Shopsmith Forums

paulmcohen wrote:Why are there no Electronics manufactures any more, they are all out of business. Apple stuff is designed in the US but where is it manufactured, not the US.

Ahh.. The apple stuff is actually manufactured in both Taiwan or China -- I believe the iPhone and iPods are done in Taiwan.. The computers I think are done in China..

If a mom-pa store is selling the same stuff as Wal-Mart for more money they should go out of business, that is capitalism. The ones that survive and thrive offer something that Wal-Mart doesn't, why should someone pay $3 for Ajax when Wal-Mart is willing to sell it for less that a dollar.

Ahh.. But at least I can feel better (if I buy from a mom-n-pop store) about not contributing to the demise of others liveliness..

dusty wrote: I know that I have had some very interesting exchange with woodworkers at www.sawmillcreek.org. I have learned from these exchanges that there are more Shopsmith users over there than I had previously believed.

I saw a thread there yesterday where someone actually does not own ANY powertools and makes all projects the real-old-fashioned-way -- by HAND! He was using hand saws, hand planers and other assorted tools I can't say I've ever seen before (doing things a router does,etc).. Needless to say I'm sure its very tedious.. But, everyone is different and will tend to do their tasks any way they want and any possibly way imaginable!

Hey, at least we can speak our mind here without the Chinese government coming and hauling us away to some dungeon to rot away the rest of our lives.

I love to get high quality stuff at low prices. Who doesn't. Unless there is some revolutionary way of producing the stuff, the main reason prices are so low is that the people (adults and/or children) putting the stuff together are getting paid next to nothing.

Imagine what the cost of all that Chinese made stuff would be if all of a sudden the workers unionized and demaned fair pay. Those $6 garden gnomes would certainly shoot up in price.

timster68 wrote: Imagine what the cost of all that Chinese made stuff would be if all of a sudden the workers unionized and demand fair pay. Those $6 garden gnomes would certainly shoot up in price.

A few years ago I went to China to source some metal parts that cost $1 each here and were much cheaper there. I learn some things about the way business is run over there that caused me to cancel all my meetings and return to the US. I ended up buying the parts in California, I was never sure who was making them in California either though.

timster68 wrote:I love to get high quality stuff at low prices. Who doesn't. Unless there is some revolutionary way of producing the stuff, the main reason prices are so low is that the people (adults and/or children) putting the stuff together are getting paid next to nothing.

Imagine what the cost of all that Chinese made stuff would be if all of a sudden the workers unionized and demaned fair pay. Those $6 garden gnomes would certainly shoot up in price.

Tim
I not going to mimimize any of the stories of abuse and near slave labor conditions we hear about in China. But I do want to say one thing. Our wages and prices have been artificially inflated here in the US. Each time wages goes up prices follow, each time prices go up wage increase demands follow, it is a never ending cycle. At one time prices came down and wages went up as production increased. However today that rarely happens and we start this vicious cycle of wage price increase.

For years we have heard about workers in Japan making peanuts but look today who travels the world on vacations, has the latest in technology in widest use and who has bought nearly all of Australia. You can make 50 cents an hour if a bread costs pennies.

Just look at housing here in America, at one time a house was looked at as place to live. Realitors and others have made them into status symbols and speculation investments. I'll never forget the realitor's face that was telling me I could buy this house and sell it in two year for a 50% increase, when I asked them if the house I was going to buy to replace it was going to cost 50%more also. Housing prices have inflated not because they cost more but because people thought they were getting rich playing the funny money game. Today the average house costs takes about the same percentage of the buyers income as they did when houses sold for $10,000 dollars. The only difference is the wages/prices that increased to keep up with this cycle has made our products so much higher than the world's.

Think about it would any of us be better or worst off if we all of sudden devalued everything by dropping the last zero off? A wage of $35 an hour would become $3.5 an hour a house costing $200,000 would cost $20,000. And loaf of bread costing $2.5 would cost $0.25. No we would have the exact same ratio of cost to expense but our product cost would also be lower. So instead of buying steel from China for $90 a ton because our's cost $150 a ton we could sell to China steel now costing $15 a ton.

Off my soap box and my apology to all for derailing this thread:o
Ed

Ed in Tampa wrote:Tim
I not going to minimize any of the stories of abuse and near slave labor conditions we hear about in China. But I do want to say one thing. Our wages and prices have been artificially inflated here in the US. Each time wages goes up prices follow, each time prices go up wage increase demands follow, it is a never ending cycle. At one time prices came down and wages went up as production increased. However today that rarely happens and we start this vicious cycle of wage price increase.

For years we have heard about workers in Japan making peanuts but look today who travels the world on vacations, has the latest in technology in widest use and who has bought nearly all of Australia. You can make 50 cents an hour if a bread costs pennies.

Just look at housing here in America, at one time a house was looked at as place to live. Realtors and others have made them into status symbols and speculation investments. I'll never forget the realtor's face that was telling me I could buy this house and sell it in two year for a 50% increase, when I asked them if the house I was going to buy to replace it was going to cost 50%more also. Housing prices have inflated not because they cost more but because people thought they were getting rich playing the funny money game. Today the average house costs takes about the same percentage of the buyers income as they did when houses sold for $10,000 dollars. The only difference is the wages/prices that increased to keep up with this cycle has made our products so much higher than the world's.

Think about it would any of us be better or worst off if we all of sudden devalued everything by dropping the last zero off? A wage of $35 an hour would become $3.5 an hour a house costing $200,000 would cost $20,000. And loaf of bread costing $2.5 would cost $0.25. No we would have the exact same ratio of cost to expense but our product cost would also be lower. So instead of buying steel from China for $90 a ton because our's cost $150 a ton we could sell to China steel now costing $15 a ton.

Off my soap box and my apology to all for derailing this thread:o
Ed

Your logic is slightly flawed though I agree with your sentiment. Oil, steel and gold is priced in $, the price of oil in the US is up almost 50% this year but in Euros it it almost unchanged because the Euro has also gone up 50% this year. Unless something changes in product cost the actual number does not matter. Computers are a good example, the average worker had to work over a month to pay for a computer and today it is just over a day.

The exchange rate for $ to RMB (chinese curency) is 4 to one, an RMB is about $.25. In you example that rate would change by the same 10X and the price of US made steel would be just as expensive.

Back to the enjoyable original topic. I tout the Ss on WoodNet every chance I get. SS is one of the few power tools that can come close to the precision of well fettled handtools. Eg. plane shavings under .001.mt

paulmcohen wrote:If a mom-pa store is selling the same stuff as Wal-Mart for more money they should go out of business, that is capitalism. The ones that survive and thrive offer something that Wal-Mart doesn't, why should someone pay $3 for Ajax when Wal-Mart is willing to sell it for less that a dollar. Wal-Mart is not holding a gun to their employees head or that of their customers. People like the prices and what they get so Wal-Mart is successful.

Can't quite agree that WalMart is practicing capitalism when it comes to Mom & Pop. It is like saying you & Michael Jordan shoot some hoop and see who wins, then call it fair. When the 800lb gorilla comes to the feast, all are not equal. And the employees....another story. Without WM they would get paid more with Mom & Pop, but there would be fewer workers.
I'm sorry, but that is not true capitalism. We haven't had that in more than a while.