Thread: Global trends and the decline of the U.S. and Europe

Originally Posted by 59caddy

one thing some of you may have missed and is one of the greatest things to add to this mass buying of products overseas is the great 'WALMART"

I wouldn't even walk in the door let alone buy anything from those SOBs.

Originally Posted by 59caddy

just because it is cheaper does not always make the best buy.

+1
There's not much people can do about getting jobs back. Buying only things that aren't made in Far East, but usually it isn't possible as such things do not exist any more.
Some consumer organisations keep lists of various everyday things and countries of their origin. Do notknow how it is there; here items that are manyfactured here are marked in a flag symbol.

Originally Posted by Sailor

+1
There's not much people can do about getting jobs back. Buying only things that aren't made in Far East, but usually it isn't possible as such things do not exist any more.
Some consumer organisations keep lists of various everyday things and countries of their origin. Do notknow how it is there; here items that are manyfactured here are marked in a flag symbol.

Here is a website I just googled that says it is devoted to promoting products made in the USA. I haven't perused it yet. Apologies to ChrisL if we are hijacking the thread.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I wouldn't even walk in the door let alone buy anything from those SOBs.

"if" and when i get something there. it is because i can find it nowhere else. i often just do without whatever it was or find something similar from someone else. i have several family members that work for walmart and even they will not shop there. i would truly like to see them brought to their knees and maybe go out of business altogether.. i always like the smaller mom and pop stores that used to be in every small town in Ameirca....i.e. how many of you out there remember "western auto" stores?..they were great and we owned by someone local

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I wouldn't even walk in the door let alone buy anything from those SOBs.

My wife and I have never purchased anything from Walmart either. I was in one once, but it was only to use their bathroom.

Granted there are only a fraction of USA made products available in comparison to yesteryear. However, I like to Google search USA made products to see if I can buy American if possible.

Chris L

Originally Posted by Sailor

+1
There's not much people can do about getting jobs back. Buying only things that aren't made in Far East, but usually it isn't possible as such things do not exist any more.
Some consumer organisations keep lists of various everyday things and countries of their origin. Do notknow how it is there; here items that are manyfactured here are marked in a flag symbol.

That would actually just move the problem, not solve it.

As noted above, corporations exist to maximize their shareholders' profit. If the customers don't buy "Made In China" anymore, they might bring back the jobs locally but for non-living wages... and expect a price hike nonetheless. Or they may simply find a loophole to use a cheap foreign workforce and you can still expect a price hike.

Originally Posted by MichaelP

That would actually just move the problem, not solve it.

As noted above, corporations exist to maximize their shareholders' profit. If the customers don't buy "Made In China" anymore, they might bring back the jobs locally but for non-living wages... and expect a price hike nonetheless. Or they may simply find a loophole to use a cheap foreign workforce and you can still expect a price hike.

I'm only talking theory here, the likelihood of it actually turning around would be near nil, but I wonder again, in theory if it couldn't be done.

If there was a national fervor and a quick and unified groundswell from a mindset of "taking our country back"; people working to fix the economic problems by CIRCUMVENTING the government which is the problem, I actually do think the nation's GDP could turn around positively.

Excitement within the nation. Support support support. Cottage industry fitting the bill in the short term and growing larger in production in the longer term to firstly provide American goods for Americans. I'd like to hear anyone's reasoning as to why it wouldn't be a positive thing for our country to return to real health economically.

China's growth is headed for a drastic downturn in 30 years according to that same essay I originally cited. Why? One child per family was SUCH a great idea that after only two generations of single child families, ONE Chinese child would now be responsible for SIX people. Population control and "family planning" kinda has a negative side that apparently bites such countries in the butt.


Chris L

Originally Posted by ChrisL

I'm only talking theory here, the likelihood of it actually turning around would be near nil, but I wonder again, in theory if it couldn't be done.

If there was a national fervor and a quick and unified groundswell from a mindset of "taking our country back"; people working to fix the economic problems by CIRCUMVENTING the government which is the problem, I actually do think the nation's GDP could turn around positively.

Replace government with giga-corps and you get closer to reality. The free market doesn't work properly when some players have close to absolute control on their segment.

You still have one massive problem to solve, how can you produce and distribute affordable quality items and pay living wages to many employees?

And for all the excitement about manufacturing being dead in America, the reality is somewhat more nuanced.

Originally Posted by ChrisL

Excitement within the nation. Support support support. Cottage industry fitting the bill in the short term and growing larger in production in the longer term to firstly provide American goods for Americans. I'd like to hear anyone's reasoning as to why it wouldn't be a positive thing for our country to return to real health economically.

Simply put, with modern production techniques, the US market is too small to support a strong manufacturing sector with many employees. I would even tend to think that the world might be too small a market if you were to use all the available improvements in the manufacturing sector.

"Cool story bro" time:

A friend and ex-colleague of mine redesigned the Mexican Beetle factory for the new Beetle. By changing the production lines from assembly line to U cells, he increased the productivity of the worker and the quality of the product. One worker in a U cell could perform the job of several workers on a normal assembly line and would have a more varied/interesting job.

On top of my head, I can't recall if it was a 3-fold or a 6-fold increase... but that's one of the reasons why the manufacturing sector generates so much money per employee nowadays.

Originally Posted by ChrisL

China's growth is headed for a drastic downturn in 30 years according to that same essay I originally cited. Why? One child per family was SUCH a great idea that after only two generations of single child families, ONE Chinese child would now be responsible for SIX people. Population control and "family planning" kinda has a negative side that apparently bites such countries in the butt.


Chris L

They are headed for a drastic downturn for a simpler reason: greed. Just like India for IT jobs, they are slowly being seen as too expensive and the industry is looking for cheaper alternatives.

A previous employer of mine actually re-outsourced from India to China in 2003, because developers in China were cheaper than in India. They have since re-outsourced from China to various other Asian countries as China wasn't that cheap after all, and the quality of the service left a lot to be desired. Last I heard, they are not that happy with the quality of the service in their current location but they haven't found a cheaper option yet.

This is interesting to hear your opinions from the other side of the globe. You seem to have same opinions with Walmart as we have here with McDonalds, but i've always thought that even McD gives jobs to us Finns. Not much, but better than nothing.
What i'm worried that there are so many industrial companies today, most have been economically profitable, but sold out to foreign competitors, just to get shut down. I have many good friends that lost their jobs, and when it happens to whole family then it is a catastrophe. Last one seems to be our sereral hundred years old naval industry. 'Oasis of the Seas' seems to be the last big cruiser ever made here. Now as the shipyards will close it touches about 30% of the people in this city, and South Koreans will build the cruisers in the future.
Sorry to get off topic.
Whenever possible, i try to check out every item i buy: where is it made. Not only Finnish products, but those who are made in EU or USA as well. But not in Far East. Lastly i bought Orb Audio speakers because i know that they are made in USA and not in China.

When Walmart imports product from China, how is the product paid for? Does Walmart pay the Chinese exporter in U.S. dollars? Or does Walmart keep a stash of Chinese currency? I suspect that Walmart pays in dollars and that the Chinese exporter ends up with U.S. dollars that need to be spent on U.S. product.

If so, us buying from them means that they must also buy from us.