Post from another member: "Just another example of American companies going cheap to increase profits and exorbitant compensation for their
executives. Nationalism is long gone in America. CP and Ingersoll-Rand, once the best, now junk. Moog used to be
the best. Inferior materials, inferior workmanship. If Chinese officials had produced inferior steel that failed before
the new bay bridge in San Francisco was even finished, and used it in a Chinese project, they would have been
executed. The expectation of quality is long gone. In the 50's and 60's, unionized labor, well paying manufacturing jobs,
quality material and executives that weren't paid 100's of times what the average worker made. Germany still has those
things, apprenticeship programs for workers and the strongest economy in Europe. I should stop my tirade, it just
pisses me off."
My response:
I was an executive for a company that made aftermarket parts for the auto industry. All of our parts were made in the US or Canada. Once the cheap parts from China and India hit the market our customers, the auto parts stores, were no longer willing to pay the "made in US" price. Over a period of five years we moved all of our manufacturing out of the US and Canada to China, Mexico and India. If we hadn't done that the company would have gone broke. For a while we kept one plant in the US open to supply US produced brake rotors. Eventually that plant too was closed. There simply wasn't enough demand for US produced brake rotors to keep the plant open. The company didn't make more money as a result of the move. Margins remained the same or less and I didn't get a big raise. Customers got the benefit of lower price. But some suppliers sold inferior product. The company I worked for owned their China and India supply plants and required them to meet the same quality standards as when we produced the product in the US. all China product it not necessarily junk. Keep in mind iPhones and most computers are made there. The real tragedy as a result of imported product from cheap labor cost countries is the loss of jobs. Blue collar manufacturing jobs have been the major driver of our economy since the industrial revolution beginning in the 1800's. Millions of those jobs have been lost.
