Every wanted to see a Chinese production facility?

Very modern, very well equipped. Very little "real" detail, but an interesting read nonetheless.
One of the computer geek pages went to China to tour a case manufacturer: http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20031006/index.html
Of note: the lack of any safety equipment... OSHA would have an heart attack! (Slashdot readers have posted many comments here as well: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid /10/11/1246201&mode=nested&tid6&tid137 )
-D

  Quoted Text Here  
OSHA is one of the reasons why that factory is in China and not in America.
I'm not suggesting that worker safety should be ignored, but OSHA has become one of the many bloated self-serving government bureaucracies that has contributed to forcing manufacturing overseas. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet). Did you know that OSHA even has an MSDS for saline eye wash solution (pure water with a little bit of salt added)? I came across that little gem when working in the Navy: I couldn't believe it when I saw it. It wouldn't surprise me if there was an MSDS for distilled water.
Lawyers, bureaucrats, and socialists will be the death of this nation.

wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
America.
become
OSHA
bit
OSHA and EPA regulations combined amount to around 8% of manufacturing cost in the US. The wage differential between high-quality workers in China and high-quality workers in the US runs around 96%.
So you have an 8% solution here to a 96% problem.
  Quoted Text Here  
If anything kills manufacturing in the US, it will be doctrinaire, conservative free-trade economics.
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
Fair trade and free trade seem to be completely different things.
Strangely those same people who promote "free trade" are deathly afraid of China.
If we ever do have to fight China we will have to do it with what ever is on hand because all our production facilities will have moved over there. That war will not be about oil so much as about computer chips and machine tools.

  Quoted Text Here  
Yeah, for starters, free trade is a myth. Fair trade is in the eye of the beholder. Making trade with France and Germany "fairer" would be good for everyone. Making trade with China "fairer" would do absolutely nothing at all.
  Quoted Text Here  
They know their policies are a crock of baloney; they just haven't faced up to the implications of it yet. This is not speculation on my part. This is the result of the research I did for my two articles on China trade earlier this year.
  Quoted Text Here  
You may want to see an article I just wrote about that. It's 5500 words -- make sure you have some spare time. <g>
It's in the September issue of Machining. I suspect it will be up on the website within a couple of weeks, if not already.
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
I saw the April article. Was the June one yours too? I didn't see any atribution so I thought it was a staff editorial.

  Quoted Text Here  
Yes, I wrote that one too, but it was signed by "the editors" so we decided not to run it with a byline.
Ed Huntress

Today's Detroit News/Free Press puts much of the blame on undervalued Chinese currency (government controls the value and it hasn't changed since 1994). Since you've done some research on the problem, I'd like to hear your opinion...
TIA
  Quoted Text Here  
decided

  Quoted Text Here  
since
It's mostly a strawman. If you don't mind my not wanting to type it all out again, you can read what I said about it in my second China article:
http://www.machiningmagazine.com
On the right side of the page are three magazine covers. I wrote the first two. Click on the cover in the middle of the three ("What are you doing about China?"). It will open an Acrobat file in which I discussed it, based largely on the analyses by Asian economists working for US financial companies -- the guys who really have to fish or cut bait, with billions of investor dollars. They're the best analysts around.
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
Ed,
The articles are so good that I printed them out to sit and _read_ them. Clearly, what you state is what is happening. You have arrived at the question - now that we know what has happened what can be done to fix it. The legislation outlined doesn't seem to address the central issue, the enormous sink of Chinese workers. It's not dumping when they _can_ make a product cheaper than you can. What actions would you suggest to increase the chances that our kids can make a fortune in manufacturing and support us in our old age. I'd also like to hear from the other guys in the trenches. Ray and you other fellows that compete directly- what can be done to get us out of this mess?
Kevin Gallimore

  Quoted Text Here  
One big step would be to let dollar float where it really belongs to the other countries money.Canada is my biggest problem--60%+ of the imported molds come from there. How do you draw a line and say on this side the $=$ but on the other side (Canada) its only .68 cents? We have the same standard of living.The next thing is the molds made in China (most) are so bad that the customer comes back to me after they fire the new save a $ purchasing agent or he moves on to screw up another good co.Almost all the engineers I deal with (except the few that have female friends over there) would rather have American tooling 1st then canadain. What kills me is when whole plants or product lines move , then the tooling never comes back and we all make Wal-mark richer Ray Mueller

On 13 Oct 2003 01:25:53 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (SMuel10363) wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
The US dollar and the Canadian dollar *are* allowed to float. That's why the Canadian dollar is only worth 68 cents. That's not a government pegged number, it is what the free market determines is the relative purchasing power of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar.
Their standard of living *is* lower than ours because their government's socialist policies (socialized medicine, nationalized broadcasting, nationalized power systems, tax policies, etc) penalize success more than our government does. Their theory is that the government should take care of everyone, whether they have earned the expense of their care or not. To do so, the productive have to be penalized to pay for it.
Gary

Gary Coffman wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
Canadian dollar is worth $.76 today. In the recent past it has been tending to increase in value at a good pace.
Where you are headed can be more important than where you are.

  Quoted Text Here  
AND BULLSHIT AGAIN Ray Mueller

On 14 Oct 2003 01:43:03 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (SMuel10363) wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
Seems you're slipping deeper and deeper into it. The Canadian dollar has floated since 1970. See http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/dollar_book/full_text-e.htm#28
BTW, the value of the Canadian dollar at noon today was 76 cents.
Gary

  Quoted Text Here  
Well, I won't give you any credit for having any ability to do much but parrot the conservative bullshit you eat daily, but you're certainly true to form. I very dearly hope, one of my fondest wishes, that YOU end up filing for disability at some time, tomorrow wouldn't be too soon, and then have to wonder what you're going to do for medical care while the first automatic denial makes it's way through the system. Better yet, I hope it's an industrial accident that is because of an OSHA violation, then you better not even bitch about OSHA to your wife, if you've been able to keep one. You keep trying to put everything in it's little category, and people aren't that easy to do it with, you will always be 100% wrong in your efforts. However, to say that your mentality and thought process follow "he who shall never be mentioned", would be deadly accurate, every conservative tactic is spelled out to the letter in a book called "Mein Kampf". Have a nice day.

  Quoted Text Here  
BULLSHIT Ray Mueller

On 14 Oct 2003 01:41:23 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (SMuel10363) wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
Canadian per capita GDP-PPP is $25,179 (US). United States per capita GDP-PPP is $33,872 (US)
GDP-PPP is the income figure corrected for a market basket of local commodities. In other words, it is a measure of the average purchasing power of that money in that locality. As such, it gauges how well you can live on the median wage in a given area.
Gary

(SMuel10363) wrote:
  Quoted Text Here  
The median value would be more indicative than the average (per capita) value, which is distorted by a relatively small number of extremely wealthy people in the US. Or even something that cuts at other than 50%, but incorporates a substantial part of the population. It would be interesting to see what the income is in the middle 60%~80% (throw out the bottom and top 10 or 20% of people).
After all, if there are 1,000,000 people in a city and 100 of them each make a billion dollars per year and the rest get only $10K, the per capita is a healthy $110,000 but only 0.01% of the people make more than $10K.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

  Quoted Text Here  
out
Thanks for your comments, Kevin. It makes the work worthwhile. It sure as hell isn't the money they pay me. <g>
As for what actions to take, better thinkers than I have wrestled with that question without much in the way of an answer. I have a theory I'd like to investigate, though, if I had a couple of research assistants (hah!) and about a year to study it. It's complex to explain, but it's directed NOT at restricting trade with protectionism, but rather with expanding the idea of "offsets," which other countries apply to our commercial aircraft and military hardware manufacturers to balance their trade. I'm sure most economists would shoot that idea all to hell, and our government is opposed to offsets, but they're beginning to look pretty good to me.
Ed Huntress