The Chinese are coming ...

[bdcues]

And actually, DICK, the 3rd one about OSHA does not have to do with wages either. Pay attention.

 

[ratcues]

Rat, You say that Chinese cheap labor is only one factor involved and then give other factors but of all the examples you give, other than your first and fourth examples, are part of wages.

Dick

My point is it isn't just giving the Chinese worker $1 a day to work is not what is driving business overseas. American manufacturing is "taxed" by our own gov't in more than just the monetary sense. Health insurance, although not a direct wage to me, is an optional part (for now) of operating cost. Workman's comp insurance, paid by the company is yet another operating cost. OSHA standards and EPA standards increase the operating cost. None of which are direct wages. SS tax is taken directly from my wages AND from the company I work for. My employer pays taxes a on top of my base wages. For example, an employee of an American company, making $10 an hour may actually cost the company $13-14 per hour(depends on state and local taxes).

Chinese companies do not have these cost weighing them down. There is very little spent on environmental standards....well...unless the Olympics are coming to town. Very little is spent to protect their workforce. If one gets hurt or killed on the job....there are a billion more in line to take his/her place.

 

[rhncue]

And actually, DICK, the 3rd one about OSHA does not have to do with wages either. Pay attention.

Sorry, got the numbers mixed up. It should have read one and three not one and four. But now that you mention it number three should be part of wages as it's money that must be spent on labor to protect the labor, not material expenses for production. So now it's down to one.

What many people in the U.S. don't seem to understand is that our way of life was formed, completely, by WW11. We were still in a depression until then. The war completely destroyed all manufacturing in Europe, Asia and what little there was in Africa. There was not a single factory destroyed in the U.S.. After the war, Europe and Asia had no money to re-build plants. The U.S. was called on to supply the world with what ever was needed to survive. Manufacturing sky rocketed because of this as there was no competition. We could charge what ever we liked as we were a monopoly. Buy it from us or you can't have it. Wages kept escalating as there was not enough labor to sustain the boom. Everyone said that American made was the best which it was as no one else was producing. It made no difference what an auto worker was paid as the top three makers received the same contracts. Then along came the 60's and other countries started to produce, themselves. First our steel mills went as they couldn't compete. Then foreign cars started to be imported and now you see what has transpired to. Every day other countries are doing better at building things so they no longer are dependent on our products, at our inflated prices, that are needed to support what has become, our inflated life styles. This is not just my opinion, it is fact. Even the American consumer knows this or so many foreign products would not be being imported. Every one thinks his next door neighbor should be buying American but at the same time they are at Wal-mart, buying Chinese and saving money. Do I like it? Absolutely not but I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and just blame lots of other factors for the way things are becoming. We must accept that the world is changing and we must evolve with it to survive.

Dick

 

[Sheldon]

Sorry, got the numbers mixed up. It should have read one and three not one and four. But now that you mention it number three should be part of wages as it's money that must be spent on labor to protect the labor, not material expenses for production. So now it's down to one.

What many people in the U.S. don't seem to understand is that our way of life was formed, completely, by WW11. We were still in a depression until then. The war completely destroyed all manufacturing in Europe, Asia and what little there was in Africa. There was not a single factory destroyed in the U.S.. After the war, Europe and Asia had no money to re-build plants. The U.S. was called on to supply the world with what ever was needed to survive. Manufacturing sky rocketed because of this as there was no competition. We could charge what ever we liked as we were a monopoly. Buy it from us or you can't have it. Wages kept escalating as there was not enough labor to sustain the boom. Everyone said that American made was the best which it was as no one else was producing. It made no difference what an auto worker was paid as the top three makers received the same contracts. Then along came the 60's and other countries started to produce, themselves. First our steel mills went as they couldn't compete. Then foreign cars started to be imported and now you see what has transpired to. Every day other countries are doing better at building things so they no longer are dependent on our products, at our inflated prices, that are needed to support what has become, our inflated life styles. This is not just my opinion, it is fact. Even the American consumer knows this or so many foreign products would not be being imported. Every one thinks his next door neighbor should be buying American but at the same time they are at Wal-mart, buying Chinese and saving money. Do I like it? Absolutely not but I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and just blame lots of other factors for the way things are becoming. We must accept that the world is changing and we must evolve with it to survive.

Dick

Great stuff, Dick! Never really looked at it that way. It makes a lot of sense.

 

[BarenbruggeCues]

And all this comes about when Williecue bought a $100 Chinese cue to play with, brags about it's great construction and figures he could never build anything comparable so he puts his shop up for sale and starts a bunch shit.

With support like yours we will all prosper and live lives of rock stars till our final end.

Thanks buddy.........your the best!



<~~~ head hurts after reading all this..............

 

[KJ Cues]

What Dick has just laid out is the 'nut shell' version but in my mind, it's pretty accurate.
His very last sentence is the key to this whole thread.

"We must accept that the world is changing and we must evolve with it to survive."

I agree entirely. The low-end market of $100/200 is gone for the American CM. He can't compete in that market. Understand it, accept that & move on.
Move on to the next level.
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't even want to make $200 cues. My current niche is the $500/1,000 range and I'm quite comfortable with that.
But then again, I don't count solely on cue sales for my income.
If that market range becomes saturated and I'm sure it will, then I'm on to the next level.

Adapt, improvise, overcome.

 

[rackem]

And all this comes about when Williecue bought a $100 Chinese cue to play with, brags about it's great construction and figures he could never build anything comparable so he puts his shop up for sale and starts a bunch shit.

With support like yours we will all prosper and live lives of rock stars till our final end.

Thanks buddy.........your the best!



<~~~ head hurts after reading all this..............

With all do respect that cue retails for about $170 or more across the country.
Willee and the rest of those who have bought from me got a great deal.
More than 200 of that particular model have been sold across the country.
I have been clearancing what is left of that series here on the forum.
Willee's is an intertwined 8_pointer with quadruple veneers. As most of you know that is difficult cue to get perfect. Unless you buy a blank from Prather.
Yeah, it ain't perfect and maybe they did use the sharpie trick that american cuemakers showed them. But it is sure darn nice for the money.
Some of the 6 pointers I have left are done a lot cleaner. Some of them are CNCed and the points and veneers are even tighter.
These cues are not garbage. They are actually a little bit more than what 80% of the poolplayers in America are looking for.
The shafts are real nice and the one I use hits great.

I respect the work the American cuemakers turn out. But it is a fact that maybe only 20% of the poolplayers will be interested in spending anything over $200 on a cue and most way less.

 

[JoeyInCali]

And all this comes about when Williecue bought a $100 Chinese cue to play with, brags about it's great construction and figures he could never build anything comparable so he puts his shop up for sale and starts a bunch shit.

With support like yours we will all prosper and live lives of rock stars till our final end.

Thanks buddy.........your the best!



<~~~ head hurts after reading all this..............

You just need an FBI agent girlfriend, a rich gramma and "custom fitment to your armspand " cues like Eddie's.
Know of a great deal on an Align Rite cnc?

 

[John Barton]

Its not the taxes that get in the way of American cue manufacturing, whether that be production or custom. It is not even the cheap Chinese labor, even though that is one component.

John, I ask you these questions;

What are your EPA standards?

I don't have EPA standards. The Chinese government has their version of the EPA which sets standards and I am sure that very few factories are in 100% compliance. In America as well many companies skirt the EPA standards as much as they think that they can get away with. In our shop I keep everything healthy and clean and we don't pollute. We recycle everything down to the smallest possible component. My laser is the only device that is outputting any emissions and it is filtered.

What portion of the wages you pay your employees go to a nationalized retirement account(social security)?

30% of wages is paid to the Government to cover five different types of insurance including the Chinese version of social security.

When was the last time OSHA visited you?

Never. OSHA is an American agency and I work in China. However if you are asking when the last time a Chinese agent of the equivalent Chinese agency has visited us then the answer is also never. When I had my shop in Colorado with 8 employees we were also never visited by OSHA. I was sent a poster from OSHA though that they said I had to hang on the wall, which I did.

Are your employees protected by workman's compensation?

Yes they are.

Do they have health insurance?

Yes they do. And it's the kind of coverage that I couldn't even buy in the USA for $500 a month.

How do your employee's wages compare to the USA's minimum wage?

Compared to the USA's cost of living my employees average three times the minimum wage. You can't compare wages without comparing cost of living.

I ask you these not to start a fight or to continue the ones already started but I am genuinely interested. I feel that the US gets blamed for the world's problems, especially pollution. If my shop has to comply with EPA standards and minimum social standards, we should add an import tax to any county that does not meet our minimums.

You could have found the answers to all of these questions by doing a little research on the net.

Actually as far as I know China has stricter environmental laws on the books than the USA does. But just like the USA it's not a question of what the law says but how it's enforced. In this respect the Chinese have a long way to go but it's coming.

Once upon a time the USA did export a lot of consumer goods to the rest of the world. The EPA standards we have now and all the other safety laws were created over a span of 150 years of discovery of what is unsafe and poisonous.

If you want to get into a war of retaliatory tariffs based on laws then you can kiss any imports to Germany or the EU goodbye as their "EPA" laws are tougher than ours. If you want to get into it about social welfare then forget about exporting to Europe because they pay up to 60% of their wages in taxes to fund their social programs like national health insurance.

Tariffs are not the answer and never were. All tariffs serve to do is take money from one group - consumers - and give it to another group - producers/government. Tariffs artificially influence the marketplace.

And they are subject to fraud. What if you produce pool cues for a cost of $50 and I produce them for a cost of $10 and you lobby congress for a tariff of 400% to make the cost of the imported cue $50 when it lands in the USA? What do you think the manufacturer of the import cue is going to do? He is going to declare the cost of the cue he makes to be $1 and pay the 400% duty and bring the cue in at $5. Then he will charge the importer a "design and development" fee of $9 to make up the $9 in cost. The total cost to the importer is going to be $14 and the government will get $4 of that and you will still face a lower priced imported cue. Think that this doesn't go on right now every day in industries across the board?

And what if you decide someday that you want to relocate your business? Perhaps for other reasons. Maybe the government you lobbied so hard to protect you with tariffs decides that it's even better protection if they set your prices too and that cuts your profits and your personal income in half. Maybe you don't agree with that policy and decide to go somewhere else.

Can you see the depth and complexity in all this?

The answer to competing effectively lies with you and you alone.

 

[jayman]

You could have found the answers to all of these questions by doing a little research on the net.

Actually as far as I know China has stricter environmental laws on the books than the USA does. But just like the USA it's not a question of what the law says but how it's enforced. In this respect the Chinese have a long way to go but it's coming.

Once upon a time the USA did export a lot of consumer goods to the rest of the world. The EPA standards we have now and all the other safety laws were created over a span of 150 years of discovery of what is unsafe and poisonous.

If you want to get into a war of retaliatory tariffs based on laws then you can kiss any imports to Germany or the EU goodbye as their "EPA" laws are tougher than ours. If you want to get into it about social welfare then forget about exporting to Europe because they pay up to 60% of their wages in taxes to fund their social programs like national health insurance.

Tariffs are not the answer and never were. All tariffs serve to do is take money from one group - consumers - and give it to another group - producers/government. Tariffs artificially influence the marketplace.

And they are subject to fraud. What if you produce pool cues for a cost of $50 and I produce them for a cost of $10 and you lobby congress for a tariff of 400% to make the cost of the imported cue $50 when it lands in the USA? What do you think the manufacturer of the import cue is going to do? He is going to declare the cost of the cue he makes to be $1 and pay the 400% duty and bring the cue in at $5. Then he will charge the importer a "design and development" fee of $9 to make up the $9 in cost. The total cost to the importer is going to be $14 and the government will get $4 of that and you will still face a lower priced imported cue. Think that this doesn't go on right now every day in industries across the board?

And what if you decide someday that you want to relocate your business? Perhaps for other reasons. Maybe the government you lobbied so hard to protect you with tariffs decides that it's even better protection if they set your prices too and that cuts your profits and your personal income in half. Maybe you don't agree with that policy and decide to go somewhere else.

Can you see the depth and complexity in all this?

The answer to competing effectively lies with you and you alone.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/24/content_7508856.htm

 

[John Barton]

Thanks Dick, I also never made the complete connection of the US being a major exporter after WW2 with the fact that production was largely destroyed in other industrialized nations then.

The plain facts are that any person or company WANTS to have production as close to them as possible.

Yes, it's cheaper to have goods produced in low wage countries. But it's not cheaper to ship those goods across the ocean, it's not cheaper to deal with the constant production delays, it's not cheaper to deal with the constant changes in the product that were not authorized, of course it's always the fear that you will open a container and it's filled with bricks instead of your goods, then there is the hassles of dealing with power outages, material shortages, supply chain issues, cultural and communication issues.

If any person on this board thinks for one second that I would rather spend hours a day explaining basic shop procedures, you know the kind we learned in high school, to a bunch of adults with many years of working experience then you are nuts. I spend about an hour a day explaining things that are mostly common sense in our culture.

Now this is my personal experience and in no way reflective of the entire nation, I had a shop in the USA and we were the distribution warehouse for Instroke cases. I had 8 employees at one time and from day one it was drama, drama, drama. I spent some days playing company psychologist more than doing any other work. Perhaps this is more a result of my management style than anything else but I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to try and do this business in the USA with the personnel considerations being my first criteria. I even consulted with Chas Clements about it and we agree that the costs to set up a full shop to make cases was low and reasonable but that getting and keeping good people was going to be a major hassle.

So here I am with a crew that has no drama. We make cases, we have fun, everyone is proud of their work, they don't have to spend 10 hours a day sewing little parts mindlessly.

Strangely enough though last week we hired two women who both quit within a day because they said that our job required them to think too much. Literally, that's what they said. They said they wanted jobs where they just did one task. I was offering more pay with less working hours and the chance to learn and grow and not be tied to one thing and they declined it. So the Chinese must not be that desperate when they can afford to turn down "better" jobs.

 

[John Barton]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/24/content_7508856.htm

And? This shows that China is aware of the problem. Now, more than ever Chinese citizens are speaking out about pollution and demanding that local, state and national government do something about it, such as enforcing laws on the books.

Because of the fact that more money is flowing into China more people are empowered to educate themselves and their children and as such are able to recognize these problems. And they feel much more empowered to expose them and protest them.

But if you want to cut China off from trade then it will just go back to a depressed economy with no incentive to change.

Two years ago the citizens of Xiamen staged a two day peaceful march throughout Xiamen to protest the construction of a chemical plant just outside the city that the government had approved. The gov't scrapped the project.

 

[John Barton]

My point is it isn't just giving the Chinese worker $1 a day to work is not what is driving business overseas. American manufacturing is "taxed" by our own gov't in more than just the monetary sense. Health insurance, although not a direct wage to me, is an optional part (for now) of operating cost. Workman's comp insurance, paid by the company is yet another operating cost. OSHA standards and EPA standards increase the operating cost. None of which are direct wages. SS tax is taken directly from my wages AND from the company I work for. My employer pays taxes a on top of my base wages. For example, an employee of an American company, making $10 an hour may actually cost the company $13-14 per hour(depends on state and local taxes).

Chinese companies do not have these cost weighing them down. There is very little spent on environmental standards....well...unless the Olympics are coming to town. Very little is spent to protect their workforce. If one gets hurt or killed on the job....there are a billion more in line to take his/her place.

What makes you think that? Of course Chinese companies have to deal with these costs. First of all do you think that the Chinese government doesn't want to get as much money from the producers of goods as they can? There is a 17% tax on exports in this country that automatically adds 17% to the cost of goods for everything that leaves China.

Chinese wages have risen on average over 30% in the last three years. Two years ago the gov't doubled the salary for the military overnight and that rippled out to the manufacturing sector as employees demanded to be paid as much as the military was getting.

May I ask how much personal experience you have in China that allows you to make these statements? On what are you basing them?

I have been here three years now. I work right inside a factory every day. As I type this there are ten people producing Sterling cases ten feet away from my desk. In another part is my workshop where 8 of my people are making one of a kind cases and prototypes. I have visited dozens of factories here in different cities. In short I AM HERE.

It would be great if we had a line of employees willing to step in when one quits or gets fired or dies. But that is some fantasy you made up in your head. Two months ago one of my best people's husband cut the tip of his finger off at the shop he works at. My person is pregnant and we already told her to take the time off she needs and come back when she wants to. So she left two months earlier than planned. There was no line of people willing to take her place. It took me two weeks to find someone else to take her job and it's taken more than six weeks of training to get her up to speed and she is still not there.

Look, there are a lot of problems in China, we all know that. Every day when I come to work I walk by a stinking irrigation canal that everyone throws their garbage into and I shake my head in disgust. The answer to this does not lie in our government cutting off trade. That's not going to stop the people in China from polluting their environment. It lies in empowering the people of China to get education to understand the long term effects of that pollution.

Are there factories here with unsafe working conditions? You bet there are. Are there factories that are as clean and modern and safe as any other found anywhere else in the world? Yes there are.

Are there less of the first kind than there were five ten or twenty years ago? Yes there are in my opinion. However there are also millions of small factories operating semi-legally which don't use best practice when it comes to workplace safety. To police and stop these requires an immense effort.

But to get back to your point, of course the manufacturers in China have to deal with associated taxes and costs. Fraud and theft are huge here. Turnover is really high because of manufacturers essentially having to bid on labor and also because people often come from far away to work and when they go home for their annual vacation they often just don't come back.

Expressed as a percentage of wages and cost of goods, the Chinese manufacturer has plenty of attendant costs not directly related to the actual production of the item.

IF you could magically implement and enforce the SAME EXACT laws regarding environmental standards and the same exact laws regarding workplace safety then the cost of goods would STILL be a lot lower because the cost of living is still a lot lower and would stay a lot lower even after the cost of goods went up due to compliance with America's laws on the issues you describe.

What would you say then?

 

[jayman]

John,

We get it! China is Better than we are. We get it already.

 

[John Barton]

Bob, please use the quote tags. You can select the text you want to quote and then choose the quote tag and it will wrap the text inside the quote tags. This makes it easier to discuss individual points.

Go Jayman,

I never confused the trade deficit with the national debt. The FEDERAL government collects taxes based on profits yes. State and local governments collect taxes based on many things, not just profits. If americans were not servicing the national debt they would have more of those profits still in their pockets to compete with.
As for it being a fallacy to blame taxes for an inablity to complete I don't know what planet you live on. Please explain why companies more to another city, another state or another country to compete. Tell me why Boeing moved from Washington State and is now outsourcing to China. Could it have anything to due with taxes??? Could it have anything to due with it trying to compete with unfair help from the UE to Airbus???

Of course taxes and other fees are a big part of a company's cost of doing business. And of course they move around to wherever they get the best "deal" - be it from California to Alabama or from Washington to China. Do you think that companies should be prevented from shopping around for where to locate their production? Don't you think that if it's ok for Indiana to offer taxpayer funded tax breaks and taxpayer funded free training for companies to entice them to invest and build factories there that China does the same?

Wow John. You have outdone yourself there. You complain about sensationalis headlines ( and I wish you would point those out to me ) and send us to Hannity. You call us bigots because we don't believe exactly do.

I don't call anyone a bigot for what they believe, only for what they say. A bigot proclaims that they are inherently superior to another person because of race or religion. Many people here have expressed that Americans are superior to Chinese (and other non-Americans) and when they do that is bigotry.

You twist our words to the furthest realm of meaning than call us ignorant. Those ignorant, bigoted people are your customers. Or maybe were your customers.

Oh no, the dreaded "pander to your (prosepective) customers" paddle. So you are suggesting that I just keep my big mouth shut in order to keep selling to everyone? I should modify my behavior in order to please someone like you in the hope that someday you will give me some money for my goods? Is that what you are suggesting?

I said that a large percentage of Americans are ignorant and those that remain ignorant when they have the opportunity to educate themselves are stupid. Do you disagree with this statement?

Ignorance is simply a state of being. I am ignorant of many subjects that make the world work. If I wanted to discuss those subjects then I would go and educate myself on them so that I would not be ignorant of them any longer. If I tried to discuss them without doing that then my ignorance would be readily apparent to those who have knowledge of the subject and they would also recognize my stupidity for trying to carry on a discussion about something I know nothing about and won't try to learn about.

Yes, there are some ignorant people in America. I would bet there are some ignorant people in China also.

Um, yes of course there are, and by the statements of many here it seems as if those folks would prefer that the Chinese by and large remain ignorant. One of my factory owner friends asked me if it's true that in America each person is given $8000 per month by the government.

But you make the statement that they spend huge amounts of money coming here to get educated

.

They do. The ones that can get visas to study in the USA that is.

Hhhmm. Someone here must be smart.

Yes, that would be the ones who can point to the relevant studies that show, sadly, that an unhealthy percentage of Americans can't even answer basic history questions about the birth of their own nation.

And who came to China to teach them what they now know.

People who knew it prior and had a need to teach them. Here is some good reading for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

If you don't have the time in your busy life to go and read it I will summarize it for you. The Chinese invented the compass, gunpowder, paper, and the printing press with these four being of most importance among the other hundreds and thousands of things they brought to civilization.

And what are all those consulting fees for that you say along with tourist and such bring in $200+ billion to the USA every year. They did not figure it out for themselves. No, some smuck from the USA gave them the technology and showed them what to do with it. Not just in cues but hundreds of others industries. I for one am smart enough to never be a customer of one of your cases.

You can be a customer OF my cases. You can be a customer of JB Ideas, which makes JB Cases, but my cases don't have customers. They have users. Those users are happy to have them protecting their cues. Whether you choose to take advantage of the protective benefits of my product is your choice. Just don't think that playing the "I won't buy from you if you don't agree my political views" card is going to get me to shut up.

As far as knowledge and technology transfer goes Bob, did some SCHMUCK (that's how you spell it), ever teach you anything about cue making? What if the Chinese cue maker here invented some ueber killer way to do points and veneers that made it super easy and exact every time, would you not want to learn that technique or buy that machine?

John, "So basically what you want to say is that we need to defend our "right" to continue this level of consumption and deny it to everyone else? No one else is allowed to have any prosperity if it means we have to give up a little of ours?"

No, John. That is now what I want to say. Once again you twist someones words.

Did you see the little question mark at the end of the sentence? <----- like this one. ----> ? <------ It means that I am asking for clarification of what you meant.

You seem to see no middle ground. But somehow you would like to see Communism and Capitalism combined. That everyone should have the ability to have the same as everyone else by whatever means possible. Oh... Communist China. I get it.

No I didn't say that. If you would truly sit back and reflect on what I say instead of jumping to conclusions based on your prejudices then you would see that everything I say is based on finding the middle ground and NOT polarizing the issue.

The "right". No, I would not call it a right. But I do see it as something that was once "earned" but has now been overused. There were these little things called World War I and World War II and a few other little tusssles along the way. In them we defended your "right" to do pretty much as you please and say prettly much what you want.

And do you believe that everyone on Earth should have the same rights you enjoy? There was another little tussle prior to that called the Revolutionary War which established our current system. The founding document begins with the words, "all men are created equal". Do you believe in the words contained in that document?

If you want to believe that there should be no tariffs or restrictions on imported goods than that is fine. If you think that China should claim a lower value for its currency so that it can sell goods at a lower price, with actual cost lower than claimed in an effort to put US companies out of business than you can go right ahead.

Um, Ok, I want to believe those things then I will regardless if they are true or not. Personally though I prefer to go and read up on the subject and find out both side of the story so that what I KNOW can shape how I FEEL about it.

In the end it is you that can't have it both ways. You can not expect to call us stupid and to sell us something.

Sure I can. I tell customers not to be stupid all the time. I advise them to go out and compare my product against the competition's and list all the criteria I think is important so that they can compare accurately. I can't expect to call you an asshole and sell you something but I can definitely try and cure your ignorance of cue cases so that you are fully aware of what a great product you are getting. The last thing I want is one of my customers proclaiming my cases are the greatest and not being able to explain why.

You can not expect to have capitalsim and communism, one gives way to the other.

Does it? In the exact sense yes and I have never said anything about wanting to have communism, talk about twisting words. You and others always throw out that red herring as if because I defend people's right to better themselves in China that I am advocating communism. Do you even know what communism is? Or capitalism? I will spare you the lecture on it and let you go and do your own research. What you advocate is more communist than you realize.

And you can not expect that the Chinese government will slow its military growth because now it has capitalism to fund itself. Tell me ( actually, please don't! ) what will happen when the money runs out. When all those who left the fields have to return but now there is now work for them there either. A little unrest? A little pressure on the government to do something about it? Naw, how could I even think such a thing.

Certainly. So your answer is to plunge China into civil war? Then what happens if the existing government is overthrown? China goes right into full on capitalist mode again and labor is still cheap, enforcement is still lax, and the people are now poorer and even more apt to use whatever means they need to in order to prosper.

The economic crisis did not start with the housing issue. With us "clueless people". The crisis started many years ago when someone decided that a global economy based on consumerism would line their pockets full of gold. When jobs were outsourced to other countries based on cost not quality. When they got greedy. Then when they were taxed on those high profits they bought a house and moved the business to another country to avoid taxes ( which you say have no effect on anything ).

Yes, some "one person" decided that. Or maybe it was a cabal of secret industrialists who decided it. Or the illuminati......

So what is your answer to the "cause" as you put it. Restrict the greedy capitalists, take their houses and divide their money up among those with less? <------------------- question mark

Yes, yes. Lets see. Math 101. 300m use 25% of resouces. 300m into 1.3b is a little over 4.3. 4.3 x 25% = 100.15%. Add 25% is 125.15% of resources and that does not count the rest of the world. So how does that work?

It's ok I slept through math as well.

In the end your the smuck. You resent those americans that your making a good living off of and publicly denounse them.

Name calling. How appropriate. Again if you are going to appropriate the insults of another people then please try to spell it right, it's SCHMUCK. And if you are Jewish then you should ashamed that you don't know how to spell it. Please don't try to be a psychologist. If you are the type of American you are referring to to then all I feel for you is sadness that you squander the opportunity to be a citizen of the world by increasing your knowledge of it. I am not denouncing anyone Bob, just asking for people to try and understand both sides of issues.

Please, please. Stay in China. Make it your home. And when the communist government takes it all away from you because you should share the wealth don't come back here. Bob Danielson

I am staying in China. I have married a beautiful, inside and out, Chinese woman and we now have a beautiful baby who is a citizen of the world. The only gift I want to give her is to cultivate an open mind and never stop learning about the world. If the government here ever did anything to impact my life in a negative way then I would either persevere or find a way to move somewhere else less restrictive. Don't you think everyone should have that right Bob?

 

[John Barton]

John,

We get it! China is Better than we are. We get it already.

No, you don't get it. China is not better than America. America is not better than China. Both countries are full of people trying to exist.

Neither group of people should exist at the expense of the other. The Chinese should have the right to prosper just like Americans do.

The Americans, who should be more educated on average, should take the repsonibility to lead the world by example of how to live responsibly by cutting consumption and practicing an environmentally healthy lifestyle.

If you want to say that the Chinese GOVERNMENT should act or do things a certain way then that's fine. I agree. Same thing applies to the American GOVERNMENT. Governments in all countries routinely do things that are not in the best interests of those they govern and worse often do things that only benefit those who are powerful enough to influence the "government". Getting into a trade war is something that will have disastrous effects on the American economy.

Then the rest of the world will follow suit as they all want to be like Americans.

I will ask Kaz Miki again about the Adams cue connection when I see him at the ICCS. Maybe we can get it on tape with TAR where he tells you that Mezz produced most of the Adams and Helmstetter cues through the 70s to the 90s.

 

[John Barton]

Alright DICK,
Pay attention. They don't add up. That is the whole point. John proposes that everyone should be able to enjoy what we enjoy or otherwise we are the greedy ones. No doubt, we are greedy. But part of that greed was producing things for those without, not just for the lowest possible price. That is what made ours the largest economy in the world. We have now been replaced by Chinas. The point is that global comsumerism does not work as proven by the lack of resources to supply everybody in the world with the same level of comfort or luxury. A simple case in point was all the construction in america that stopped because there was no cement to be had because it was all going to China to build the damn. This is only one small point for the case. Companies unable to pay huge shipping costs due to increases in fuel costs brought about by increased demand are moving their companies and production back to the country of origin and building new factories closer to the final user. Resources are finite. To think that 1.3b people are going to raise their standard of living (pay) and it will not cause trouble world wide is that grammer school instruction you must have missed. You must have not read the line where I ask and you quote - So how does that work?"

So what is your answer? I have asked you this several times and the closest that I can glean from your meanderings is that you might be thinking that a Chinese civil war is what should happen.

Um, yeah, finite resources coupled with more people wanting to use them means something has to give.

So, what will give? Would you prefer that we go to war to secure those resources or would you prefer that we, as citizens of the world, give up a little of our lifestyle to allow others to raise their standard of living so that we can reach an acceptable middle ground which makes us all happier?

That dam by the way, which is not without it's own environmental issues, has provided electricity and water to millions of living souls who would otherwise not have adequate amounts of either. So if some construction projects in the USA suffered delays because of a cement shortage then it's worth it to have something completed that benefits so many. Give a little - get a little - everyone wins.

If I told you that the wood you ordered for your cues was going to be delayed because I needed to send what I have in stock to Nigeria to build hospital beds for the sick there would you denounce me and call me all sorts of names for holding up your production. I hate to think that you are the kind of person that would.

 

[Thunder Thighs]

 

[Blue Hog ridr]

Well, all this talk about Chinese just cost me $45 tonight and I'll probably be hungry again in a couple of hours. Damn Chinese anyway!

 

[John Barton]

I want to say that I also do not believe for one second that it's not possible to make a mass produced cue in the USA for a $100 or below retail price point. There is no reason that a USA producer cannot figure how to produce cues fit for playing pool that can be sold for $100.

If those producers want to make them attractively decorated then they can use the same waterslide decals that the Chinese use. http://www.decalpaper.com/category-s/4.htm These are not the same but give you idea.

The American makers could use d-grade wood and paint it - as long as it stays straight and doesn't fall apart the sub-$100 consumer will be very happy. The American makers can use laminated wood or even composites if they are cheap enough. Change the processes to be more efficient.

Sorry but I can't believe that it's impossible for American cue factories to be unable to compete in the $100-$200 price class.

I want to add this though that I am in fact almost COMPLETELY IGNORANT of what it costs to produce a cue in a factory setting in the USA nor do I truly know how much they could change their process. If anyone can enlighten me then I would be grateful for the education. I have only ever been in one cue factory in the USA, and that was Pechauer, who prefers to think of himself as custom cue maker. And that time was when my friend bought two containers of Pechauer's rejected wood blanks to be used in Taiwanese cue production.

I don't see why that same wood couldn't have been used to make cheaper cues in the USA.