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I Forge Iron

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Well,I`ve had my second cup of coffee so here I go.Hope my safety line holds.

The Horrible freight thread and my wife`s recent observations have caused me to do some very deep thinking,you can probably see the smoke on the horizon.
She brought me one of her new canning jars and asked me if that line/seam running down the sides was the possible cause of the recent failures of her glassware.We looked at the old ones and that seam isn`t there on those.Looks like the company that makes them has changed their manufacturing process and the new jars now include stress risers that make the jars far less strong.Cheaper for them,not so good for us and the garden bounty we labored over and trusted to them.
We also went to town to run errands and she and I part company to what I term "import warehouses".She doesn`t share my hardcore dislike for Chinese goods,we agree to disagree.
She has enough experience(she thinks)to tell good imported stuff from bad and she will not trust important projects to anything she suspects will jeopardize them.Lately the brands she has trusted have begun to cut corners in order to remain competitive and she and I both wonder if maybe the import level of quality control has made it`s way to our shores.
She now admits my line of thinking may have some merit.

When I worked at the shipyard building Navy destroyers there was another yard down south that would compete with us for contracts.The sailors who had served on ships built in both yards agreed with the slogan on the front gates "Bath Built is Best Built" and it was a source of pride to the workers here in Maine and we felt it was in keeping with our boat building heritage.
The Yard was bought by a large corporation (General Dynamics) and they implemented a new "Quality policy",which basically drew down the long held standards that made our work stand head and shoulders above the competition.In part it read"Provide to the customer the level of quality agreed to in the contract".
No more building the best ship you possibly could and giving your best efforts for those going into harm`s way.In order to remain competitive we had to drop our standards and pick up the lower level of quality the other yard skated by with.It did NOT sit well with the old hands,including me.

There is a real danger in adopting the "good enough" mentality.Sometimes it just costs you some produce,other times people`s lives and safety depend on it.
When did we start being a country that is satisfied with "good enough" and stop being one where the best were supported and rewarded for their efforts?
The hidden costs of "Good enough" and the lowest price being the deciding factor sometimes only becomes clear after things have failed and some things are lost that can`t be brought back or replaced.
Maybe we need to factor that into the price of things when we go to town.

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you can probably see the smoke on the horizon.



I was wondering what that was - and I'm all the way over on the Left Coast!


Unfortunately, the climb to quality has done a 180 and turned into a very slippery slope due to being well lubricated by quick profits and short turn around while chasing market share rather than providing a viable product for the use it's intended for.

I've gotten to the point where I pretty much only buy used quality equipment produced during an era where "made to last" meant something. The last major "new" purchase I made was my pneumatic PH - It was designed and built by a fellow in my Blacksmithing association and he proudly stands behind his product 100%.

To find tools and equipment that I know will work and last, I'll take a good old fashioned flea market, Craigslist or the local want ads over an "Import Emporium" anytime!

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Well,I`ve had my second cup of coffee so here I go.Hope my safety line holds.

When did we start being a country that is satisfied with "good enough" and stop being one where the best were supported and rewarded for their efforts?
The hidden costs of "Good enough" and the lowest price being the deciding factor sometimes only becomes clear after things have failed and some things are lost that can`t be brought back or replaced.
Maybe we need to factor that into the price of things when we go to town.


I couldn't agree more with your sentiments Bob. I think it started when as a nation we decided there was more value in being an importer than in being a manufacturer.

This thread is dangerously skating on the political. It would be interesting to hear peoples non political ways of dealing with this trend.

I for one avoid cheep imports (thats not to say all imports are cheep) as much as I can and its getting harder everyday. :angry:

On the harbour frieght bit about returning it until you get a good one- How much is the time spent and the frustration worth? WSith this I'm reminded of the saying " there is neveer enough time to do it right the first time but always enough time to redo it when it fails"

OK I'll step down now....
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This thread is dangerously skating on the political. It would be interesting to hear peoples non political ways of dealing with this trend.


Per your suggestion, I'll try to focus on the non-political aspects of the question. It's a challenge, though. There have already been some comments made that are inherently economic in nature, and it's nigh impossible to separate economics from politics.

I've had several lengthy discussions with a colleague who's a pretty serious grease monkey concerning this broad subject of whether it makes more sense to pay a lot of money for the higher quality tool, or a lot less money for a somewhat lesser quality tool. His feeling, which I largely share, is that if neither your livelihood nor your life depends on your tools, it often doesn't make a lot of sense to pay for a lot more tool than you need. If I pay a great deal of money for a tool that I'll never come close to wearing out in my lifetime, then a lot of that value is left in the tool when I die. It doesn't benefit me at all. It might benefit my heirs, if they happen to share my interests or if they manage to sell the tool at fair market value. More likely it gets sold at a greatly reduced or scrap price when I'm gone, and my willingness to pay for all that quality just ends up benefiting the ultimate owner who gets it for a steal. Either way, the quality I paid for is basically a subsidy for the next generation. So yeah, in a lot of cases it may very well make more sense to buy the cheaper tool and wring every last drop of utility out of it, and use the leftover money elsewhere.

Let me give you an example from another area of my life. You can easily go out and pay several thousand dollars for a customized "combat" handgun with all the bells and whistles for concealed carry. You can also get a factory stock, NIB Glock for less than $500 if you keep your eyes open. I have the Glock. (I paid a lot less than $500 for it, but that was a long time ago.) Now, some of the logic I see here would seem to dicate that this makes me a fool, because I'm cutting corners on quality. By this logic I should pay any amount of money to get every single bell and whistle -- after all, we're potentially talking about my life, here! Well, the thing is that many years of practice, training and study have convinced me that the Glock is good enough for my purposes, because: (1) I'm better with my cheap-*** Glock than 98% of the guys with the expensive guns; and (2) at the end of the day, the pistol is only a small part of the equation. So I think that in my circumstances, that extra money can better be spent elsewhere. Now, in the event that -- God forbid -- I ever have to find out, it's certainly possible that my judgment will turn out to be wrong, and my dying thought will be, "dang, I shoulda bought the Wilson Combat...." The thing is, though, it's my life. So even though there is that possibility, the decision still rightfully belongs to me.

When did we start being a country that is satisfied with "good enough" and stop being one where the best were supported and rewarded for their efforts?


I'm not sure this is a fair description of the way things are. You can still buy the best -- all you have to do is pay for it. And I suspect the people who produce the best are still rewarded accordingly. But I don't think it's ever been the case, anywhere, that people routinely got a lot more quality than they paid for. Why was some chain mail made out of heat treated steel, and most (at least as it seems right now) made out of softer wrought iron? Because people got what they paid for -- even back then. There are some craftsmen in each generation who insist on making everything to the absolute state of the art, the best it can theoretically be, who have the skills to actually pull that off, and who find customers who are willing to pay the corresponding price. Those people are in the minority, and I doubt it's ever been otherwise. The rest either adjust the quality of their work to what the market will pay, or they go out of business -- and I think they always have. I suspect there were lots of "good enough" tools, and houses, and everything else being made (and bought) in the good old days; we just don't see them because they haven't survived.
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I saw that same mentality in construction (residential trim carpentry). That is why I'm currently trying to make it doing my own thing. I'm the sort of guy who has trouble sleeping at night if I feel I didn't do the best job I could. That's not to say it was always top notch, there are a lot of areas I'm still learning on.
The last guy I worked for fired me for not working fast enough. At least that's what he told me. He paid me hourly, prior to that I was being paid piece-meal (at one of the lowest piece-meal rates in town). When he first told me I needed to work faster, I told him if he payed me piece-meal at the rate I was getting earlier (I had prior to that mentioned some on the pay and he comments on how low it was) he'd be paying me more money. I knew I was making him money and I was doing quality work. It didn't matter, he wanted faster work and so long as no one complained about the quality, it was good enough. The funny thing is, this was on $100,000 tract houses, when we were working on $500,000 or higher "mansions" he didn't care about speed as long as it was done right.

ron
who stopped shopping at Wal-mart about a decade ago.

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I'm not sure this is a fair description of the way things are. You can still buy the best -- all you have to do is pay for it. And I suspect the people who produce the best are still rewarded accordingly. But I don't think it's ever been the case, anywhere, that people routinely got a lot more quality than they paid for. Why was some chain mail made out of heat treated steel, and most (at least as it seems right now) made out of softer wrought iron? Because people got what they paid for -- even back then. There are some craftsmen in each generation who insist on making everything to the absolute state of the art, the best it can theoretically be, who have the skills to actually pull that off, and who find customers who are willing to pay the corresponding price. Those people are in the minority, and I doubt it's ever been otherwise. The rest either adjust the quality of their work to what the market will pay, or they go out of business -- and I think they always have. I suspect there were lots of "good enough" tools, and houses, and everything else being made (and bought) in the good old days; we just don't see them because they haven't survived.



The difference is that when large numbers of people were buying "the best", then you had economies of scale. Now "the best", "good enough", and "dirt cheap" segregate the market so much that "dirt cheap" gets the bulk of the volume, driving up costs on "good enough" and "the best" much further than they'd have to be given different circumstances.
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The difference is that when large numbers of people were buying "the best", then you had economies of scale. Now "the best", "good enough", and "dirt cheap" segregate the market so much that "dirt cheap" gets the bulk of the volume, driving up costs on "good enough" and "the best" much further than they'd have to be given different circumstances.


I'm skeptical that large numbers of people really ever were buying "the best." People have always had budgets. Most likely many people just didn't buy the types of goods we're talking about at all. A couple years ago, an old friend of my father's -- that'd make him around 70 years old -- complained to me about this very thing. He mentioned that when he was young he rarely saw home workshops, and now they're pretty common. He seems to think it's outrageous that people are out there spending money on workshops they obviously don't "need." I'm not outraged, personally, but I'm sure there's a lot of truth to his observation. It should come as no surprise that falling prices bring goods within the grasp of people who formerly wouldn't have been able to afford them.

To the extent that you're right, and that we've lost economies of scale in production of the highest-quality goods because there's more demand for lower quality, cheaper goods, I'm still not convinced that's a bad thing overall. See the previous paragraph.
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A couple years ago, an old friend of my father's -- that'd make him around 70 years old -- complained to me about this very thing. He mentioned that when he was young he rarely saw home workshops, and now they're pretty common. He seems to think it's outrageous that people are out there spending money on workshops they obviously don't "need." I'm not outraged, personally, but I'm sure there's a lot of truth to his observation.


I can say from personal experience that one reason you didn`t see home workshops back then was that it used to be common for anyone who worked in a trade and kept his personal tools at the shop to have 24/7 access to those tools and everything in the shop whenever he wanted/needed it as long as he was not on the clock and didn`t interfere with production on other shifts.
Now that our society has become so concerned with liability that sort of thing has stopped and we are forced to set up our own shops and either carry our tools back and forth or buy 2 sets of them.
I`m amazed that people in other parts of the country can`t go into a scrap yard and look around and buy what they want.I take it as a sign that it`s only a matter of time before that sort of thing disappears up here too.
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I've had pretty good experience with imported tools. First one I remember is a 1" socket set from China, like $40.00 (30 years ago). I had a hydraulic cylinder that needed torquing to 2000 ft-lbs. So, using a 10 foot pipe I hung my weight exactly horizontal, 200 X 10ft = 2000 lbs. This was with the ratchet no less! I was impressed.

Seven years ago I went to use my $800.00 Hilti rotary hammer and found the brushes were kaput. NO LONGER SUPPORTED! Bought a $50.00 HF with four carbide drills and got my machines installed. Been used many times since (loaned out). If it craps out I'll buy another! I have a set of 6 - 12" mikes, $125.00! Check perfect with my Mitutoyo standards. Been using them for 10 years.

I like top quality tools, but often it's not "should I buy American or should I buy Chinese?" In many cases it's "should I buy Chinese or do without"!

Few years back Chambersburg was asking more than $150,000.00 for a 200 pound self-contained hammer. Now I can buy a 200 pound Chinese hammer for 10% of that! Blacksmiths were not lined up at Chambersburg's door. Reliable? For half ($75,000.00) I can get 5 from China. Setup 2 and have 3 spares! That's reliable.

I sell Chinese made induction forges for 5 - 10% of what an American machine sells for. I've sold around 80 machines in five years with only TWO needing service!

Like I said "buy Chinese or do without" often times.

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A lot of older tools were junk too - even if made in America. My great uncle lived on the farm his whole life and kept all sorts of knick-knacks that dated from before 1900 through the 1980's when he passed away. I remember there were many "antiques" that had broken prematurely or just didn't work due to bad design - on the other hand, the better quality tools were still being used daily. It's the same with guns; millions of cheap firearms (mostly pistols and shotguns) were made since the mid 1800's - but about the only ones seen or collected now are the name brands.

My entire career has been spent in manufacturing and I have seen a large amount of work move offshore but the Swiss screw-machine company I work for now is extremely busy and we have added about 15% to our workforce in the past 6 months. Our biggest problem is that we can't find qualified people - many applicants can't pass a basic math test and have horrendous work records. However, the general view in the US government and the educational system is that manufacturing and the need for trades is obsolete so all the new school grads should go to college - even though many can't write a legible sentence.

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I can say from personal experience that one reason you didn`t see home workshops back then was that it used to be common for anyone who worked in a trade and kept his personal tools at the shop to have 24/7 access to those tools and everything in the shop whenever he wanted/needed it as long as he was not on the clock and didn`t interfere with production on other shifts.


That may have been true for tradesmen, but many people who weren't tradesmen, like me, as well as many tradesmen who were interested in pursuing crafts outside their professions, simply didn't have that option -- or any other realistic options. Cheap goods open up opportunities for people who otherwise would simply do without.
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A couple things-

Home shops
I'm sure some of you are old enough to remember Delta Grams? Those were a home shop oriented publications put out by Delta Power Tools in the 40's (I think) I wasn't around when they made there debut. They were for the home hobbiest/garage shop.

Back in the 80's I had a lug nut on my '51 Willy's that I couldn't get off with the lug wrench. I went to the auto parts store and bought the best 1/2" drive socket they had, Made in Taiwan. I told the guy I'd be back shortly for another one. Sure enough it broke. 3 sockets later I went and borrowed one from a friend...Regular old Snap-On.

One part about buying junk tools that hasn't been mentioned yet is the energy required to produce them and reproduce them again and again. One good tool that lasts for several generations is better for our dwindling resources than having to remake a tool for the same user several times. Remaking is good for job security but not the planet.

I'm not picking on any one country here, I've seen junk tools from ALL over the world.

Then theirs the fit and finish. I'd rather wrench all day with a Snap-On than any other wrench. Do I own a ton of Snap-on? No, too expensive. But, I do own most of the sizes I use repeatedly. I get them at Garage Sales and Flea Markets. I buy new now and again but mostly I buy used.

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One part about buying junk tools that hasn't been mentioned yet is the energy required to produce them and reproduce them again and again. One good tool that lasts for several generations is better for our dwindling resources than having to remake a tool for the same user several times.


There's just no decent response to this that doesn't involve discussing subjects most people would consider political.
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There's just no decent response to this that doesn't involve discussing subjects most people would consider political.



I don`t find it difficult at all to separate economics,the environment,personal philosophy and other things from politics.While politics may impact most of what we do and some people want to MAKE those topics political there is a lot of room to discuss the economy,trade,the environment,etc and never wander into the political swamp.
Many of the people who study these things and are experts on them are no where near being politicians.
That`s as close to that line as I care to skate.
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One part about buying junk tools that hasn't been mentioned yet is the energy required to produce them and reproduce them again and again. One good tool that lasts for several generations is better for our dwindling resources than having to remake a tool for the same user several times. Remaking is good for job security but not the planet.





There's just no decent response to this that doesn't involve discussing subjects most people would consider political.




I believe this is more of a philosophy than a political view. Blacksmith's as a group I feel are most prone to this type of philosophy or understanding. Think about the tools we make for one job. Not only do they hold up for that job they become in some cases the foundations for other jobs. We want our tools as strong, accurate and durable as possible. (I don't consider myself a blacksmith but I have been building things for 30+ years) When I make a tool or a jig, I don't design it to do just the required amount. What if I'm off in my calculations and it comes apart to soon? I have to make another and the parts may not be the same. Now thats a waste of time! The danger factor is something to consider too. What if the Socket Grant was hanging on from that 10' pipe had broke unexpectedly? I would suspect that he took that into account and made appropriate precautions but what if he hadn't?

OK, I'm blabbing but I hope you get my point....
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One part about buying junk tools that hasn't been mentioned yet is the energy required to produce them and reproduce them again and again. One good tool that lasts for several generations is better for our dwindling resources than having to remake a tool for the same user several times.



Well then: I'm not exactly sure what it means for something to be "better for our dwindling resources," but the cost of energy is factored into the cost of goods. Generally speaking, the most efficient way to ration scarce goods (in this case, energy) is to let supply and demand set a market clearing price. If our energy resources are genuinely dwindling, the price of goods that require energy to make may eventually increase to the point where it makes economic sense for many of us to pay more for the better-made good, once, than to pay for the cheaper one more than once. Or else those increasing costs will make innovation profitable and spur changes in how we produce energy, and thus prevent a large rise in the price of energy. (E.g., if hydrocarbon energy gets sufficiently expensive, maybe we'll finally become rational in this country about nuc power.) Either way, at present I have every reason to believe the current approach is efficient. I suppose you might even say it's "better for our dwindling resources," though, again, I'm a little unsure what that means.
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I've dealt with suppliers in China and one thing they ask me is "why do Americans want to buy so much cheap junk"? They have to meet the requirements of the importer. What do you do if you need work and your neighbor down the street wants a gate, but he's only willing to pay $50.00? You either make a cheap piece for him or don't do the job.

Many things you use everyday are made in China and you don't even know it. Tiawan and Japan and Korea all get things made in China and do a little labeling or boxing and ship it to us. Come to that, some things are labeled "assembled in America" you can bet 90% of it was made in China. 100 years ago Europe (where things were still being made by skilled craftsmen) was inundated with cheap mass produced items from the U.S.

The requirement for a "made in America" label is >50% U.S. content. The only way to measure this is in dollars. Using high price American labor, this might just mean putting the label on and boxing it.

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I believe this is more of a philosophy than a political view. Blacksmith's as a group I feel are most prone to this type of philosophy or understanding. Think about the tools we make for one job. Not only do they hold up for that job they become in some cases the foundations for other jobs. We want our tools as strong, accurate and durable as possible.


Blacksmiths account for costs just like everyone else. Grant gave some good examples, above, but let me give you a much simpler one. I'd love to make my hot work punches and chisels from H13. The main problem is that H13 is expensive, difficult to work, and I don't have the equipment to heat treat it properly. I'd have to invest quite a bit up front in order to be able to really get the benefit of the stuff, and for me it just doesn't make sense. So I don't currently use H13, even in applications where it'd be the ideal thing. (I looked into possibly using prehard H13 and stock removal, but holy moly that stuff is expensive!) A lot of other smiths don't, either. Like me, they're sacrificing a certain amount of quality because the absolute highest quality stuff would be too expensive to make sense in their situations. Why, some people even make tooling out of mild steel! It may not be the best, but it may be the best for them at that particular time. Blacksmiths go for cheap and convenient when it makes sense to do so, just like everyone else.

The danger factor is something to consider too. What if the Socket Grant was hanging on from that 10' pipe had broke unexpectedly? I would suspect that he took that into account and made appropriate precautions but what if he hadn't?


The tort system that everyone loves to hate (justifiably, in many cases) already provides strong deterrence against making goods so defective that they threaten people's safety when properly used. Similarly, there are already all kinds of regulations that apply to various goods that have unusual potential to hurt people. Beyond all that, though, how about the more basic point that people need to take some personal responsibility? If it's your feeling that we shouldn't be able to buy things that could potentially hurt us, then forget power hammers, presses and grinders, no matter how well made they are.
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Well then: I'm not exactly sure what it means for something to be "better for our dwindling resources," but the cost of energy is factored into the cost of goods.


While the cost of energy to produce a give product is included in the price, very seldom is the full cost of production included. By that I mean thing like how pollution from energy generation affects the health of the population at large. In some countries waste products still get dumped into the environment directly at no cost to the producer. These costs are hidden and get born by the tax payer and, in the case of health issues, by those who pay into a health insurance plan. Only in the last decade or two has anyone even tried to calculate what these costs may be. There are a lot of hidden cost that the end user doesn't pay for directly or totally. Some of these costs are borne by tax payers who don't even know the product exists.
I don't know what the solution to this problem is but I think buying, at a higher price, better quality and buying once is better than buying cheap and replacing often.

ron
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OK, you're talking about externalities. I wasn't sure whether that was what Fe-Wood was getting at, but since you bring them up....

First, it isn't clear to me that the energy used to produce cheap goods imposes a net negative externality on the world. Assuming it does, there are theoretical ways to deal with negative externalities -- but there are huge practical problems with doing so in many cases. Among them is the fact that many externalities are highly speculative in nature. (Anthropogenic climate change, for example: assuming it's real will it really do more harm than good? If so, what's the magnitude of the net harm? What's the dollar value?) Another is the fact that our assessment of these costs is in many cases necessarily subjective. If you're a relatively well-off Westerner, you may consider the loss of a piece of near-pristine wilderness absolutely intolerable, and you may think it's far better to spend the extra money to burn ethanal in order to prevent that. If you're living on the edge of starvation in Africa, you may strongly prefer that fat Americans continue to burn cheap oil rather than corn, since when they burn corn it drives up the price and makes you even hungrier.

I don't know how to solve these problems. What I do know is that capitalism and (relatively) free markets are the goose that laid the golden egg; they've been responsible for an unprecedented increase in human welfare, world-wide. Nothing else has ever lifted more people further out of poverty. Say what you want about the evils of the Industrial Revolution; there's just no disputing that the vast majority of people in the world are wealthier, healthier, and longer lived than their ancestors even a hundred years ago. So while I'm interested in hearing about solutions to the negative externality problem, they need to be solutions that don't seem likely to kill the goose. I'm not opting out of the system without really solid evidence that there's a better alternative.

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I agree with Grant. Most times it comes down to buying something made in China or someplace else or going without which is not usually an option. As far as quality goes and American made I can't count the number of times I have replaced my Craftsman rachet wrenches. If you look hard enough you can find good made in America prouducts. I just bought a new band saw. I was ready to pull the trigger on a Chinese model. I wanted a saw that had a swiveling head and at least a 3/4" blade at a resonable price. Then I stumbled across a Ellis Band saw which was a much better saw with a 1" blade and about the same price and made in Wisconsin. In this world economy, price seems to always be the bottom line. It would be nice to see investors invest in America again.

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FWIW, China is capable of producing any quality that YOU are willing to pay for.

My friend owns a fastener company. He regularly goes over to China on buying trips and to perform audits, and he tells me that they can and do meet any standards that anyone else does. They have the same quality systems and checks that the rest of the world has, if you want to pay for it. It would be incorrect to always say Made In China = junk.

Of course, paying for the quality is usually cheaper in Chinese made products due to the cheaper labor.

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How about recycling for one.It is always cheaper to recycle things like metal and make products with that recycled base material then to start from scratch and smelt ore to make new steel,copper,ect.
It also seems common sense that if you are producing a higher quality,more durable product then you would need to make less of them and that leads to savings in both material,energy and labor.
In the majority of cases cheap,throw away tools are not the answer.The only time something like that would be an advantage that comes to mind is if the tools are contaminated in some manner and it would be hazardous to reuse them.Better to buy something that will last and can maybe be passed on to the next generation(like we used to do).Better for the environment,less use of finite resources and less energy consumed because there are less of them that need to be made.
Cranking out a less than durable product may put money in someone`s pocket but it still is less than responsible in regard to resources,energy and pollution.

One of the best ways to be environmentally responsible and still get by on the cheap is something quite a few of us already do,buy used equipment and materials.Some of us even go so far as to rebuild clapped out machines we find as scrap or drag out of the woods.Those old (and quality built) machines can be rebuilt rather than melted down and made into low quality goods.I say low quality here because they will have questionable base metal(mixed/poorly sorted scrap,MDF or chipboard,etc) and the finished product carries a price tag that pretty much guarantees low quality design,material and questionable machining,stress relieving and heat treating,that`s why they fail on a regular basis.
Cheap tools,furniture,etc get tossed in the landfill.Who pays for that and who will have to deal with it further down the road?The idea is to keep things OUT of the landfill rather than crank them out cheaper so we think less about throwing them away and running to get another.

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There are very few serious scientists who will say global warming in not a serious threat to our way of life. We are using up oil It may not run out in 10, 25 or 50 years but we will eventually use it up. We rip down whole mountains to get coal iron and other minerals and people die in the process of extracting this stuff we all need. I live on an island sea level rise is a real issue I have witnessed the beaches get smaller in my lifetime. I'm no tree huger either I burn coal drive an f-250 and don't recyle unless its scrap metal. But I always try to buy quality or I go without. I think we need to respect this planet we all live on. Being wasteful has always been immoral whatever your background political or religious. I think we as a country need to start asking for American made goods for our own good. We need jobs,people need to feel proud that they did something worth wile with their day. I also feel we will make these goods in a safer cleaner way than china ever will. If you say we cant I say you are a fool. Just look at Germany they are the worlds second largest exporter. They do it with strict controls, high quality standards and unions too. What if people started walking into stores and said what do you have that was made in America.

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How about recycling for one.It is always cheaper to recycle things like metal and make products with that recycled base material then to start from scratch and smelt ore to make new steel,copper,ect.


When it becomes truly cheaper, the market makes that happen. My local structural steel guys recycle on a grand scale because it makes economic sense. The problem is that for the individual consumer it costs potentially significant amounts of labor, and there's no payoff. The transaction costs are too high.


It also seems common sense that if you are producing a higher quality,more durable product then you would need to make less of them and that leads to savings in both material,energy and labor.


Not if the increase in unit profit is outweighed by the loss in total sales. People who make cheap **** respond to the same profit incentives everyone else does. If it were always more profitable to do as you say, that'd be all the incentive people would need to do it.

In the majority of cases cheap,throw away tools are not the answer.


A lot of people appear to disagree.

Better to buy something that will last and can maybe be passed on to the next generation(like we used to do). Better for the environment,less use of finite resources and less energy consumed because there are less of them that need to be made.


I already addressed this. You can buy with the next generation in mind if you like, but many people reasonably conclude that subsidizing the next generation's tool purchases by overpaying now isn't the best use of their own finite resource -- their labor.

Cranking out a less than durable product may put money in someone`s pocket but it still is less than responsible in regard to resources,energy and pollution.


How durable is durable enough?

That aside, producing goods that are affordable for more people doesn't just make the producers better off. It also increases the welfare of consumers who'd otherwise do without.

One of the best ways to be environmentally responsible and still get by on the cheap is something quite a few of us already do,buy used equipment and materials.Some of us even go so far as to rebuild clapped out machines we find as scrap or drag out of the woods.


The availability of cheap, new alternatives also helps keep down the price of your used goods. And not everyone has the skills to do as you're suggesting.
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