U WANTED MADE IN U.S.A., or SHINN FU??

Destructive testing is easy, FEA's are pretty common addons in most solid modeling software. So I wouldn't worry too much about fatigue strength in a product. It's more about material and production consistency.


What I bolded is something I would love to see more of. I think everyone can agree that small boutique, Mom & Pop type shops are not only hip but usually very efficient with low overhead.

 

So if anyone is interested to know, Crane Cams is back and about 85% of the old parts are back in production.

Their president Sean Holly was here on Friday and I love his attitude.

99% of all Crane stuff is made here in either Florida or Wisconsin. The only thing they don't make are timing chains which come from Australia. Their entire electronics product line is made here in the USA.

 

I agree - even the playing field and we can all compete.

Steve

 

Tariff's don't work. It would hurt us even more than we are already hurting.
It's been said here before, but EPA, OSHA, etc. are why we don't "build anything anymore". Cheap labor in China is only a small part of the problem. I've been in manufacturing for going on 40 years now. If a company has a legitimate business in manufacturing, each employee they hire lays a $12,000.00 dollar burden on them just for OSHA compliance. Twelve grand per employee. Taxes. How much in taxes are taken out of your check? Because your employer matches that.
We've had to compete, with minimum wage requirements, OSHA, EPA, etal, breathing down our necks, with companies who are manufacturing competing products in grass roofed three sided shacks built onto the side of a mountain in a jungle. No shit. There're paying two or three bucks A DAY in labor. No health bennies, no workman's comp, no unemplyment insurance, nothing.
Raise your hands, how many of you want to work like that?
We let our politicians do it to us. They created huge agencies, with the power of law, some of which have their own judges and lawyers to penalize us with. Make no mistake, that's what they do, generate revenue for the gov't by fining corporations so they could have yet another revenue stream. That was our mistake.
I'm working on several new product lines, all automotive related. Should I build them in the U.S.? I want to! I want to provide jobs to Americans. You know what? Most people couldn't give a shit. Almost half the people in the U.S. today recieve fedreal subsidies of some kind. (Welfare). Personally, I think we've lost the battle. I think our best days are long behind us.
I've dealt with American employees, as noted, almost 40 years. They get sorrier and sorrier each year. And they want more money, with no consequence to the poor work they turn out. I'm really undecided right now, between trying again to launch another U.S. manufacturing plant, or saying screw it, let the gooks do it.
But I'll tell you this, tariff's do not help anything. Electing officials that will help us get less government intervention will be what will help us get back to manufacturing.
America will never regain her place as the world leader until we get government the hell off our backs and out of our way so we can build stuff again. That's the truth.

 

They call that around here "puttin' the hay down where the goats can get it" Very well put (although I might have used the word "Asians" instead of your word). Unfortunately someone will probably get all pissy about it and the mods will remove it. This nation is gonna have to face some harsh realities for quite some time due to bad decisions by both politicians and the public. Ok my dinner is over, back off to the shop....

 

Please no derogatory name calling, this has been a 5 star thread, and very helpful for some. Thank you, TR

 

Maybe, I think anyone with even a modicum of experience could figure things out pretty quick. It's not as if this is something new.


I was looking for an old film of the Ford plant forging what looked like 34-36 style front alxes but found this and though it was curiously fitting

 

Neat-O

 

Those films are great. As someone who is old enough to remember those "good old days", let me remind you young'uns of the fact that America was able to become the giant world leading industrial power we were because we bombed the Holy shit out every other industrialized nation in WW II. And the ones we didn't bomb, the Germans and Japanese took care of first. So we HAD to supply the entire world - without competition.

Well fellas, the rest of the world is back in business! And they didn't bother with pesky little ideas like "middle class" living standards or child labor laws, or, union protections for working men and women. No they just work in "grass huts on the side of hill" ride bicycles to work and live in grimmy multi-story factory dorms (all twelve of them to a unit). And they work their asses off and ship us shit to buy at Walmart or Harbor Freight.

Cold hard reality. Machines and peasants can and will do it for pennies a day. The "Government" can't change that reality. But the government should serve the people first and direct all resources possible to education and easing the transition into the future for the American workers.

Those films talked about the time, money and enginuity it took to build all that power - why can't the same effort be put into the current needs of the people? Instead all we hear about is jet setter CEO's and some Weiner's weiner!!!

I rest my case - let'er rip.

 

I saw a chinese woman on T.V. She ships used junk food paper scrap from U.S.A, back to China to recycle.

 

I sell a few parts on the side - rod ends/heim joints - USA Mfg. In today's e mail I get this for the second time I guess they troll the web for clients:

Dear Manager,

We are a restructured Sino-US professional Bearing manufacturer in Shanghai,China. We hope to be one of your supplier.Appreciate you can give us a shot!

Our strength compared to our counterparts:

1. Quality Absolutely Guaranteed: Severe quality control system/ professionally 29 years in this industry/ ISO9000 Certificate/

2. Specialty: Professionally producing rod end ,Spherical plain Bearings,Bronze Bearing,Wheel Bearings,Angular Contact Bearings,Thrust Bearings, Needle Bearings,bushings,CNC Machining parts,OEM parts...

3. Price: We have two factories of our own led by an elite sales team. One in Shanghai, which represents the highest technology and most professional labor force in China, the other in Wuxi which provides us with source material at low cost, all these add up to a lower price and good quality .

We look forward to serving you, please free to contact us with any questions that you may have about our products.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards
John Fan sales manager
Shanghai Yongzheng Bearing Co.,Ltd.
Website: http://syzbearing.en.gongchang.com
Email: syzbearings@hotmail.com
Tel:008621-64804716
Fax:008621-64801861

Fat chance pal

 

tell that to all the college graduates that can't find work.

 

I'm made in AMERICA! I'm of a pretty good quality too, must be... I come on here.

 

That's the best you got, drive by snarking. Love it man, keep trying to poison the well

 

I got the same stuff. They even "liked" my shops Facebook page. But you know what, they are pushing and using salesmanship. They learned well from the masters who are now apparently in repose.

 

I am right with Polaco here. We have to take responsibility for our own lives.

I look at it this way, there were about five of us that hung out together all the time when I was a little kid. Of us all we have a CEO, a dead cop, a social security worker and ad exec and a broken down old mechanic. We all started in the same ghetto school. Two of us didn't live in the projects, the CEO is one of us that did.

I am where I am because of the decisions that I made. I was the one of us that decided that picking up a wrench I was better than a pencil.

Unless you are just mentally challenged you have no excuse for not being anything that you want to be. It may be a hard hill to climb but you can get there if you apply yourself.

Comming on here doesnt make you a "quality" American made product. I am proof of that.

 

They also work much cheaper and don't expect bennies. They also do not have horrendous college loans to pay off (another gov't rip-off). It is a throw away labor source as are illegals doing menial work.

"They do the work Americans won't do."

Who can afford to go to work for below minimum wage and no wage/labor law protections?

How dare a citizen expect a living wage in this depressed economy...

If you want a truly concerned government, you are going to have to form a PAC and buy the politicians that can best help your situation. It is the American way and has been since this country's inception.

 

KULTLULZ dude, you're taking this thread in a bad direction man.

This in particular (the cost of a higher education) has been brought up by you and a few others and I have to laugh my ass off every time you whiners bring it up. First off, just what the hell does "another gov't rip-off" have to do with the cost of your education. Are you saying that the teachers and administrators are greedy and expecting to get paid too much?

That's not good logic.

What are you going to do when the well runs dry. "WE" are running out of money to redistribute in the form of unemployment benefits. This party is going to end badly for those who refuse to work beneath their entitlement level. John Galt has his bags packed.

Make your own destiny.

 

Debbie Downer for sure.

I joined the National Guard and worked my entire way through school as well. No school loans here. I make well above Min wage, even fast food joints pay more. Get off your ass and do something instead of making excuses!

I mentioned this in another thread but many call centers that were moved overseas are coming back to the US because it is cheaper. It seems the EDUCATED foreign workforce has driven up the wages and benefits so the cost advantage has eroded. So much for cheap,uneducated foreign workers huh?

If anyone here is looking into US Production, one source we looked into was the Amish. There are groups that do contract production runs.

 

Actually the "cost" of higher education can be real reasonable if you are willing to shop scholarships and take a handout or two. A lot of employers even in our depressed economy still reimberse for tuition if you are willing to study something industry related. There are also tons of programs to help you pay for tuition and or books but you have to get off your dead patoot and look for them. perhaps you won't go to an ivy league school but you can go to a state school or any number of private universities as well, not all private universities count as ivy league. You won't get that impressive little sheep skin from yale or harvard but if you are the very best at what you do you won't need it.

I think that the whole minimum wage thing is a joke. Yes I know that it is below poverty level but I also know some very successful people that have worked for free to learn how to do a specific thing then opened a business doing it them selves.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself this one thing, do I have goals and what is it worth to reach them?

Whining about the economy or about one's current state of being has never accomplished anything. I hear a lot of people saying oh gee nothing is made in america any more, so my question is when are you going to do something about it. Its the same with anyone's current state of being. Oh gee I am so poor and I don't have a job, well there is work to be done if you are able bodied and willing. maybe it isn't that cush job you want but it is something to get you by while that cush job is comming along and may very well be the next step or even the first step to getting to that place you want to be.

No one is going to live for you you have to do that for yourself.

 

I've worked Union jobs almost my entire adult life, and I have to say that the comments about Unions "ruining" industry are hilarious.

I worked in an aluminum smelter, we held the highest standard for emissions captivity in the ENTIRE United States, even on the part of the plant that built before the upgraded EPA regulations. We were able to produce metal at a lower profit than just about anyone around, and we were an independent company, not part of a conglomerate that could afford to float us if we had an unprofitable quarter.

I also worked in an aluminum can manufacturing plant which IS part of a multi-national conglomerate and has production facilities all over the world. Only a small portion of their American plants are Union, ours being one. Care to take a guess who had the lowest spoilage rates with the highest production rates? Who had the cleanest and best kept facility? The closest any plant could come to us was the Brazil facility, and they used THREE times the workers! We were also the only plant that didn't require weekly visits from the corporate engineers to keep us running. When safety upgrades were required on some of our presses, we were the plant that figured it out, the engineers conference called our facility almost daily for a while as they tried to figure out how we made it all work correctly.

Stop running down Unions and Union Workers, those wages paid to create a lot of the infrastructure that everyone keeps lamenting is falling apart. Production work is driven by two things: the business model that owns it, and the consumer that purchases the end product. The business model is driven by investors that would rather see higher dividends than quality product, who care more about their profits than about their neighbors, or where they can get American made products.

 

With that theory why would you not be willing to accept a lower wage? If the main goal is not profit (your personal income is your personal profit) then you should be willing to not have as much expendable income.

If a company should not have the main focus of profit, then you should have the same philosophy. Accept a lower wage to produce the same out of the goodness of your heart. That's what you are claiming should happen with a business, lower the margin to provide the luxury of expendable income to workers. In turn it will help the entire world. So if you lower your wage your company could hire more people. Wouldn't that be great to help out.

So come on and give up a little income to share with the less capable or lazy. That's what your asking business to do. You don't really need to make a high wage if it is to improve the economy right? You don't really need to make a large wage, like the company doesn't need to make a large profit.

Why not make it fair with everyone and earn the same as the non union guy doing the same job producing the same product that is just as good.
Union doesn't make it better.

I have hired union equipment operators, who are supposed to be super duper because of their experience and union card, who could not dig a hole on grade or where it was supposed to be. They were not capable of the job but had the union approval so they had to be hired. The guy who was running our equipment knew a lot more and could be trusted to do it right the first time. He was not union so the job we were doing he couldn't work.

Those kind of workers give all the rest who are capable a bad name. The problem was that at the union we had to hire out of we only found one person out of the ten or twelve we tried that we would have even considered to come back the next day.

Sorry for the rant but it drives me crazy to see the Union is Better at everthing attitude. I deal with long shoremen every day at a container yard. There is no incentive for them to do their jobs or do it right. They won't get fired for anything and have the ultimate control on everything that happens in the port. You go into a private non union yard and you will see a higher efficiency and more production with less complaining. Stuff flat gets done in that container yard. You don't see long lines of trucks waiting at the non union yard like you do in the other union operated yards.

 

Uh... Any particular reason the present cost of education is so high? Think really deep and get back

Uh... I am retired. I made mine quite nicely thank you and yes I was Teamster when I made the most. I barely squeaked out of HS. I am not college material, be the first one to admit it.

If your reading comprehension was a little better, you may have realized the comment was directed at the subject brought up here regarding supposedly foreign college educated workers brought here on visas.

How can most of this country's college graduates compete with off-shore labor? How about those that live in high rent districts and not out in the boonies as most of this crowd? How about those that do not wish to live twenty plus in a house?

Just because you can pop-a-top and suck down Burger King means all can or are willing to do it. It is not how America was made, except for your cheap labor to make someone else rich.

BTW- Unemployment is funded by a tax paid by the employer that the government in turn taxes you for.

How far did you go in college? Do you ever watch anything besides Sponge Bob and Larry The Cable Guy?

 

Of course there are external factors. But waiting for a hand out is not one of them. I you don't at least try you will never have success. By losing you learn, by winning you earn.

It takes hard work and risk, by riding the union train you don't have any of that.

Regardless of the cost of an education, anyone can get one.

If you don't set goals for yourself because of "external factors" you submit your self to just doing enough. Our nation was never built on "oh thats close enough, the British will provide the rest" attitude.

Regardless of all of the external factors you can do at least something to help your own self. The problem has been so many people have developed and entitled attitude. We are not entitled to an college education or other peoples money.(Welfare). When people figure that out our society and economy will recover.

 

My '05 350Z had parts clearly stamped made in china. The engine wiring harness was one. It will be at least another 50 years before chinese cars are up to american standards. You don't want to see what they sell here on the domestic market.

 

There must be a bunch of OBAMA ZOMBIES here as it is the present administration that has ruined this country's economy.

So let me get this straight...

The only way out is to revert back to company subsidized housing and the company store? No more work regulations or wage law. All is given up and the return of the factory worker at the turn of the century is reinstated ?We chain ourselves to the machine (as is done in the far east) to ensure we will get our bowl of rice next ration around? Hell, I can even get the kids out there as no one needs a college education anymore. Let 'em work minimum wage till they drop. Good character building.

Got news for you... I worked jobs for a long time before I could drive Teamster. As drivers are not covered by the same labor/wage laws that most are, a lot of work is free. While a Teamster and getting paid for work done, there was no easy job I remember.

I think a lot of people here like to rattle without having any other recent memories other than "double size that", "Welcome To Walmart" or wait for Detroit to call as all here are all automotive engineering geniuses.

 

How in the world did you interpret my post to that?

 

I actually have worked in and around the corporate world and I have a little information for you. Educated foreigners are not the same as migrant laborers, they make the same wages as an educated American white collar worker, sometimes more. They are usually hired because they have a better work epic than our educated people and don't think that the world owes them anything.

Unless you have below average intellegence the only thing that made you not college material is that you were not interested in going to college. You chose a different path. The last time I was in school I tutored for gas money. I had people that graduated high school that couldn't compose a proper sentence, or read a blue print or do simple math they needed help getting though the basics just to catch up to the other students. I can't say that all of them are successful today but those willing to apply themselves are doing well.

The reason that our graduating students cannot compete with foreign graduating students is that our graduating students have developed a reputation for not applying themselves. Is that a valid reason, not 100% of the time but in the white collar world perception is everything.

You have to be well prepared to compete in today's job market. It is very unfortunate but in a lot of instances it is the foreign student that is better prepared. It works like this, if you plagerise yourself (buy a term paper) in India you get expelled from school, if you get caught doing the same here you are just a product of your environment, you may have to take the class over but you don't loose everything that you have already done. They have more incentive not to cheat.


The reason that education is high in this country is the same reason that we are in a recession the cost of everything is high, it is called inflation. If I own a university or college and it costs me X amount to pay the gas and the light I am going to pass that on to my customers, those customers would be the students. Now let us suppose that our school has a Football program, those students in the program go to school for free or at a substabcially lowered rate. It gets better their coach makes a six figure salary, where is that money going to come from? Well not from the teamsters unless there is a teamster who has a child that wants to not be a teamster for a living.

Please excuse me this is way off from the original topic of being made in the USA.

 

I'm proud to say i help manage an American Made manufacturing company and its going to stay American made till the day i die... It is impossible to compete with mass produced stuff with From Overseas though, we've survived so long by making low quantity, high quality products. Unfortunately for now we only make supercharger parts but eventually we will make a lot more.

 

Did you attend college?

"They are usually hired because they have a better work epic..."

Epic? How about ethic?

The cost of education has been caused by the same problem that has given us unaffordable health care.

OUT.