Fewer American-made tools - yet another downside to illegal immigration and workers in the USA?

[USENET READER]

I am starting a DYI home-improvement project and I notice that few power or hand tools are made in the USA. Even most of the Craftsman brand tools are made in the USA. Some are made in Taiwan (a democracy I have no problem doing business with) and Red China (perhaps I should call them Fascist China, a country where the factories are owned by the state and staffed with slave labor).

Almost everything in Harbor Freight (except for the reconditioned DeWalt tools) is from China. The stuff is garbage and usually dies after a short period of time. Grinders and drills come with extra electric motor brushes which almost always get lost by the time you need them - and you will. HF always tries to sell you an extended warranty program, and most people I know don't buy them - even though for all intents and purposes, if you buy the EW, you can bring back the tool and swap it for a new one anytime the older one doesn't work. So other than the time you lose always gong to HF to exchange tools, that does seem like a good deal. How can American companies compete with that?

But I was talking to two buddies of mine and then mentioned something about the construction trades which made me wonder if any more tools are going to be made in the USA?

One guy works as a stone mason and he is finding it harder and harder to find American made tools of his trade in the stores. The Chinese-made crap (his words) are cheaply made, don't hold up to continued professional work, rivets pop, everything rusts unless you soak it in oil (which is not good for the mortar or cement, mason's hoes break after one use, etc.

The other guy runs a catering truck that runs around to construction sites. He says that, except for the licensed trades (electricians and who are mostly younger white guys), the plumber (who are mostly older white guys) and the bricklayers (who are mostly African American) - everybody else is Mexican and they almost only speak Spanish and need a bi-lingual supervisor on the job. This supervisor - who is not dressed out for work - usually stands around talking on his cell phone, looking at his steel and gold Rolex watch - is a white guy.

Well - the real question is - are any of the largely illegal immigrant construction workers buying quality American-made tools, or are they spending as little money as possible on tools as they might either get them stolen from a job site, or because they might get deported at any time and don't want to have any more money invested in tools than absolutely necessary?

[Timothy]

And I'm sure your people just sprung up out of the ground? Are you American Indian? It's nice that your trying to pin the quality/manufacturing of these tools an illegal immigrants. All these "mexicans" are doing is buying what they can afford. You and your friends should be pissed at the contractors who are *Hiring* these laborers. They hire these people because they are cheaper, non-union and they are disposable.

The real problems are the corporations that are dismantling the American economy factory by factory and selling the machinery and technology to "Red China". Wal-Mart is the largest of the leaders in this new movement:

So I suggest that you stop trolling and watch the above line and learn something........

[jim frei]

Black & Decker actually makes drills and some other handtools at a factory in Fayetteville....but some product lines are moving to Mexico this year.

and Kennametal in Asheboro makes metal cutting bits.

[USENET READER]

No - my family immigrated to this country legally - half through Ellis Island and the other half through other legal ports.

And actually - I know a shitload more about politics in general and this issue in particular than you probably do. So you can take your advice to watch and learn and stick it!

Of course I blame the contractors who hire the illegals. I also blame all the other managers and owners of other business who hire illegals for less money than they pay citizens and legal immigrants. And I blame the politicans who get bribed to look the other way when they take money from these businesses and also from right-wing foundations to study market-based solutions to public policy issues.

Timothy wrote:

[Tom Disque]

Do you also blame the customer who looks for the lowest price?

[Tom Disque]

My great-great grandfather claimed to be a Frenchman in order to emigrate to the US in the mid-1800s, because the quota for Germans was already filled. Am I going to be deported to Germany?

[Dweezil Dwarftosser]

[ just a quickie observation: ]

Nope. From everything I've seen in the past few years, it was the idiot, strip-mining MBAs demanding more profits this quarter, pressuring buyers and store managers to replace the stuff on the shelves with something containing a higher profit margin. So they dropped the el cheapo model, the mid-range, and the high end - replacing them with only one offering: an inferior Chinese model bought for a song, but selling at 80% of the excellent-quality high-end version price. Since it is the only widget available, those who *need* a widget buy it.

[C G]

It started way before the "past few years". If we, the consumers, had not started down the cheap tool path the businesses such as Harbor Freight, Grizzly, etc would not have survived. Since we did start down that path, other businesses decided they needed to follow that model.

[Susan Hogarth]

Really? So then why have rates of ownership of items such as cars, TVs, other consumer electronics, major appliances, and (most likely) power tools gone *up*? It's not that people are forced to 'settle' for cheaper goods than they were buying before - it's that whole new classes of people are now empowered to *be* buyers for things such as dishwashers and jig saws. Those people are often going to buy their first lathe from Harbor Freight, just as they will buy their first DVD player from Wal-Mart.

Were you going somewhere with this sentence? It seems to end abruptly.

Maybe if their own government wasn't robbing them blind they could compete with free labor.

God, what bellyaching! *Cheap* power tools now are better than the

*expensive* power tools of a generation ago - and anyone can easily enough order power tools at whatever quality level he chooses to afford. And why would someone want to spend a bunch more for a tool like a drill that will last 10 years, when in five years the newer drills will probably be vastly improved and he'll want one of those anyway?

[Susan Hogarth]

Could you name a few products that people *need* where only an inferior Chinese model is available?

[Timothy]

In fear of agreeing with the Dweezil, there are no longer any options in the bicycle tire market. I have a friend that worked at a bike shop and he states that there are no longer any manufactures of bicycle tires in the us, and all the manufacturing equiptment was sold. The US no longer have the ablity to manufacture bicycle tires and we exported the technology to do so.

[JA]

"Rodney Rash" wrote

Not smart enough to hire an accountant. Go figure.

[willshak]

On 1/15/2005 1:40 PM US(ET), Susan Hogarth took fingers to keys, and typed the following:

Thanks for nothing! I was going to write down some items from my Chinese restaurant menu and all of a sudden, I wanted Chinese food. So did everyone else in the family. It cost me a trip to the restaurant in below freezing weather and $51.

[USENET READER]

Let's hope they make you go back! Actually, depending on where he was from (I am thinking Alsace-Lorraine) he could have been French or German at one time or the other. Did he speak both languages?

[USENET READER]

It depends on circumstances - who they are and what they are buying? Lower prices do not always save someone money in the long run. Al things are not equal. If you buy a lower price good that is a piece of crap that falls apart and you have to go back and buy another, then you haven't saved money have you? Had you purchased the higher-priced quality good, you would still be using it now. You wouldn't have had to make two trips to the store, burned the gas, etc - to buy the item twice.

When you buy crap at Wal Mart, you end up putting more money into the pockets of a large corporation that gets tax breaks that aren't given to smaller businesses that probably take better care of their employees. Even the Wal Mart distribution center in Henderson gets tax breaks that were never given to Roses and Roses was home based in Henderson. The lower prices you pay at Wal Mart and other big box stores comes at the price of you having to pay higher and higher taxes to make up for what Wal Mart doesn't pay in taxes as well as the lack of benefits that causes Wal Mart employees to go to hospital emergency rooms that you end up having to pay for.

Then there is the issue of your spending the money on the cheaper made item - even if the quality is the same as a more expensive good. Your purchases of those goods will eventually lead to more Americans losing their jobs, and you having to pay higher taxes to make up for what they don't pay because they aren't working, or are underemployed.

Sometimes paying more for a product from a Mom and Pop store is cheaper in the long run than paying a lower price with respect to what you have to make up for in higher taxes.

[USENET READER]

TVs, VCRs, any sort of stereo stuff other than the very high end techie stuff. You need a phone - they are only made in China. They suck, they have poor sound quality, the plastic is cheap, the batteries don't hold a charge that long - you want me to go on?

I am sure that if it wasn't for the fact that all these greedy MBAs wanting to get big compensation packages if they can get 40% return for their stockholders (when they aren't stealing from their stockholders), and that the Chinese are artificially holding down the value of the yuan and engaging in all sorts of unfair trade practices (dumping, intellectual property crimes, etc.), American companies could invest in employee training, and in machinery and computers to increase productivity. Then we could have a variety of products that are higher quality that are made in America that Americans could purchase with pride and also know that they are helping to keep their economy going.

Last m> Dweezil Dwarftosser wrote:

[USENET READER]

They buy the stuff on credit - which is too easy to get and then when you lose your job you can't pay the debt, so you used to be able to declare bankruptcy, but the banks bought off Bush so that it was harder to go bankrupt.

That the people who bought and paid for the GOP (mostly) and some token Democrats don't want to slow down the influx of cheap illegal immigrant labor, because it holds down the labor costs. The downside to that is increasing the flow of illegal drugs and potential for terrorist infintration over the boarder.

Taxes are the cost of living in a free society. And they are getting robbed blind because the rich pukes are getting their taxes lowered to the point that they won't end up paying their fair share.

How are the tools of today better than the tools of yesterday? It's not llke you need a computer controlled drill. You can't go into many stores and find good power tools, or even hand tools made in American anymore. And I don't want to have to order stuff - with identity theft I would rather go and pay cash for something thank risk my info going out over the net.

I have a Sears Craftsman drill made in America over 25 years ago. I love it and I work with it all the time. I paid a lot of money for it when I bought it in college, and today's cheap drills cost the same but suck in terms of quality. They feel cheap and they overheat, sound like the motor is burning out, the blades and bits made overseas burn out or break quicker than ones made years ago.

Today's wooden axe handles suck, today's picks bend if you strike them the wrong way against the rocks you are trying to break, today's mason's hoes break when you mix too stiff a batch of mortan, etc. Today's cheap tools are not better than

Besides - I rather like buying something in person and making sure it works before I take it home - whether with a car, a drill, a computer, etc.

[USENET READER]

yep - he sounded like a Dittohead to me too!

[Tom Disque]

I don't know. The few remaining scraps from his diary are written in German. There is a Chateau D'Isque in Alsace-Lorraine, however. It seems they got chased out of France into Germany in the 1200s by the peasants. I dunno if there is any connection between them and my great-great grandfather.

[Tom Disque]

[snip]

[snip]

Those brave union workers who put their lives and jobs on the line are not the same people as the fat lazy and corrupt union workers who strangle productivity because of stupid labor rules.