Please help me understand.( long post)

Went to Maynards and bought some window shade brackets. 54 cents per packet. one pair per packet. Stamped in the metal bracket. *Made in China* Packaged in plastic about the size of a deck of cards. Cardboard rapped over opening of bag with a hole punched in it to hang on store shelf. Staple through cardboard. Now let see if I got this right. -Some metal stamping plant in China bought the steel and paid a chinese truck driver to haul it to their plant and paid a chinese worker to unload the steel in their warehouse. After which they payed a forklift driver to take it to metal punch press in plant after which they paid machine operator to punch them out and drop in pallet tub. Then pay forklift guy to take pallet to warehouse and store on pallet rack. Next forklift guy brings from warehouse to packageing machine where they pay someone to feed them in to machine and drop them in another pallet tub. Pay forklift guy to take back to warehouse until you pay a truckdriver to bring a shipping container to the loading dock. Now pay forklift driver to load in shipping container after which you pay a truck driver to haul it to a Chinese shipping port. Now they pay a crane operator to lift shipping container off truck and place on an ocean going vessel. Now the shipping co. gets paid to float it half way around the world to a U.S. sea port on our coast after which another crane operator is paid to off load container onto a truck where a truck driver is paid to haul it to a where house here in states. Now a forklift operator is paid to unload it and store it on pallet rack. Then a forklift operator is paid to load it on a Maynards truck where that driver is paid to haul it half way across the country as I'm in Mn. where a forklift driver is paid to unload it in back of store. Then another forklift driver is paid to bring it to correct isle in store where a worker is paid to hang it on the shelf. A final person is paid to check me out and take my 54 cents. Now I am told the Chinese don't pay their workers much but that is only part of the equasion. We do know they are paying them something. Can someone please tell me how the hell that can be sold for 54 cents? We have several metal fabrication factories right here in Mankato Mn. all within 15 minutes of the Maynards store. Wouldn't you think they could get them cheaper here. What part of this am I not understanding?

Your local place is prolly union and one bubba gets as much for an hour of scratching his knads as all the chinese you mentioned get combined for an hour.

Get ready for the fun :shock:

Most of the labor is automation. Still have to pay for shipping, so, does not explain it all away, that is for sure. Greg

I really hate that country! I have wondered the same thing. How can they buy our scrap steel ship it over there make something and ship it all back and still be cheaper than making it here. I can see stuff in Mexico but China is a bit further away.

Get rid of the unions and ban knad scratching everything will be fine and happy days will be here again. Right. Why don't you get out your history book and take a look at what working class people were subjected to in this country before unions were organized. That's right. Looked a lot like what is going on in Red China today. Do you REALLY want your kids/grand kids to live that way again? Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

Over the next several years energy cost will overshadow labor cost. All markets are global for oil but the natural gas price reflects the supply/demand in different countries, states, etc. If the US and various State governments allow development of major gas fields the price will come down to a level that will support a resurgance of heavy industry. The USA will require a high industrial output to support the inevitable increase in food production and the associated handling, hauling etc. The world needs ever increasing food stocks and the USA and Canada will supply a large percentage of it. No country on earth can even begin to match our capacity for agricultural output on top of which 92% of all agricultural research and engineering still originates in the US.

Went to Maynards and bought some window shade brackets. 54 cents per packet.


And Maynards probably bought them at 1/2 of that price. OR LESS! David.........................

I have always worked in the tool and die biz..In the past 5 years, I have watched almost all of our business get shifted to China. One customer, who once had very high quality standards, told me that China was so cheap to buy from, that they could overlook the terrible quality..

The quality of these brackets is just fine. I put them up and they hold the shades fine and will continue to do so for many years.

Union membership was only 12.3% of the labor force last year, and that was down 771,000 from the year before.

(quoted from post at 01:17:41 02/07/10) The quality of these brackets is just fine. I put them up and they hold the shades fine and will continue to do so for many years.

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S govt. We let them ship their products in here almost without restriction. In the other direction, ....NOT!

(quoted from post at 22:20:25 02/06/10) Union membership was only 12.3% of the labor force last year, and that was down 771,000 from the year before.

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Too little, too late.......................
hitler's initial crusade was to keep jobs, etc just for the germans. see where that ended up I guess. His thugs thinned out pretty quick too...

How much of that 54 cents does the 5 year old press operator and the 10yo hilo driver get?

dave 2 don't know how old you are but check your history on what brought about the labor movement in this country before you just bash the unions.the american standard of living that we all enjoyed wouldn't be here. It's funny how everybody blames the unions not the bankers and wallstreet tycoons for all of our problems. and executives drawing million dollar salaries blame the working man.

you forgot the part where the farmer took his scrap iron into the junk yard, and then it was sent over to china and melted down and formed into the steel used to make your $.54 pair of bracketts.

jared

Last I checked China is a Communist country and can make the numbers work no matter what.

Supposedly their are manufacturing ships off our shores to do that.
Several things the business doesn't pay for, clean environment or clean up of environment, workers comp-just throw them out the door, let them beg in the street, and get another, there's millions, no retirement or health insurance.
I think the actual wage is a minuscule part of the overall picture of having cheap parts made over there, but to your original comment I wondered for years the economics of hauling stuff around the world or even across the country. And of course the Chinese government subsidizes them to run American businesses out of business.
Walmart has this all figured out, how to keep shipping costs down, I bet they own ships and even oil companies. They bought out a wholesale grocery warehouse in the 80s, the name was mclanes, and you'll still see trucks running around with that name.

Why don't you ask your Mankato fabricator how much they would be willing to make the item for and then report back to us?

Have you ever seen high speed production dies in action? The speed at which these work make the labor cost nill, the packaging is automated too I guess and then it is just loading into a box, probably 300 packs per box then load into a truck with piles and piles of other boxes going to Menards, or Lowes, or HD.

I agree that "Made in China" is likely junk for all items made. Yesterday I bought my son an airsoft gun, a pump action style shotgun I had to look all over the store shelf to find one that wasnt made in China and I found one, it was Made in Taiwan......Almost as bad, but I have had it with the Chinese junk..........Everything I buy now I look to make sure it isnt made in China.....I did the same thing with a rifle scope I bought last summer, I looked at 3 different stores before I finally bought what I wanted and it wasnt Made in china. Nuff said.

I watched a show on Chinese agriculture and manufacturing. They take away anything from agriculture to supplement industry. They don't have any super-farms like here all mom and pop. They take any land or waters they need and the biggest problem is water. They have taken so much that food is going to be their big concern. But they have moved to other countries to grow their food. They are big in to growing something now, I think back to the old rubber trees, so they're taking farm land for that and even starting rubber trees farms in other countries.

Hey 'Schmuck' Dave 2 didn't say he didn't like unions.
The question was ask why, and he gave part of the answer.
I was a member of a union for 30 yrs. because it was needful.
Some bosses still like to push you around, while having their favorits that can scratch all day and make the same wage.
Unions in China would stop the child labor and long hours for a bowl of rice, but not with out the riots we had.
But getting paid 6 didgets a year to stand next to an assembly line and punch buttons, come on.

I believe that china's government doesn't take as big of the piece of the pie,and in this country d*mb@ss pays.If the government wasn't so greedy, maybe we could compete with china.And maybe we wouldn't be dependent on the mideast for oil.

I don't care if you are union or non union. American workers cannot compete with labor at pennies per hour. Even the Mexicans have complained that they cannot compete with "basically nonexistent wages" ( Mexican President Vicente Fox a couple years ago ).

A friend of mine has a small fab shop. He rently bought a small hydraulic press, Chinese manufacture. I asked him why? - He said he couldn't buy the steel, much less the hydraulics, for what the thing cost.

China wants and is going to become the next super power and the people we elect are only interested in today and getting a big retirement in 12 yrs , for life plus because their spouse gets it after their gone . term limits and retirement after 62 then maybe we can stand a chance.

union membership is down becuase union jobs have gone overseas.. they cannot complete with labor that gets 3 bucks a day pay.

anytime you have free trade, this is what you get.

education and engineers are everywhere and can build factorys in every country in the world.. its just a matter of the one with the cheapest labor.

sadly we compete for wages and benifits with people who live a grass huts and haul water in 5 gallon buckets for cooking and bathing.

unions dont have a chance in this type of world. neither do any higher paid workers..

more and more food products are coming from overseas and even the farmer are feeling pressure now.

stay tuned.. more to come...

Biggest part of the equation is MENARDS, cheapest outfit around, they are the walmart of hardware, Have a buddy that works part time there for a little (and I mean little) extra $$, Working one day and the electricity goes out so the forman comes out and tells the employees to punch out until the juice comes back on, they were supposed to stay there on call until this happened though! Cheap Cheap Cheap!

Well volume, of course.

Yea, I wonder too. China is buying a lot of the scrap steel from the USA, so it starts over here, has to get shipped there to start with!

EPA, Osha, Medicare, SS, and liability insurance has a lot to do with it - and boy depending on the day I'm not sure which side of the fence I am on on all those issues!

They were going to open a Maynards over here in New Ulm, had the land bought, but by the time the permits came through the ecconomy went south & it was put on hold.

While I hate to see the local hometown stores be put out of business, on the other hand when a 2x4 costs over 2x as much and you see that the small businesses are not run any better at all than Maynards.... Well what do you do, what do you wish for?

I donno.

Good question you have, I wonder too.

--->Paul

(quoted from post at 10:37:47 02/07/10) China wants and is going to become the next super power and the people we elect are only interested in today and getting a big retirement in 12 yrs , for life plus because their spouse gets it after their gone . term limits and retirement after 62 then maybe we can stand a chance.

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There is definitely something to what you say. They are more hungry than we are, they have a lot more head room for 'wants' than we do, they have never known anything but hard work, simply to survive, willing to work harder as a result. Put a bowl of food in front of two dogs/cats/? one fat & well fed, the other starved for a week and observe which will work harder for a bite.
Then there are the un-equal trade laws.

Yep, and How about the people who buy tires and parts over the internet and bragg about the "great" price. Then they add; "I don't care if it is made with slave labor when I can get it for that price"... Will their job be next?????


If the chinese gov don't give a crap about their own enviroment and people, does anyone think they give a crap about us?? They already have their hands into the iron ore range in Minnesota... A factory in my area recently got cut-throated on a component by cheap chinese labor... The list is endless.. Our region has lost paper mills; now you go to wong-mart, take a look at the paper products that have a wong-mart label that says made in china.. I never thought I had to pay too much for USA made paper..

communist red china is not our freind..neither are the cut-throat chain operations that work with them. Sooner or later, communist red china will own them also...


Myself, I try to help by Buying American whenever possible... And, don't buy foreign crap that I don't absolutely need.. and vote accordingly..

Like they always say"follow the money".Some politician is getting a bribe to send our jobs out of the country,another one,maybe the same one is getting a bribe to bring the stuff in.Some ship company is paying some politician to keep from putting tax on the import and its all a crooked bunch of snakes profiting from ruining life for working people.Its been that way since Nixon was president.The head of the AFLCIO was talking about it the other day saying wages have been being undermined since 1973.All the world trade crap is an excuse to screw our workers.Nobody can compete with slave pay.Not even slaves.Anybody that thinks this is good should look at history if you think its about competition.What its about is gutless people.We fought for unions now since 1973 they have been being torn down,next we will be China unless we fight back.

Because ya can get a lot of steel out of and old tractor and the hood alone would make several of those brackets, half that steel probably being used to make weapons against us.

Never shake hands with someone that has his other hand behind his back.

Most of that is OK with me. Those cranes were made in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Where the fork lifts came from (maybe Japan?). Caterpillar sells a lot of stuff in China. I don't know where the paper and cardboard came from but we make a lot of that in Wisconsin too, and it finds its way around the world. Probably half of my family is in the paper business in some way or another. The ocean going vessels and crews came from someplace and are making a living transporting goods all over the world. Most of the trucks that haul that stuff to Menard's stores are made right here in the US and so are the drivers. And what else was it you mentioned? Oh, the steel. China was buying steel from us in a big way until the external_link depression came along. They seem to be buying again so maybe they will lead the world out of this. You do know how disappointed the external_link administration advisors are about China, a communist country, preferring capitalism over communism to achieve economic success, don't you?