wildlightphoto Posted January 12, 2011 Share #21 Posted January 12, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) ... I do have a problem with about $1,000 per man, woman and child in the US vaporizing out of our pockets every year en route to China - that is not sustainable. This can't be sustained because the US$ will drop low enough that China will see the USA as a source of cheap labor and export jobs here. ... And that is even after they buy jets from Boeing ... I suspect that soon China will no longer need to buy jets from Boeing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 Hi wildlightphoto, Take a look here No Chinese Components thanks!. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
pico Posted January 12, 2011 Share #22 Posted January 12, 2011 Indeed, two or three years ago I bought a Fotoman 617 panoramic camera and it's a mechanical work of art. Last year I bought a Benro travel tripod and it's better than my equivalent Gitzo. If you're selective you can get tremendous quality from China] The Fotoman is a very simple camera. It is not a major feat to make one. Should the Chinese unfortunately succeed in replicating a Linhof Super Technika, then I would take notice, although I do not need another. Regardless, copying is far easier than inventing, and that's what the Chinese often do - copy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted January 12, 2011 Share #23 Posted January 12, 2011 This can't be sustained because the US$ will drop low enough that China will see the USA as a source of cheap labor and export jobs here.. Back up your assertion with something other than your impressionistic opinion. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildlightphoto Posted January 12, 2011 Share #24 Posted January 12, 2011 Back up your assertion with something other than your impressionistic opinion. . What got your shorts in a knot? The parallels between the US/China balance of trade now and the US/Japan balance of trade in the 1970s are to obvious to ignore. Bucketloads of money going from USA to Japan, shiploads of manufactured goods going from Japan to USA. The big influx of cash into Japan drove prices up and brought out the luxury goods collectors, who bought exotic cars and Leicas among other things. Eventually as the yen rose and the dollar sank, Japanese companies found it advantageous to move manufacturing to cheaper locations - like Smyrna Tennessee and Marysville Ohio for example. The port of Oakland (California) recently installed new container-handling cranes. Guess where the cranes were made? Cessna buys major components for their light sport aircraft from a Chinese company. Many Chinese companies have the know-how and the management to compete on quality. Just like many Japanese companies in the 1970s. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted January 12, 2011 Share #25 Posted January 12, 2011 ... Regardless, copying is far easier than inventing, and that's what the Chinese often do - copy. As do many Western companies. The Chinese are smart. They form alliances with Western businesses in order to learn their "secrets." They tap the computers of Western companies for the same reason. I'm stereotyping, but the reason is that no one can say "I'm more inventive than you" or "My inventiveness is built on morality." It's the Microsoft philosophy--"Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." "Does God play dice?" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted January 12, 2011 Share #26 Posted January 12, 2011 "I suspect that soon China will no longer need to buy jets from Boeing." Most likely true. Oddly, about an hour after my original post, I was listening to NPR talk radio and a pilot who flies cargo jets in and out of China used the same exact words - "this is unsustainable" - in pointing out that he flies into China with a tiny load of envelopes and out with the plane stuffed to the weight limit with high-tech goods. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJP Posted January 12, 2011 Share #27 Posted January 12, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Visting Vopak (chemicals terminal/storage) in Shanghai a couple of year ago we were explained that the saleries of their Chinese operators was rapidly approaching EU level. When they built the terminal the saleries were about 10% EU level and by that time were 60% and rising. Ergo, the Chinese economy will become less competitive as time proceeds. At another company I started discussing the "90%" phenomenon that I had noticed in China (crisps & peanut packaging does not tear easily, hotel furniture looks great but is not comfortable, electrical wall sockets are invariably at a angle, the list could go on).... Reaction: "Yes when we just got here it was standard practice to send everything to our customers and hope they didn't send out of spec. stuff back. The result was that many customers only ordered from us once or twice and then gave up. It took us a lot of time to get quality control at an acceptable level." (Context: this was at an EU company owned Chinese production plant). China can produce high quality goods if they get their logistics right but they are imperfect, just like all of us. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmas Posted January 12, 2011 Share #28 Posted January 12, 2011 Hi Being picky Ch sources the majority of the rare earth sands that are critical for the high refractive index glass and the low temperature melt glass for some asphs - used in all modern Leica lenses (and Cosina lenses). The Ch have been buying US 'properties' to avoid a total dependency on USD exchange. They also are reputed to have acquiered the design of the latest US thermo nuc warheads. They dont run Wiki leaks yet, though, that is the Aus? Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted January 12, 2011 Share #29 Posted January 12, 2011 Visting Vopak (chemicals terminal/storage) in Shanghai a couple of year ago we were explained that the saleries of their Chinese operators was rapidly approaching EU level. That is a high-stakes enterprise and, as you wrote, is not China-owned and is, besides, hugely successful. Average (mean) salary of Chinese workers in the two top-tier areas is about 3,000 Euro, and looking down to the third tier and lower, the wages plummet to a fraction of that. Indeed, the quality of Chinese electronics for major, international markets has become astoundingly good, but frankly the quality of many items, for example packaged food and building materials is abysmal. Given that the Chinese have a rapid judicial process, and sometimes summarily execute the corrupt and exile the incompetent, I'm sure we can expect improvement. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamey Posted January 13, 2011 Share #30 Posted January 13, 2011 MADE IN CHINA. Sorry I don't have any images of the builders execution. LOL. However I must admit, their electronics are getting better. Ken. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/141413-no-chinese-components-thanks/?do=findComment&comment=1557054'>More sharing options...
microview Posted January 13, 2011 Share #31 Posted January 13, 2011 Well that's one way to do roof repairs on a multi-storey building, I suppose. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
earleygallery Posted January 13, 2011 Share #32 Posted January 13, 2011 If I were living in one of those other blocks I think I'd be a little concerned! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacarape Posted January 13, 2011 Share #33 Posted January 13, 2011 While working in (a 7 month job) in Luanda, Angola in 2005 I saw first hand the Chinese expansion into Africa and their methods. You can reject my observation as second hand, but they are what they appear. A Chinese company was building a fiber ring around the city and I asked a local guy, and friend why all trenching labor was Chinese and not local hires. He said that they were prisoners from China, and management pays very low or not at all. I asked a few others, they all said the same thing. I asked his wife once when we all went out to dinner and she said the same. She was pretty cool, you have to respect a Major in the police that carries a Makarov. A nice person also. (My Portuguese is just a tad past the conversational level, having worked and lived in Brazil for 6 years and not taking classes.) In Luanda America built the largest US Embassy in Africa, the Chinese are building Africa. Anyway, imagine any company trenching an entire city with backs and shovels. On the way to work we passed daily a large construction project. The Chinese laborers were housed in ISO containers. So as China locks up rare earth minerals in Africa and is now starting to test a 5th generation stealth a/c, the country's strategic aims are plainly visible. As Defense Secretary Gates says their stealth a/c isn't a threat, I wonder what that office will say when there are 300 aimed at Taiwan 10 years before they think they could do it? I don't have any paranoid delusion, I'd post photos except they were taken with a Contax IIIa. Nor do I care, I will be long dead before the States continues it's decline to religion based irrelevant country. I was lead deploying two Packet Switches and adding capacity to a 3G CDMA cell network that I worked as field engineer in 2001 during the initial roll out. The radio base stations (Nortel 3030) were designed in Canada and built in China. Built to a price in order to compete with the rest of Western tech that is also being built in China. Western corporations and consumers are financing our own demise. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
earleygallery Posted January 13, 2011 Share #34 Posted January 13, 2011 Western corporations and consumers are financing our own demise. I'd change that to politicians and corporations. As a consumer I really don't have any say in the matter. Whenever the general topic of outsourcing comes up, I play devils advocate and ask, when we have sold all of our companies, or outsourced all of our jobs to the emerging markets, who here will be left to buy the products/services if we are all jobless? Then, if we are all jobless, we'll work for anything, and the emerging markets will start to outsource their manufacturing and call centres back to the west, as our workforce will be cheaper than theirs. That is assuming their own governments allow it - they might take a longer term view and insist that domestic businesses employ locally wherever possible. e.g. Rover/MG was sold to the Chinese. The people who used to make Rovers generally bought them too. Now those people are unemployed and can't afford cars. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 13, 2011 Share #35 Posted January 13, 2011 This can't be sustained because the US$ will drop low enough that China will see the USA as a source of cheap labor and export jobs here. I'm sure you meant to add, provided our labor unions make a major paradigm shift...back to their original usefulness as it was in the first half of the 20th century, and away from the arrogance that ultimately pushed the cost of American labor to the point where outsourcing became a no-brainer in the first place. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildlightphoto Posted January 13, 2011 Share #36 Posted January 13, 2011 I'm sure you meant to add, provided our labor unions make a major paradigm shift...back to their original usefulness as it was in the first half of the 20th century, and away from the arrogance that ultimately pushed the cost of American labor to the point where outsourcing became a no-brainer in the first place. IIRC Nissan chose Smyrna Tennessee in part because there was no strong union presence. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 13, 2011 Share #37 Posted January 13, 2011 Whenever the general topic of outsourcing comes up, I play devils advocate and ask, when we have sold all of our companies, or outsourced all of our jobs to the emerging markets, who here will be left to buy the products/services if we are all jobless? Then, if we are all jobless, we'll work for anything, and the emerging markets will start to outsource their manufacturing and call centres back to the west, as our workforce will be cheaper than theirs. That is assuming their own governments allow it - they might take a longer term view and insist that domestic businesses employ locally wherever possible. Absolutely agree. China is an entirely different political system than ours. Preventing outsourcing will be a matter of simple decree for them. In the US, it would have taken the passage of sweeping legislation (sanctions against domestic companies who outsource, and/or strong import tariffs against goods manufactured in eg. China) and the big-corporation lobby would never have allowed that to come to fruition. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 13, 2011 Share #38 Posted January 13, 2011 IIRC Nissan chose Smyrna Tennessee in part because there was no strong union presence. The UAW has been the most pragmatic so far. I understand they made major concessions in the course of Ford's and GM's restructuring. Hopefully others will follow suit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 13, 2011 Share #39 Posted January 13, 2011 While working in (a 7 month job) in Luanda, Angola in 2005 I saw first hand the Chinese expansion into Africa and their methods. You can reject my observation as second hand, but they are what they appear. A Chinese company was building a fiber ring around the city and I asked a local guy, and friend why all trenching labor was Chinese and not local hires. He said that they were prisoners from China, and management pays very low or not at all. I asked a few others, they all said the same thing. I asked his wife once when we all went out to dinner and she said the same. She was pretty cool, you have to respect a Major in the police that carries a Makarov. A nice person also. (My Portuguese is just a tad past the conversational level, having worked and lived in Brazil for 6 years and not taking classes.) In Luanda America built the largest US Embassy in Africa, the Chinese are building Africa. Anyway, imagine any company trenching an entire city with backs and shovels. On the way to work we passed daily a large construction project. The Chinese laborers were housed in ISO containers. So as China locks up rare earth minerals in Africa and is now starting to test a 5th generation stealth a/c, the country's strategic aims are plainly visible. As Defense Secretary Gates says their stealth a/c isn't a threat, I wonder what that office will say when there are 300 aimed at Taiwan 10 years before they think they could do it? I don't have any paranoid delusion, I'd post photos except they were taken with a Contax IIIa. Nor do I care, I will be long dead before the States continues it's decline to religion based irrelevant country. I was lead deploying two Packet Switches and adding capacity to a 3G CDMA cell network that I worked as field engineer in 2001 during the initial roll out. The radio base stations (Nortel 3030) were designed in Canada and built in China. Built to a price in order to compete with the rest of Western tech that is also being built in China. Western corporations and consumers are financing our own demise. The Chinese are much smarter than that. They have decided that after the energy crisis there will be a next crisis, maybe a hundred years form now: fresh water. Look where they are settlng - around the great lakes in the Rift valley, which contain 25% of the world's fresh water.... It is not just raw materials now.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacarape Posted January 13, 2011 Share #40 Posted January 13, 2011 Hi James, I agree with you, but as a consumer we have a choice albeit one that is hard to find alternatives. Adding politicians was so obvious I can't believe I ignored that. But when American taxpayers bail out GM and they are now making good profits by manufacturing and selling most of their product in China and soon India, we get nothing but crumbs. American television manufacturing was offshored to Mexico. Then to China. When American labor rates decrease to to below Chinese levels, it may return. It may happen. I think an astute observer can make assumptions that are more fact then fiction. For example: I was a young Noncom in the Air Force I went to Nellis AFB, Nevada for NCO Leadership School. A class assignment was to prepare and give a military briefing. We were given a list of acceptable topics but were allowed to choose our own with instructor approval. Coming out of the SR-71 program and working a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Radar with a secondary mission of Spacetrack (PAVE PAWS), I was interested in the current Reagan era Strategic Force Modernization programs. I was a radar tech on duty during the first and only F-15 launched ASAT weapon, the plots were incredible, positioned in space in front the orbiting bird the debris cone left no doubt about it's total destruction. Anyway, the Nellis Base Library provided a wealth of EEFIs, or what the USAF called Essential Elements of Friendly Information. My briefing started with the political such as NSDD-13 and how our systems were changing, from the TACAMO (Take Charge And Move Out) C-130s to a even publicly published CEP or Circular Area of Probability of ICBM war heads. I ran a minute overtime so I got a "B". After class four classmates were waiting for me. They asked where I got my material and that 90% of my briefing was Classified TS or above (above TS are political things). My Clearance was only a Secret, I had no access to TS material briefed or a "need to know". To me it was only fun to put together the briefing using EEFIs. I gave them the briefing cards along with the references (mostly Air War College publications) and told them they blew it as they just confirmed my speculations as fact and if I were them I'd drop it to avoid telling their very real error. So when smart guys make a case that America will no longer be a super power as soon as 2040, I don't dismiss it as political drivel. I don't really care, I'd rather live in the Netherlands then here. bocaburger, Unions at the outset had a very real and "good" mission, to prevent worker exploitation such as child labor and poor (dangerous) conditions. They can't go back to that model, it doesn't exist to the extent that made them essential. I agree that it seems their only cause now is get the highest wage possible for their members isn't really in their members best interest but the conditions that made them possible no longer exist. Nor due they have the talent or ability to keep work in the States. Labor to high? Close the factory. I went to Honduras in 1990 and worked a drug interdiction radar in Trujillo (CBRN Site 5), and stayed and lived in San Pedro Sula. While there a banana plantation union went on strike for wage/condition issues. The company (I don't remember which, I think it was Dole) let them stay on strike for a year. Then they settled the strike but since the plantation was not maintained for a year it was no longer commercially viable according to the corporation, the plantation closed and everyone was let go. Who know where the capacity was moved to or even if it was. I'm sorry if I moved the thread into politics. I just see China as very large corporation that is waging economic warfare against the world. Close to the way the States waged a "war" against the Soviet Union, it's economy collapsed. Just to mention photography, attached was taken at a beach bar 30 minutes south of Lagos. MP and 160VC, 35 Lux fat ASPH. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/141413-no-chinese-components-thanks/?do=findComment&comment=1557324'>More sharing options...
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