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To: navyblue
Yeah, how I miss my American power tools. Porter-cable. DeWalt.....hell, even Bosch is made in China now. Who woulda thunk the Germans would sacrifice their reputation for quality stuff and go outsource!

They are not outsourced. These are tools assembled by Bosch employees in China.* The key parts are probably imported into China (to avoid having to pass on the relevant technology to the mandatory 50% Chinese partner) and bolted together there. A lot of final assembly is done in China because labor costs are so cheap that they outweigh the cost of shipping container-loads of different parts, sorting them out on the assembly line, and then shipping the assembled product back to stores on the other side of the planet.

* Who are probably better-educated than their counterparts in Germany, not because Chinese are generally better-educated, but because Bosch, like other Western companies, likely pays well above Chinese company wages to get a better-quality worker. This is what people mean when they talk about Chinese labor shortages. It's not a shortage of hands per se - it's a shortage of people qualified (ethically- and skill-wise) to work at Western companies at wages that are competitive with low-wage countries outside of China.

5 posted on 05/14/2007 5:31:56 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
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To: Zhang Fei
It's not a shortage of hands per se - it's a shortage of people qualified (ethically- and skill-wise) to work at Western companies at wages that are competitive with low-wage countries outside of China.

"ethically..." Hmmmm
8 posted on 05/14/2007 5:43:59 PM PDT by gas0linealley
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