This furniture's made in ... China????

You are dead-nuts on the mark. Hell, Clinton even oversaw sending missile technology to China! If you are not manufacturing in China, you can't compete on 90+% of consumer products.

I have just spec'd a better quality hobby industry product in China that will be less than half the price of the 'product leader' that manufactures the same product in the US...And yes, the quality of my product is far better! After I eat my competitor's lunch and have them for dinner, they will move their manufactuiring to China, but I will have a clear jump on them.

I call on a division of GE. All of their buyers have to report each week to corporate as to how many products they were able to move to a manufacturer in China for that week!

Competition is driving most everything to turd-world countries that are hungry for our business. The sad thing is, in most of the countries, the workers cannot afford to buy the products they are making!

 

I am suprised that your suprised. But it will get really interesting with the US and EU's push for China to re-price its currency value. Threats of santacions could really make China really interesting.

 

It only makes sense if you are a business owner.

I am Joe CEO, I want to manufacture goods, but if I set up shop in the USA, I get hit with all sorts of corporation taxes, environmental impact fees, workers comp, Union bosses trying to set up shop with my empoyees to get a piece of my action on and on, where, I have none of that in China. Duh!!!!!!

 

I'm shocked that you're shocked as well.

But about the furniture thing, I think its funny because my dad has been 11hour days for the past few weeks at his job. Which would be furniture upholstery.

 

I think this is the only thing in my office that was Made in America!
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Oh god.

Don't get me started on this crap. I think a lot of the blame has to come from the following, particularly in the case of Detroit.

Unions raped American industry for a long, long time.

Health Care costs have absolutely skyrocketed, big time. Now why is this? I say blame the tort lawyers on a lot of it. Look what's happened with Malpractice insurance for Chrissakes!

Look at the Camry or Accord versus, say, a Taurus/Sable or Impala/Malibu.etc. There's about $1800 per car more technology in the AMERICAN-BUILT Japanese cars.

But wait, Don't the Japanese have about a $2,200 per car advantage over us in overhead costs?

ok.. I'm ranting.. I'll STFU now.

 

we've had long discussions about this as well , locally , and the general
consensus is that China's emergence as a world manufacturing hub is
BAD news for the rest of the world and particularly bad for my locality
as well.

Plants and manufacturing that used to be part of our local economy
are now gone or going to China. And China consumes nothing like they
export , since there's nothing we can make that they can't do cheaper.

the only things that China really consumes are low value base commodities.

so , its sad.

we enjoy our cheap tv sets , cheap furniture , cheap clothes , etc ... but
our kids will be reaping the consequences of this 'new world'.

cheers

 

FYI, Markie1949 sent me a massage awhile back, in which he claimed that he does not own anything that is either made in China or Taiwan or anything that is made anywhere in Asia. He just may be onto something, perhaps you should ask him how he does it.

PS: He is a real world traveler, so he may not get back to you for a while tho.

 

I buy Statton:

http://www.statton.com/

American made, cherry (no mahogany, save the Amazon, don't you know).

This is fine, but not ornate furniture. It will last hundreds of years.

EDIT: You know as I look over the web site I have this sad feeling that Statton cannot last in the current envirionment. The cabinetmakers are old. There is no means of increasing production. I suspect that that web site will be drawn down before long.

 

China is the new 800 # Gorilla, thanks in large part to WalMart & the Zombie shoppers who buy all that crap w/o a care about what they are doing to the US or the world. Its really sickening, but the USA mostly helped to create this monster

I think we should tone down the whole war against terror which is becoming a war against freedom and start educating people about the threat China poses

China still doesnt have the US where it wants us but make no msitake when they do have us where they want us they WILL snap the trap on us

 

Mahogany? YUK! Lets talk rain forest and Amazon wood! Here is one of my dining room tables that I build ($4K a pop). Pauo Ferro, Paduk and Brazilian Kingwood. These are drop-dead gorgeous tables. I buy my wood from www.cocobolo.com in Florida in bulk at what most people pay for oak at the hardware store.
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What is funny is that some manufacturing is starting to leave China because the labor costs are going up.

 

And one I delivered last year.
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The Chinese seem to be following the Japanese Mercantiulist model of the 70's. It worked very welll for Japan so thats probably why CHina is doing it to.

In Mercantilism in stage 1, China sells its products to the US at cost or lower than cost until it builds up sufficient market share then stage 2, at which point it raises prices & starts reeling in mega profits, since stage 1 dealt a serious blow to its competition

 

On the top-ten list of sobering sights is driving past the Port of Hong Kong in Kowloon. It seems like 3+ miles of docks!

 

The whoring out of America continues. I go out of my way to purchase American made Lighting fixtures in my business, the quality is still better vs the small price differential at this time. One of my vendors sold me wire made in China without letting me know about this change from US sources in advance; hopefully they wont make the same mistake twice. I looked long and hard to find US produced furniture at a reassonable cost and got lucky to find a Hickory Chair collection at close-out prices. I hope it was not because the were sending production "everseas" read China.They say this trend is OK and that we are turning to a service economy but I see that being farmed out in many cases to India. I truly worry for our country.

 

I unashamedly build mine with mahogany:
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We still make A LOT of product in the US although we have factories in other countries such as MX, England, Canada, Switzerland, ocassionally Brazil and Yes China. I'm not happy about that last 1 but nobody asked me my opinion.
I tried to sway the move to India which is at least better than China. I'll keep pushing for India but China reigns almost supreme today

1 thing most people dont know however is that Mexico actually has more trade treaties with the whole world than any other country including the US & China

 

You do excellent work! Very nice. Check out the woods at cocobolo.com and you will spend 30% more on the wood and have work worth 5X of mahog.

 

Nice. Mahogany is the "marble" of wood, correct? Besides its beauty, what makes mahogany so much better then other woods? Is it better quality? What does mahogany go for in terms of prices (how much would a kitchen cabinet cost) ?

As for China, aren't they in a sticky situation right now with pressures/threats from the EU/US in regards of the currency?

 

Even more sobering is that their 3+ miles of docks process 30 times as many shipments as our 3+ miles. Any attempt to modernize here results in massive strikes and boycotts, until we end up with some half-hearted measures. This is what the strikes at the Port of Oakland were all about.