U.S. to Investigate China Furniture Trade: CAN WE COMPETE AGAINST THIS??

Newsday ^ | January 9, 2004, 4:46 PM EST | By DEE-ANN DURBIN

[RaceBannon]

U.S. to Investigate China Furniture Trade

By DEE-ANN DURBIN Associated Press Writer

January 9, 2004, 4:46 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- A federal trade panel voted Friday to investigate allegations that Chinese companies are dumping millions of dollars worth of wooden bedroom furniture into the U.S. market at artificially low prices.

With little discussion, the U.S. International Trade Commission gave a victory to the 30 American furniture manufacturers that filed a petition seeking the investigation. Manufacturers say China's practices are costing U.S. jobs, but U.S. retailers say high tariffs on Chinese furniture will cost retail jobs.

"We have cleared a major hurdle with today's vote," said John Bassett, president and CEO of Virginia-based Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co.

A group of furniture retailers that includes J.C. Penney and Crate & Barrel vowed to fight efforts to impose taxes on Chinese imports. Furniture manufacturers are seeking duties of around 250 percent.

"This petition is a brazen and hypocritical attempt by some domestic furniture companies to use the U.S. government to manipulate the bedroom furniture market in their favor," said Mike Veitenheimer, vice president of The Bombay Company.

To start an investigation, the commission must decide there is a reasonable indication that a trade practice has injured a U.S. industry. The Commerce Department will conduct the investigation, which is expected to be completed in early May.

U.S. furniture makers say they have lost more than a quarter of their domestic workers in the last three years. In the meantime, they say, China has been exporting illegally government-subsidized furniture that sells for less than the cost to make it.

"By moving ahead in this investigation, we are sending a clear message to China that unfair and illegal trade practices will not be tolerated," Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., said Friday.

Fellow Republican Sens. John Warner and George Allen, both of Virginia, and Democratic Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan also have protested China's practices to Commerce Secretary Don Evans.

[RaceBannon]

Make sure you keep repeating the mantra!

The problem is not jobs leaving the country, it is not capital equipment leaving the country, the problem is not intellectual property leaving the country, the problem is not contracts going to communistic/fascistic/socialistic government run countries that prop up their companies with government funds to defer losses that the US companies cannot compete against...

THE PROBLEM IS YOUR ATTITUDE ABOUT IT!! JUST KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THINGS WILL GET BETTER AND THEY WILL!

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[teldon30]

Ostrich bump!

[dawn53]

We had no idea about the China/furniture connection until about a year ago.

We wanted to buy a pool table. Shopped at our local Recreational Warehouse, and priced one for home use at around $4000.

Then I told my husband, I'd check eBay to see if anyone was selling one in our region.

What I discovered on ebay was one retailer who sold pool tables, exclusively. He had thousands of feedback. The tables looked beautiful, they had all the features of the more expensive table we had looked at.

Only difference, they were 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost of the retail tables we had seen. We figured they bought in bulk and were able to retail lower. So we purchased one.

Our table arrived (about 10 weeks later), and the installers came out and put it up. It was beautiful, it was everything that had been promised. The installers said they didn't understand how the guy could sell them so inexpensively.

But then what was printed on one side of one of the boxes caught our eye. It was "made in China."

Who knew, we were amazed, that it could be cost effective for a pool table to be made in China, shipped halfway around the world, and still be sold fo a profit in the US.

[RaceBannon]

Some Freepers here would commend that guy for starting his own business...selling furniture/import-export...

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

[To start an investigation, the commission must decide there is a reasonable indication that a trade practice has injured a U.S. industry. The Commerce Department will conduct the investigation, which is expected to be completed in early May. ]

While Robert Zoellick (our U.S. Trade Representative) was busy reassuring foreign countries that we will continue to send millions of offshored American jobs to them, he ignores the plight of our own manufacturers in furniture, textiles, etc. They fight alone against Communist China's manipulation of the market.

[metesky]

There's a place up here that sells nothing but Chinese made furniture. It all looks great from ten feet away. Some of it is very ornate.

Up close, the lack of quality becomes very obvious.

Spend a little extra and by something American or even Swedish that you know at least has a chance of becoming an heirloom piece.

[LIBERTARIAN JOE]

Spend a little extra and by something American or even Swedish that you know at least has a chance of becoming an heirloom piece

Me & the wife are going furniture shopping today... she's got the idea that were going to rooms to go & spending a thousand or so & buying a couch, recliner & curio cabinet. She's completely forgotten that the reason we're refurnishing our living room after less than 3 years is that we went the chinese route last time (not intentionally... we ordered from a catalog & didn't know it was imported).

Quality ain't cheap. Last time, we bought a couple of hundred dollars of chinese crap for $1400, crap that didn't last 2 years before the fabric started to disintegrate. This time we'll spend a few thousand for American furniture that'll be around long after we're gone.

[Bringbackthedraft]

We saved a bundle furishing our condo by buying used pieces. They were in A-1 condition and made in the USA. However we still liked the new wicker patio set that came from China or Indonesia.

[Dialup Llama]

>There's a place up here that sells nothing but Chinese made furniture. It all looks great from ten feet away. Some of it is very ornate.

I remember trying to buy 'real' furniture for my place and get rid of the dorm furniture. This was a couple of years ago and it was nearly impossible then. Yes a good couch will cost $1,200 but everyone wants to sell you some IKEA type dorm furniture at a $600-$800 dollar price point. It looks nice and has a 'design' to it. But when you look at it closely, its imported, freakin, crappy dorm furniture.

[oceanview]

only a small fraction of americans care about quality, if its perceived as being the same at the point of sale, that's all they need, from then on its price only.

costco sells tons of this chinese furniture.

[American in Israel]

Who knew, we were amazed, that it could be cost effective for a pool table to be made in China, shipped halfway around the world, and still be sold fo a profit in the US.

The Chinese ship concrete to the Bay Area cheaper than we can produce it at home. Now it is not rocket science to produce concrete and shipping it around the world costs a lot of money. Bake limestone and get concrete basicly. Never could understand why it is so necessary to China to collect American Dollars. They want Hi-Tech items in a big way.

Wonder what for? A lot of their population does not even have electricity.

[metesky]

Bake limestone and get concrete basically.

You'll call me picky, but this drives me crazy. Maybe because I'm an old construction hand. What you are talking about is cement which is mixed with an aggregate (sand and gravel) and water to make concrete.

I know I sound pompous.
:O(

[pttttt]

Here's an interesting New Yorker Magazine article about concrete construction.

[Theo]

Chinese (and Indian) products tend to be poorer quality than US products, whether it's furniture or software.

I'm in the software industry, and now much of the development of our main "tool" for further developing applications/software is done in India. The last two releases have been pretty buggy. I'd blame that on its being written in India rather than in the States or the UK (where another of our offices is).

Some day people in my industry will start the think again of something besides the immediate pay-off, the immediate salary ramifications, and perhaps think of the quality and long-term implications of outsourcing our work to India/China/Russia etc.

Or maybe not. We've become pretty tolerant of verniered-plywood furniture; we'll become pretty tolerant of verniered-plywood software.....

[A. Pole]

"This petition is a brazen and hypocritical attempt by some domestic furniture companies to use the U.S. government to manipulate the bedroom furniture market in their favor," said Mike Veitenheimer, vice president of The Bombay Company.

Indian or Chinese companies would NEVER use their governments to manipulate the market in their favor!

[hedgetrimmer]

"By moving ahead in this investigation, we are sending a clear message to China that unfair and illegal trade practices will not be tolerated," Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., said Friday

Like the dumping that put our garlic farmers and honey producers out of business? Like the dumping that is putting our steel industry out of business so China can purchase the manufacturing plants and relocate them to China?

[ninenot]

Yeah. We got some PRC furniture as a gift. Awful stuff; joints were loose, drawers were loose...

The Milwaukee area's largest furniture retailer is going direct to China beginning this year. They do around $78 million in sales--it's the talk of the furniture business around here.

You can, with some work, find made-in-USA furniture for reasonable prices. Mostly it's the Amish stuff, which is solid, but low-overhead manufacturers.

[ninenot]

Yeah. Attitude counts when the sheriff sells your home, eh?

I wonder if PRC competition has also stiffed the commercial furniture market...it's seriously down, lotsa layoffs at Steelcase, etc.

BEST USA-made contract furniture plant just closed (Sheboygan, WI.) Article on the event was posted by yours truly, dated around 12/31...titled "China Turns the Tables"

[bvw]

The Civil War. It had many reasons. It's cast an an anti-slavery war, or a war to preserve to Union, or a war for State's Rights, or an economic war of the manufacturing economy versus the slave economy. Rarely do you see it cast as a war for the Rule of a Republic of Laws versus a Rule by a Landed and Aristocratic Gentry, but that's reason I hold paramount, and the reason why the Union won.

Yet all the reasons stated and more had to do with it. All major factors.

The Civil War, far removed from it we are! Not.

Here it is again. This time it is Global. And we'll have to fight China down, as well as every other "nation" that tries to have a Rule by a Few over the many. Where a Rule, a dicta of the favored Few, overrules the Rule of Law and Due Process. Any nation that does not realign itself to a republic under Rule of Law, and that Law close enough to ours, or an equal under Natural Law doctrine is our enemy.

And there -- China! What is it almost exactly like? Like the Pre Bellum South. Instead of slave-based agriculture they have slave-based manufacturing. Instead of plantations owned by the ruling gentry they have factories, factory towns and trade organizations run by the ruling elite -- a mixture of old Red Army Military and Triad merchant families. Yet they do NOT have a Rule of Law -- it is Rule by the elite. Their Laws, by and large, when they use them squarely are fair enough, but the fatal flaw is in the master, the ability to overrule. It is the same flaw that drew us into a bloody war against the South.

And here today, we KNOW we are fighting the so-called Terror War, and amazingly that "Terror War" resolves itself to be almost exactly like our long wars versus the Indians. And the Indian Wars continued even during the Civil War.

Yet here today, our own elite, it is a minority opinion to all appearance that we are locked in more than Trade Wars with China and other such slaver states, It is a war over the Rule of Law. In a global market a slaver is an outlaw. Or at the least: it is at irreconcilible variance to our system. We COULD be the loser. We COULD be the outlaw. Maybe slave-based economies are the natural order.

No. They were. The world can live with slavery in a peacable order of things. But it is a low order, one of failed spirituality and human endeavor.

We can and should make Freedom mandatory throughout the world. It is a higher aspiration. It allows for men and women to reach higher levels -- of all aspects of human existence, material, intellectual, comfort, and spiritual.