Here is the website, tools included. I hope, it is updated in a timely manner.
We, as consumers, push the retailers for 'good deals'. But, this is not the only decisive factor, of course. Amazingly, in Germany, their tool-makers managed to survive, even though one can also buy there a lot of cheaper goods from anywhere in the world. Yet, not only they survived, the prices for premier tools from Hazet, Wiha, Wera, Felo, Stahlwille, etc. are very competetive, and item by item our best tools are way overpriced.
Similar story is for machine tools from Bielomatik Leuze, Heller Maschinenfabrik, Index-Werke, Kapp, Klingelnberg, Schneeberger, etc.
Looks like we miss a reasonable middle or upper middle in this market. We have cheap junk, we have expensive junk, and we have overpriced high quality lines with funny distribution models.
Still Made in USA
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Frankly I have not found any bargains in Europe and when the Europeans come here they load up as much as they can to take back.
But setting that aside, how do you propose we acheive this nirvana state where we get competitively priced, high quality tools?
Originally Posted By: Burt
setting that aside, how do you propose we acheive this nirvana state where we get competitively priced, high quality tools?
I do not see any way out on the supply side here. There is no nirvana anywhere. Just a Wera Zyklop set looks like a fine jewelry, and Snap-On seems and feels like a neanderthal's club after it. Of course, there is a distribution differential there. Replacements, etc. Pros know their needs and circumstances better, I am not a pro mechanic at all, but we, amateurs, could be more selective in our spending patterns. I remember a lumberjack ax from a small, volunteer-run museum in Montana, where the museum lady noticed I enjoyed the sound of the real forged steel remarked:'It was my Daddy's ax, and after he quit, it was my uncle's, and then it was cousin's..' Of course, that culture is gone. There was a time, when people could buy true lifetime tools, and those were not from Harbor Freight. That culture is not totally gone everywhere. Just try to talk a Japanese into buying low quality tools. Go-koun o-inorimasu. Or in Germany, except for ethnic gettos or bases, if your first car is not German, your neighbours may become more energetic when reprimanding you for recycling white glass bottles in the container marked 'Braun'.
I think, it's a multidisciplinary subject. We need to think what our part in this is before blaming somebody else. Working class was decimated in 1970s, and it is a bit late and somewhat hypocritical to search for the best application of blame game now. Now everybody is lamenting demise of middle class, while few make an effort to either adapt or change the landscape. And there is a lot of effort to be made.
I would start buying locally made. Not everything in Armstrong line satisfies me, e.g. their screwdrivers suck IMO, but the stuff I like, could serve me my lifetime easily. Of course, it is a primitive and limited approach, by multiplied by millions it may yield something. We can not change the Culture of Wla-Mart pepper sprayers, but they are not in majority, not yet, although it may seem they are. They make news, but they have just enough for the Black Friday junk.
Originally Posted By: 91344George
Originally Posted By: Burt
setting that aside, how do you propose we acheive this nirvana state where we get competitively priced, high quality tools?
Originally Posted By: 91344George
Originally Posted By: Burt
setting that aside, how do you propose we acheive this nirvana state where we get competitively priced, high quality tools?
Originally Posted By: Burt
Originally Posted By: 91344George
Originally Posted By: Burt
setting that aside, how do you propose we acheive this nirvana state where we get competitively priced, high quality tools?
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I said put high tariffs on nations that refuse to have parity with our level of development.
NO tariffs on goods from nations that have similar economies, living standards, laws, wages, ect.
Perhaps you will pay a bit more even so, BUT the quality will likely be pretty good and our nation would start to flourish again. Having good paying jobs return en mass to the USA would not only help employ our neighbors but also refresh our now crumbling infrastructure as well.
Free trade does NOT equal fair trade.
Originally Posted By: 91344George
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How about large tariffs on nations that don't have parity when it comes trading. Unless you want to live like a chinese slave wager of course.
Quote:
High tariffs reduce the financial incentive for local producers to compete.
That is a big problem with tariffs.
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I think a simpler and maybe just as effective solution is to put tariffs on any country that we have a trade imbalance with or more simple create a balance trade agreement in the first palce. That would fix china and similar countries who we run trade imbalances with. They buy little from us and sell plenty here. Trade imbalances are the real economic problem.
Let china and whoever else treat its workers and citizens however they will and let them sort it out. But if you are not buying from us equally then it's not really trade.
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I think a simpler and maybe just as effective solution is to put tariffs on any country that we have a trade imbalance with or more simple create a balance trade agreement in the first palce. That would fix china and similar countries who we run trade imbalances with. They buy little from us and sell plenty here. Trade imbalances are the real economic problem.
Let china and whoever else treat its workers and citizens however they will and let them sort it out. But if you are not buying from us equally then it's not really trade.
Yes, fueling a trade war with punitive tariffs during a recession is a guaranteed way of triggering a deep depression. On the plus side this would quickly fix any trade imbalances, but only because most commerce would come to a screeching halt.
Back in the good old daze this would not have mattered.
WE WERE the market. Everyone needed access to our money.
Nowadays, things are different. But we're still a huge consuming nation that every foreign nation needs to trade with. We need better negotiators.
You mean like the depression we are already in? That's pure nonsense to say all the outsourcing to china is improving the US economy and preventing a depression. US and other 1st world nation would supply the US market. No one needs china to supply our market.
Im a firm believer that all of the "Free Trade" nonsense has done nothing to benefit us. All it has done is benefit the countries that we deal with. "Free Trade" doesn't mean "Fair Trade" and there is a major problem when a mass produced product can be made and shipped from a nation far away for cheaper than we could make it right here. I believe that our Government shouldn't be making these cushy trade deals with nations that treat their workers like slaves.
How do we as a nation expect these nations to treat their workers better when they have no incentive to? Places like China are going to continue to circumvent laws and regulations as long as $$$ keeps flowing in.
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
You mean like the depression we are already in? That's pure nonsense to say all the outsourcing to china is improving the US economy and preventing a depression. US and other 1st world nation would supply the US market. No one needs china to supply our market.
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Originally Posted By: Burt
I reply, "so you are okay with letting people in other countries starve because you don't what to see lower standards here?
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: Burt
I reply, "so you are okay with letting people in other countries starve because you don't what to see lower standards here?
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: Burt
I reply, "so you are okay with letting people in other countries starve because you don't what to see lower standards here?
I also care about the families of those in this country, not some far away lands that doesn't give $.2 about what happens to us. Our leaders have dealt us a very band hand the last 20 plus years as far as trade negotiations go. We are getting the raw end of the deal and it is showing. It is quite sad when we can't compete on a price level comparing a simple socket or a pair of pliers in this country compared to a far away land.
Let me get this straight. Like Lt. Columbo, I am easily confused. If jobs are lost to due technological advances with non-living machines, like electricity, computers, automated robots, lasers etc that's quite ok. And if some company moves from a high wage location to lower wage area in the same country, that's sort of ok. But if jobs are lost due to people taking lower wages, particularly in formerly communist countries, that's bad. Those commies should know that everyone should be paid the same wage.
But wait a minute, I thought the commies were the ones that thought everyone should be paid the same regardless of circumstance! Yet now the capitalists are saying that. So confusing. And who gets to decide minimum wages in each country? Everytime the US raises the minimum wage, I guess we expect all the other countries to follow suit?
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