politic on the board


Just keep it clean please....

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 8937

Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Sat Jun 02, 2018 5:18 pm

Re: politic on the board

This is a bad situation. My hope is "He" does not screw things up with North Korea. Unbelievable.
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5170

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Sun Jun 03, 2018 10:01 am

Re: politic on the board

I have zero, absolutely no sympathy for American business getting a so called raw deal in China. The rules are known, if you choose to mfg there, you know your tech is going to get copied. You can either choose to deal with that or not set up shop there. Apple could make their I phone in the US and support US workers, or they can exploit cheap labor over seas, and pay a price for that.
Crying to the government to "protect" their profits at the expense of North American workers and consumers is total hypocrisy. There is a cost to shipping mfg to 3rd world countries, it come down to greed. Big Business wants to exploit the 3rd world labor practice while holding them to 1st world protection for their profits. What is worse, they are getting governments to fight their battles for them at tax payer expense.
Copying is nothing new, look at the Zil truck in Russia, it was a direct copy of the K International.
Since America was "great" (in the 50's and 60's) to use this administrations term, we have systematically removed all impediments to corporate greed, starting with strong unions. and replaced it with, laws to empower the rich to get richer, look at the "Toy's R US" bankruptcy, the company went under while the owners took large bonus's while the workers got stiffed! How can you be worth a bonus for destroying a business? Their defense is it is all legal, which may be true, but what about morale?
The steel business in this country went down not because its cheap to ship steel over seas, but because US steel companies didn't modernize. When I was in the mills in the 80's and 90's the BOF's will still operating, a process that was long outdated and relies on lots of cheap fuel. While mfg of steel in the rest of the world moved on to better processes, the big mills in the US kept pushing for more profit from antiquated processes, when it could no longer deliver, the industry collapsed. Funny thing, Nucor is doing fine in this county, they run new mills with new processes.

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 8937

Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Sun Jun 03, 2018 11:58 am

Re: politic on the board

I was a victim of the corporate greed that you write about. I bought a set of Ranger co-carts from Bend Pac. I paid over $800 because I thought I was supporting American Workers. In hind-site, I should have done more due-diligence but I was trusting an old name in the lift industry. What I got from Bend Pac was total crap. When I complained, in the comments section on You Tube, I got an instant response with the suggestion that they wanted to "make it right". I was asked to show proof that the vehicle position dollies were not working properly. I took several of the caster wheels apart and measured the components and I took pictures. I found there was .064" (64 thousands of an inch) when I measured the diameter of the roller bearings against the axle hole in the wheels. The rollers were obviously cut from mild steel wire and the side-cutter marks showed. The rollers could not turn because of the damage from the cuts.
Bend Pac's idea of making it right, right away took a year and maybe 20 phone calls and as many emails. One of the "managers" slipped some inside information that I found interesting. He told me that they were waiting for a big shipment of thousands of casters for a voluntary replacement program. Too bad for them and their customer, the replacements are also poorly made.
Here is what their solution was. I was sent four replacement go-carts and in a different shipment I was sent 16 replacement casters. The replacement go-carts were severely damaged in shipment and two of the four worked. The damage allowed internal parts to escape from the damaged packaging. The wheels on the replacement co-carts were as poorly made and possibly worse. The clearances were never less the .064". The problem was and remains, the casters will not caster because the wheels can tip to the side and lock up. And, the 16 caster wheels are the same as those on the replacement dollies.
I was going to buy a four post lift for my shop and Bend Pac was my first choice. The chances of tis happening is next to zero, now.
In one of the many phone calls I was told that Bend Pac had spent over a billion dollars, in China, to build a super factory to build their products to their exact specifications. Here in Canada, I can buy exact copies of almost everything Bend Pac make and always at a much lower cost. It is obvious to me that the designs were copied.
The North American workers are getting screwed over by the companies these worker helped to build. I refuse to buy anything at the nothing made in USA or Canada stores. Sure, I pay more, but I am convinced that I may pay more now and less in the future, because I am possibly keeping a tax paying Canadian working and contributing to my pension.
Attachments
BEND PAC RANGER WHEEL DOLLIES 3.jpg
BENDPAC DOLLY PACKAGING.jpg
BENDPAC RANGER GOCARTS.jpg
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 8937

Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:51 am

Re: politic on the board

Canada did not exist until 1867, 55 plus years after the British torched the White House.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_490503
HL Mencken wrote this in the Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920. This was just before the depression/recession of 1920-21
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5170

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:41 pm

Re: politic on the board

Uncanny accuracy!

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 8937

Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Thu Jun 07, 2018 3:14 pm

Re: politic on the board

The Ford F150 crossed our shared border as components or parts before becoming a finished truck about 150 times. How will that be tariffed? The facts of this tariff situation are faulted with missing details.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been including goods that pass through Canada but don't originate here as Canadian exports in his export calculations, artificially inflating the United States' trade deficit in goods with Canada.
That explains why the trade deficit figure cited last week by Lighthizer is so out of line with reality, Canadian government sources say. The balance of trade is in the favor of the US. Lighthixer's "facts" are exagerated by seven times. How can this be?
Our countries are the poorer for having given up jobs and manufacturing to foriegn interests. I agree with CB89, it is not fair in any way for these companies to expect the governments of our countries to fight for protection with taxpayer funding.
History shows trade wars have become recessions and depressions. In 2018 with Globalization a being what it is , a worls wide depression could happen again, but, much quicker and with more devistating concequences.
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5170

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Sat Jun 09, 2018 7:20 pm

Re: politic on the board

I think we are living in "Canadian Bacon" a movie where the US attacks Canada, only it is not funny or a joke, only one joke in the pack and he came late and left early. As long as I have been aware of politics in the world, I have never been more embarrassed of a US leader as I am today, but wait, Tuesday is coming so I still can be more embarrassed!

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 8937

Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Sun Jun 10, 2018 1:36 pm

Re: politic on the board

The feeling I have today is not unlike the foreboding felling I had when I was sent to the head master's office. I knew I was going to receive some well deserved corporal punishment.
My Dad used to say, "Waiting for the other shoe to drop." He said this referred to a time when his friend went to visit a house of ill repute in Medicine Hat in the 1930s. Dad said was sitting on the front porch when he heard one shoe hit the floor and he waited for the other shoe to drop. He knew it was going to be a few minutes before someone got screwed.
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5170

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Mon Jun 18, 2018 5:55 pm

Re: politic on the board

Oh the shame of it all. We would be the worlds joke, but it is not joke. Show up and try to present yourself to INS and be turned away 1/2 way across the bridge, cross illegal and have your family ripped apart as the Nazi did at concentration camps, For shame USA, for SHAME.
We are better than this, we deserve the worlds ridicule.
I can't remember who said it but "give me your cold, tired, huddled masses and I'll piss on them the statue of bigotry says". (Lou Reed?) That quote seams to sum it up, I hang my head in shame.

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 8937

Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:04 pm

Re: politic on the board

I feel a great sadness for the loss of everything that I thought was important to our neighbour country.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. Abraham Lincoln
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/abraham_lincoln
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive
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