/vent sessions. Have a good one all...

GoodOldsGuyDougie

MARK71--We be mates! There are a few on this Message board who dont care. They always seem to speak up like the Jack ***'s they are with stupid opinions and always a negative remark about the USA. Where I live in the south the Car guys aren't like that. We Love our American Cars and our country. Nuff Said!

My442

China is a communist country who should be treated like an enemy.

They will destroy us without firing a shot.

All you naysayers have to do is look at history: countries with a great manufacturing base create wealth.

Ours is being sucked dry due to unfair trade agreements, undervalued currency, and corporate greed.

Mark my words - in 20 years we will be much worse off than we are now.

ralsy

Me being in Australia, i always ask if the parts are made in the USA or if possible in AUS when ordering parts for the olds. I have in the past not worried to much where the parts come from, but after receiving crap Chinese parts i said no more. Its only USA or AUS parts for me. Anyway i think we should stick together and buy locally made products to support our own industries and keep the jobs locally.

Jaybird

My headlight dimmer switch was made in China. It still works, after one year, but I still wonder when it will fail. I should probably just replace it with the one from my parts car and forget about it.
Also, it's the lone Chinese part on my car, as far as I know!

Jaybird

Boldsmobile

How about the US pistachio and peanut producers that killed americans?

How about the VA hospital in the US that didnt clean their colonoscopy equipment and gave their patients aids?

Countries dont kill people, people kill people.

I have been working with Americans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Thai since early 90s. Its people, company strategy and greed that kill people and make junk product. These things have no boundries nor are they restricted to any country.

greenslade

The USA has owes China more money then it owes to any other country.

Mark71

Hey guys... I'm the new guy here. I got no right to get people all arguing or whatever. Bottom line is, buy quality stuff. Sometimes it'll be made in USA, sometimes in Australia, Germany or Japan. As long as you don't just pretend it doesn't matter (and believe cheaper = better), you're already way ahead of the game.

For me, Made in USA has usually been a mark of quality and that's still true today.

Diego

From Seth Godin:

New polling out this week shows that Americans are frustrated with the world and pessimistic about the future. They're losing patience with the economy, with their prospects, with their leaders (of both parties).

What's actually happening is this: we're realizing that the industrial revolution is fading. The 80 year long run that brought ever-increasing productivity (and along with it, well-paying jobs for an ever-expanding middle class) is ending.

It's one thing to read about the changes the internet brought, it's another to experience them. People who thought they had a valuable skill or degree have discovered that being an anonymous middleman doesn't guarantee job security. Individuals who were trained to comply and follow instructions have discovered that the deal is over... and it isn't their fault, because they've always done what they were told.

This isn't fair of course. It's not fair to train for years, to pay your dues, to invest in a house or a career and then suddenly see it fade.

For a while, politicians and organizations promised that things would get back to normal. Those promises aren't enough, though, and it's clear to many that this might be the new normal. In fact, it is the new normal.

I regularly hear from people who say, "enough with this conceptual stuff, tell me how to get my factory moving, my day job replaced, my consistent paycheck restored..." There's an idea that somehow, if we just do things with more effort or skill, we can go back to the Brady Bunch and mass markets and mediocre products that pay off for years. It's not an idea, though, it's a myth.

Some people insist that if we focus on "business fundamentals" and get "back to basics," all will return. Not so. The promise that you can get paid really well to do precisely what your boss instructs you to do is now a dream, no longer a reality.

It takes a long time for a generation to come around to significant revolutionary change. The newspaper business, the steel business, law firms, the car business, the record business, even computers... one by one, our industries are being turned upside down, and so quickly that it requires us to change faster than we'd like.

It's unpleasant, it's not fair, but it's all we've got. The sooner we realize that the world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we've got. Whining isn't a scalable solution.

Aceshigh

Part of the reason we were able to become such a "War Machine of Industry"
and succeed in defeating the ****'s and Mussolini and Japan was something most people don't connect the dots to figure out.......

THE GREAT DEPRESSION
We had slave level wages in many industries because of the Great Depression. So many people OUT of work, they were willing to work for next to nothing to just work and feed their families. This helped promote cheap manufacturing. That's basically what we're heading back into again ladies and gentlemen.....another really bad depression.

It's the only way to reverse the exporting of jobs overseas it seems.

Aceshigh

Damn good post.....and he's absolutely correct.

At the end of the day it's not "countries" we're talking about here, it's "corporations" run by PEOPLE. It's also people in political office lobbied (bribed) to allow certain kinds of business free reign that often get us into the most trouble.

"Buying American" isn't going to solve the problem. If you buy a piece of crap because it had "Made in USA" stamped on it, you're wasting your hard earned $$$ on it. Not to mention many things are made overseas, and shipped here and then assembled here which is then labeled "Made in USA". It's the biggest scam these days you never know WHERE your product was actually made even if it says "Made in USA".

One example of what I'm talking about is Vizio flat panel televisions you see everywhere today. They spout off that they are an American television company, but everything they sell is made in China, and assembled here by workers in the US. Technically it's a play on the words of "Made" because it IS assembled here. Another example is half the cars made by Ford and GM these days that are made in Mexico or Canada.

Toyota Tundra is the most "Made in USA" truck there is in America today too.

rustyroger

Toyota Tundra is the most "Made in USA" truck there is in America today too. [/quote]
Highest volume car manufacturers in the UK?, Nissan, Honda and Toyota. All supplied to some degree by British component firms and making cars to the expected high build quality standards of the parent companies, keeping a lot of Brits in jobs paying decent wages.
The Nissan plant in the north east is one of the most efficient in the world too. The Japanese seem to have the right business plan of putting long term investment ahead of short term profit and keeping the whole workforce onside. The Germans also have the same view but didn't need another country to show them the way.
Maybe the rest of Europe and the USA needs to fundamentally restructure on the same lines. Britain was the dominant world power when it was the workshop of the world and so was the USA.
I want to be patriotic and spend my money on goods that keep fellow Brits in work, I'm sure you guys want to buy well made American products too. But unless we have a broad manufacturing base we can't. Over to the voting public to elect politicians who will support their nation getting back to what made them great in the first place.

flatoz

I can only speak about what I saw with my own eyes, in 2000 my wife and I took a 5 month honeymoon, we visted a lot of countries at the time the cheap stuff in europe was made in eastern europe or spain/portugal.

we spent 5 weeks in China backpacking around. no tour company it was hard yakka, hard to buy a train ticket, the news was regulated with a slant on what was 'bad' in the western world. it was an eyeopening experience.

in the provence just north of Hong Kong ( Guanzhou - sp) on the mainland is the manufacturing heart of china. farm people have 2 years that they are aloud to travel to this city and work in the factories then they must return home. I saw with my own two eyes, that they will make anything, but the most amazing thing was the quality they could produce.

It does come down to greed and stupidity, stupidity on our behalf as the comsumers for thinking that paying less we get the same quality, and greed on the corporations as china can make anything to any degree of quality, but like anywhere, you have to pay for it.

So a corporation lands in honkers. trips to the mainland and can get their left handed wigget made to the quality its being made in their home county for half as much, or they can get it made to 60% of the quality of what they were making for 5% of their current production cost? what do they do???

In 2006 we returned to europe, everything by then that was cheap was made in china.

were all boiled frogs.

You know the story about how do you boil a frog, if you throw him in a pot of boiling water he will jump out, but put him in a cold pot and turn the heat on low before to long its boiling and he's figured it out to late.

Its not just you guys in the US, its the world.

What , really do you think would happen if China just closed its doors tomorrow? we would all be screwed, as alot of the day to day basic consumables would dry up in a month or two, not food per say but clothes etc. sure each country still has some manufacturing, but we have all sold out.

China is now the world ruler, if you really don't think that, well you my friend are still that frog.

What other county with such power as china doesn't have their money floated? they set what the Yuan is against other foreign currencies, now that is real power.

regardless had a ball travelling there, was a man on mars experience.

its a pity what greed has done to fine nations.

billykissell

My 68 olds is made in canada.