Why the hell do we put up with this?

What's any of this got to do with traditional hot rodding? Back in the day, guys fabricated their own parts if they couldn't source them at the local speed shop. Stop buying parts that you can fabricate yourself by investing some time and energy, and you'll be on the right track towards building a traditional rod. I think the biggest issue is people are lazier these days....it's too easy to point and click rather than get out the hammer and anvil.

 

You know a few years ago a guy named Henry Ford came up with a little idea of mass producing a quality product at a lower price. If I remember the stories right it sounds like his ideas worked and it was here at home. It can be done again just need the next great entreprenuer to step up and take the wheel.

Also in the last 15 years one of our greatest entreprenuers of our lifetime/motorcycle builder from southern California was tired of buying off the shelf over the seas parts so he started building his own aftermarket quality fenders and tanks and did put out a quality product which blue-collar Americans could afford and buy. Maybe someone will do that for our hobby.

 

Devils advocate says poor people can't afford to buy american made products. I hate to admit it but I just might have a japanese type hose clamp or two on my Model A but the American hose clamps. Well I just don't have the bank roll for it-smile

it will all be over soon and when the work ends I hope im in my A......

 

One thing that drives up the cost here in this country is regulations and red tape. Not the kind that make sense and protect us from dangerous products, but the stupid over reaching redundant regulations that are meant to protect the stupid from themselves and the regulations that are there just to line the pockets of a politicians favorite friends.I see why the EPA has most of its regs, but some are ludicrous and keep people from starting businesses.

 

Its not exactly that the things are made over seas but that they are made of such a low quality, which happens in the usa also... We really need people that are devoted to their job/product and want to see it get beter not make more and more money... but hey... who doesnt want to make more money?

 

Hey Im just glad that the chinese parts are affordable,Even though we have to modify them,,,It is a shame that it is like that but it is,Blame everyone for trying to get stuff cheaper.

 

1. The EPA and while it has killed whole industries in the US a lot of it was our own fault. Toxic dumping and other things that we were way too careless about. I have a coworker who has lung problems because his dad worked in an asbestos mine in Montana when he was a kid and brought the stuff home on his clothes. I think my breathing problems are related to asbestos dust from brakes when I did as many as six brake jobs a day back in the early 70's.

2. The biggest thing, Wall Street getting the last nickle for the "stockholders" workers and customers be damned. They built a new plant here locally to make the Walker Bay small boats that are really popular and less than two years later packed up and moved the whole plant to Mexico so they could make a couple of bucks more profit off each boat that they knocked out of the mold. They "I can have it made over there or down there and save X bucks a copy and stick that in my pocket mentality is killing the US manufacturing.

3. Lack of skilled workers in this country for manufacturing because all the educational administrators have bought into the "information age" and teach the kids that it is beneath their dignity to work with their hands even though manufacturing jobs for skilled workers often pays a lot better than teaching or many desk jobs. I'd be making over double what I am if I was working at Boeing right now and maybe more than that.

4. Outside of Buicks going to China and a few other exports we export raw material and import it back as finished products.

5. The I want it cheap, Walmart mentality that a lot of people subscribe to. The first garage owner I worked for, JT Carpenter in Waco, Tx would not step foot in a KMart and it took me a long time to figure out that he was spending his money with local merchants for US made products in the early 70's. Those same merchants were our customers in the garage.

 

You are right on brother!

 

This WILL get deleted but if nothing else I'm almost famous here for speaking my mind. If your an open minded seeker of the unvarnished truth take a long look at Political Correctness and our nations headlong plunge into Liberalism for a substantial cause of our loss of American leadership in everything, including the manufacture of almost everything we use. Tough pill to swallow but the truth hurts. Moderators do your thing.

Frank

 

WalMart came over to the UK and thought they'd take over the supermarket scene. What they couldn't understand was that the big thing here is top quality food - all the stores here have "Finest" or "Taste the Difference" premium quality lines with traceability and quality being the big selling point.

WalMart didn't get this and just kept piling it higher and trying to make it cheaper. They crapped out in a big way and have even had to remove the WalMart name from the stores they own.

BTW - we can't easily buy even Chinese hot rod parts here so I tend to make my own or get more skilled local people to make the stuff I can't.

 

i agree with made in america !!!! i blame insurance companys for the biggest reason the mom & pop shops with pride are all going away . i owned a small business it was tuff to make enough to make the ins premiums & taxes ? & still make a living even working 7 days a week .

 

funny how the parts are made cheaper and the profits for the big corp. get bigger and bigger and most of these corp.are backing the same people that say they want to get us back on are feet?

 

We have a winner, Frank hit the nail on the head.

 

I just saw a video last week about a home that was built 100% out of Made in the USA materials. The selling price was about 1% more than the house would be if they used imported materials. They go on to say how if all builders would just use 5% of their materials that were Made in the USA it would create thousands of jobs.

I think as China's standard of living continues to rise we will start to see them losing their competetive advanatge and our jobs will start to come home.

 

If you want to compete with slave labor in 3rd world countries, you can't have any of them.

Big news out of China recently - minimum monthly wage in Sichuan went up 23% today (Jan 1). New minimum wages in the manufacturing sector are $130-$170 per month. And China is beginning to feel pressure from other countries that can undercut that on wages.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16311751

 

If you're building a real traditional hot rod you don't need any of that cheap crap.

 

No More Crap!

 

Your my new hero!!!!

 

If you like rust over chrome you are really in the wrong place... rust needs to be exterminated.

 

Really.......
Breeze ss hose clamps (made in the USA) several distributors such as AZ Supply....most all sizes are $1.61 ea. A little research for American made products is really easy with the Internet.

 

A lot of people really need to watch the Tucker movie again. Even though it is not 100% factual, there are a lot of valid points made. Greed is the biggest problem, above and beyond anything else. I read recently, that if it all goes down the tube, ammunition and food will be the new currency. Something to think about.

 

I have a friend who is into tube audio equipment. He has a small business selling components to hobbyists who demand the best.

A while back he phoned some Chinese electronics manufacturers about buying parts. They emphasized their cheap prices, knowing that's what everybody responds to.

When he told them he did not want cheap prices, he wanted the best quality they could make regardless of price they were thrilled to bits. They supplied him with excellent quality parts at a very reasonable price, about 1/3 more than their rock bottom price.

The moral of the story is you can get good quality if you know it when you see it, and are willing to pay for it.

When I cast my mind back on the quality of American made electronics, cars, and clothes of the seventies and eighties it is easy to see how foreign manufacturers cleaned our clocks and it wasn't all cheap prices.

 

Just a thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It might work for other companies too!!!!!!!!

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/12/30/how-sears-can-save-itself-buy-and-sell-american/

The Solution That Could Save Sears

Once upon a time, America had a manufacturing base. We made things -- quality, affordable merchandise -- and we sold these things in our stores. But at some point, the drive to grow corporate "EBITDA" gave rise to a perverse business model: Outsource our manufacturing (and our jobs) to Third World countries, then import their goods and resell them on American shelves.

Clearly, this isn't working for Sears anymore. Sears is selling the same stuff as the other guy, but not always at better prices. Consequently, it's losing the battle for customer dollars.

But what if Sears tried something different? What if, for example, Sears promised to stock its stores at least 51% with "Made in the USA" merchandise?

It wouldn't cost as much as it used to -- not with wage inflation driving up the cost of Chinese goods. It would entitle Sears to advertise itself as the one store selling "majority Made in the USA" merchandise. It would win the company a major PR coup ... and may even be enough to save the chain.

 

I think as China's standard of living continues to rise we will start to see them losing their competetive advanatge and our jobs will start to come home.[/QUOTE]

The chances of our jobs coming home are slim to none. The atmosphere in America for the last twenty five years has not been one of an Entrepreneurial one. The young people coming along haven't got the foggiest of what it takes to start a buisness manufacturing anything. As us old timers that have been in the manufacturing world for fifty years die off. The new guys coming along will not follow in our foot steps even if they wanted to, because they haven't been trained. Also they haven't grown up in an environment where Entrepreneurs rule. What's become important in this country today wouldn't have made it back in the day. When a young person went to a trade school of Collage back when they studied such things as Engineering, or tool and die design as an example. Today they get a degree of Parks and recreation, or some such liberal bull shit. That should go a long way when the so called jobs come back. Good Luck with that.

Johnny Sweet

 

All we have to do is look into a mirror to see who caused the proliferation of offshore and substandard crap that we buy today, it was you and me, and I am as guilty as everyone else.

There was a time when every town had a Mom on Pop store of every type.........groceries, hardware, plumbing, furniture, and auto parts, to name a few. You could go in there and buy quality food and products and the people working there knew their inventory and how to use them. You could get advice on everything from how to cook their meat to what part went where in your car to fix some problem. Hell, even Sears was staffed by department qualified people who could tell you how to fix a plumbing problem or which lawn mower was best for your needs.

Then we discovered WalMart, K Mart, AutoZone, McDonalds, and all the other discount stores. Suddenly, Mom and Pop couldn't compete with people who buy their products by the trainload and one by one they began to close their doors. We would drive right by them to save a few bucks. So what if the stuff we bought only lasted a short time before it broke, it was cheap and they had a lot more of them on the shelf.

So now we go into one of the only places left, the discount store, buy stuff made someplace else, and suffer because you can never find an Associate to help you and if you do, they don't know a damn thing about anything in the store. I knew it was changing when I went into Sears one day for plumbing help and the guy said to me "I'm sorry, I don't know anything about plumbing, I worked in shoes until yesterday !"

I'm looking in the mirror right now and I see the guy who helped create this mess.

Don

 

http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_04vzdsr5/uiconf_id/5590821

Just some FOOD for thought.I happen to live in THIS particular small town

 

Bottom line - corporate greed and cheap customers.


CRUISER

 

I personally try to not buy anything from overseas,....but sometimes I have little choice,...many times because it's all that's available.

Nothing's gonna change boys,.....'cause nobody out there gives a shit.
So there's no sense in gettin your blood pressure up.

We are dinosaurs.