JB, ever the word crafter. You have lots of good info and good viewpoints to share. I enjoy your view point as I think it helps many westerners temper their view points.
Thank you.
If nobody bought goods made in China, we wouldn't have a problem related to China.
We certainly have a problem with China only it would be called living under the shadow of war.
Still, like you describe, I think the problem is the world customer and how they are unscrupulous when shopping
Well I wouldn't go so far as to call them unscrupulous. I would say that consumers need to educate themselves more and be discerning about what they buy and who they buy from.
I live in Japan. In Japan, if it is a product that Japanese people value, it is made in Japan. They have a lot of Chinese import and it fills a role here, but mainstay items are made in Japan because Japanese ccustomers have a quality expectation that most other countries cannot make products that meet them. European and USA produced goods compete here because they are cool, so Japanese people look past their less desirable traits.
For example: A Japanese handbag is stylish, weather proof and has a pocket for everything the targeted user will put in it. All your items fit in it like a set. An Italian handbag is cool, lacks durability in typhoon rains, generally lacks the right pockets in the right places, but it is Italian, so customers here look past some of that. Still, they end up buying both because they use the made in Japan one everyday. They use the Italian one to impress people on occasion and complain about it's poor function! The handbag made elsewhere in SE Asia bag fills the role for the person who doesn't have a regular use for a handbag, but they still want one.
This type of fashion/function compromise goes on in all walks of life. People seem to willing to give up a lot of convenience for the sake of being seen as cool. And the desire to be seen as cool is what fuels the entire knockoff industry. People like the sleek look of a Whitten but don't want to or can't afford to spend the money on a real one so they buy a knockoff.
In America, many of our product companies didn't get better at making their product, they decided to make the same product in a place which is cheaper.
Well, as I am sure you know, the decision to move production farther away from the control of the company is never an easy one and has other factors beside labor as the base. The fact of the matter is that since the dawn of time production has always followed cheap labor. When labor becomes expensive, be it simply from supply and demand or from unions or due to regulations then production seeks to lower the cost. However cheap labor without infrastructure often ends up costing more. Given the choice most companies would prefer to produce their product closer to home as long as they can be competitive.
I would love to see where Mattel or some of those companies are market share wise. I think the toy boom of the 80's has fallen off. I buy my kids less toys than I had. I suspect they will buy less than I do.
Not really sure where you are going with this point. My point was that Mattel or (insert name here) is ultimately responsible for what they present to the consumer. To bring this back to pool, I have three factories producing cases for me. I am the one responsible for those cases and whether they work or not. I have had problems with some parts on some cases that made it out to the public. Although the factory did not put the parts on the cases that I specified it's MY FAULT that those cases made it to the shelves because I could have spent more time and money inspecting and testing them for flaws BEFORE they were shipped.
Look at what GM is giving up to Toyota?
If you really want to know what GM gave up look up a podcast by This Amercian Life on NPR called NUMMI. This hour long story will shock you and give you a real true understanding of the depth of the problem in American manufacturing vs. Japanese.
Now, on the on the other hand, companies which have stayed in the USA and invested in their product, I think have flourished. For example, American custom cuemakers. They are seen as the finest in the world. Why don't they make the transition from maker to importer with name? Because they don't want to suffer the image thrashing which cheap labor gives you.
The only thing I can say here is that there is a lot about the inner workings of the billiard industry and who is dealing with whom that is not known. I guarantee you that more people than you know are creating partnerships and forming relationships with manufacturing partners around the world.
Some American manufacturing has been able to hold their own but generally not without serious overhaul of both their labor costs vs. productivity and their practices. We are a country of wasteful people and as such we form companies that have wasteful practices, our government is full of incredible waste and that ultimately drives prices up and efficiency down.
The only issues China as a country has as far as I can clearly see. . .
1) Is the government does not enforce the ownership of international names(copyright). Whitten, Leupold, etc.
In fact the court system here does uphold intellectual property rights. But the local police often don't uphold the court's rulings. This is a situation where it's like weeds, as soon as you pull one another pops up. Now if the central government were to start sending storm troopers down the street and simply shooting every person selling a fake product and executing the executives of companies who rip off IP then this practice would come to a grinding halt. But until then it's a white collar crime with little real consequences.
2) The government does not enforce international intellectual property protection(patent).
See above.
3) The government seems to require joint venture relationships with strong government infusion for foriegn companies operating in China. This encourages ip theft, especially related to business practices.
Actually this is not true anymore in most cases. Companies in China can be 100% foreign owned now however it's "easier" if you have a Chinese (not government) partner. Of course having a Chinese partner means you have to share the secrets and this of course can lead to the IP being leaked. You can look up Apple's main supplier here to see what sorts of measures they take to prevent IP being stolen and also what happens to those who get caught. You see IP can be protected if the right people are encouraged to enforce that protection.
Really though it's not much different than companies receiving extra protection from city, state and the federal government in the USA. We all know the story of the "company" town.
4) There is a cultural piece here too, maybe JB can help.
I don't consider the Chinese culture to be a "problem". I think it is helpful though to understand that the Chinese equate trickery with cleverness. Where we are trusting they are distrusting. They view giving trust as a sign of weakness to be exploited. Chinese history is full of stories which exalt the person who got his way not by force but through being clever and tricking the opponent. So in daily life up through the highest echelons people go into any negotiation with a basic distrust of the other side UNLESS they know that person VERY VERY well or the other side is family. On the flip side family squabbles are probably the number one reason for new businesses in China. It's like cells dividing to make new cells.
The other part of the culture aspect that is not apparent to outsiders is the vast diversity. China has hundreds of ethnic minorities. You can go to a town 20 miles away from another town and the language is almost completely different. They are united by force and share the language of Mandarin but the reality is that most Chinese seem to be tied more strongly to their local roots than anything else.
5) doing business with China creates tax revenue for China, which makes you a supporter of communism, lack of personal freedoms, inter governmental relationships(i.e. Chinese institutions owning large portions of US debt, Chinese political contributions within the US political system, etc)
#5 is true as a customer also.
Well the same could be said of doing business with any country which has a government system you don't agree with. People say that buying American made goods supports imperialism and unjustified war as well as state sanctioned murder. Some Americans say that as well as Europeans and of course the Chinese.
The Japanese committed wholesale rape and torture of Chinese women during World War II and the Japanese government continues to deny it today. I however do not choose to make the link between purchasing my Sony camera and the Japanese government's policies.
The fact is that one needs to separate government and business if one is going to be able to live. Because if you as a consumer try and base all your buying decisions on what the government of any particular country does then you will literally go crazy unless you choose to be selectively ignorant.
I.e. - If you say I won't buy any goods that were made in China because "China" commits human rights abuses then logically you would need to apply the same standard to America because "America" has also committed human rights abuses.
The fact of the matter is that we are all humans on this little globe trying to get through the day. We are fleas to the planet, as George Carlin says, an infestation or a cancer. One day the planet might just erupt and wipe us all out or a significant portion of us. A deadly virus might wipe us out. Until then we are just a collection of beings who are trying to exert control over whatever we can influence, be it little league or a nation. Communism, capitalism, democracy, totalitarianism, etc.... are all human constructs of how to exert control over humans when they collect in large numbers.
When you trade with someone you give them FREEDOM by allowing them the opportunity to give you something of value back. By trading with the Chinese we give the Chinese people an opportunity to grow into citizens of the world and choose their own destiny just as we are able to do (for the most part in America at least). Withhold that trade and you relegate them to finding other ways to grow and those ways probably won't be in a direction that is peaceful. That's my theory anyway.
Sure, it's a tough environment here for the Western company. Yes the enforcement of IP laws is weak and the safety standards are not upheld. But they are surely better off than they were 20 years ago and in 20 years they will be better still.
Now, lets be fair, other low cost labor regions probably have similar or worse issues.
. . .other cheap labor markets will have similar issues.[/QUOTE]
How about all of that post-Katrina toxic sheetrock China funneled in here? Knockoff pool cases should be the least of our concerns. Anyone heard about knockoff pharmaceuticals?
The unions are only a small part of why america can't compete
