Posted on 01/15/2024 9:05:03 PM PST by jfd1776
In 61 years on this earth, I have never needed an oscillating multitool until now. But I’m working on a project that requires one (for cutting away a couple inches of baseboard on either side of a door, to accommodate door replacement and new casing).
So, I headed to our local Walmart. I will probably only use it for this project and never need it again, so I didn’t need to spend much. I found four options: a $20 multitool, a $35 model, a $45 model, and a $70 model. Different brands, different power levels, probably different quality levels, but they would definitely all meet my needs for this simple one-time project.
So, I decided to buy the cheapest one that wasn’t made in China.
Checked the sides or bottoms of each box, and – you guessed it – they’re all made in China.
So, I bought the one for 20 bucks. Chairman Xi can’t kill as many people with $20 as he can with $70, anyway. It’s the best I could do.
We have all been there, haven’t we?
We hear of the demise of American manufacturing, and it we know in our hearts that it’s not quite true. America still makes cars and trucks, kitchen appliances and sump pumps. We still print books here, grow food here, and make machinery here.
Your refrigerator, your car, and the construction materials of which your house was made are probably all still made here. That’s an enormous amount of manufacturing. So it’s not true to say “it’s all gone.”
But it IS true to say that American manufacturing is handicapped, that it’s limping along, fully capable in some areas, but endangered to the point of extinction in others...
(Excerpt) Read more at afnn.us ...
I use Harbor Freight.
Most of their stuff comes from China. It is not premium quality. If you need something for just occasional work go to Harbor Freight and buy it at half or less the price. If you need tools to make a living with buy high quality tools that will last. Oddly their wrenches and sockets and drives are not bad. If it is an electric tool it will not last as long as a quality and expensive tool. Items such as sandpaper, electrical fittings, chains, hoses etc. are no different than what you pay for name brand stuff and much cheaper.
America has to get its head around the idea that not focusing on the lowest dollar all the time is necessary in order to bring back manufacturing back to America.
The good news is that automation will reduce the difference between the price of a China made item and an American one.
In my case, the $20 unit did much better than the name brand (when installing tile). Don’t know what the heck was wrong with the name brand, but it sucked. So he bought the right item.
The problem is... what do we do when there’s a war and we can’t trade with China anymore?
What do we do when the one country where damn near EVERYTHING is made now, becomes either an illegal source or an impossible source.
Remember, we don’t have to go to war with China for it to become unavailable to us. If there’s a war there - likely with China and NK on one side, and SK, Japan, Taiwan, Philipines and Australia on the other - then the transpacific supply chain will cease for a few years.
America MUST become independent of that damned country.
“The problem is... what do we do when there’s a war and we can’t trade with China anymore? “
Exactly !
But the reality is that USA major military contractors admit they are dependent on chinese parts. So it is actually already over.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/19/raytheon-china-greg-hayes-decoupling/
In my view the only think that will change it would be a crash in the $US. If imports become unaffordable, people would have to make it in the US with US materials, or do without.
should of used a hand flush cut saw or a toe kick saw.
Even a lot of stuff *Made in America* is often mostly assembled here of Chinese made parts and components.
Those Baerskin Hoodies that get advertised every five seconds are made and shipped directly from Chins.
If we go to war with China, there will be no shoes. Think on that.
We still import way too many metal removal machine tools. There are still a lot of things that can’t be made to specifications by any 3D printing process. The list below shows U.S. machine tool manufacturers in 1942, some of which may still be in business.
1 Cincinnati Milling Machine Co.
2 Brown & Sharpe Co.
3 Bullard Co.
4 Warner & Swasey Co.
5 National Acme Co.
6 Kearney & Trecker Corp.
7 Van Norman Machine Tool Co.
8 Gisholt Machine Co.
9 Monarch Machine Tool Co.
10 Heald Machine Co.
11 Norton Co.
12 Gleason Works.
13 New Britain Machine Co.
14 Pratt & Whitney Co.
15 Jones & Lamson Machine Co.
16 Cone Automatic Machine Co.
17 Fellows Gear Shaper Co.
18 Hendey Machine Co.
19 Ex-Cell-O Corp.
20 General Machinery Corp, Div. Niles Tool Works.
20 American Tool Works Co.
22 Landis Tool Co.
23 Bryant Chucking Grinder Co.
24 Lodge & Shipley Machine Tool Co.
25 Landis Machine Co.
“National Acme Co.”
How many customers beyond While Coyote?
The Houthi rebels? /s
“America has to get its head around the idea that not focusing on the lowest dollar all the time is necessary in order to bring back manufacturing back to America.”
Prior to the globalist George H. W. Bush beginning the globalist free trade policies that destroyed American industry, we had:
1). Most manufacturing jobs paid a middle class wage versus $1.00 a day wages in China. In addition manufacturing jobs were a ladder for unskilled labor and high school grads to reach a middle class lifestyle and white collar jobs.
2). Quotas that restricted the amount of goods in various product categories that could be imported. Thanks to quotas, apparel sewing factories in Pennsylvania, Appalachia and the poor rural south provided jobs and income for poor people who today are on the dole. Often the reliable income from a sewing job for the wife, allowed small farmers to survive.
3). Tariffs on foreign products provided income to the federal government and protected American domestic supply chains. Remember, in the 35 years from the 1865 to 1900 the United States had the highest tariffs in its history. During that 35 years the US experienced an incredible economic growth rate moving from a primarily agricultural nation devastated by four years of civil war to the greatest industrial economy on the planet. So much for the claim by modern economists protective tarriffs are not economically beneficial.
4). Our integrated domestic manufacturing supply chains were essential both for a strong middle class and national security. The United States and the western powers won WWII in the factories of the United States. Without the conversion of US factories to war production, and the unprecedented output of military weapons and supplies from those factories, the armies, navies, and air forces that defeated Japan and Germany would not have been possible.
If you want to rebuild manufacturing in the US, you are going to have to bring back tariffs and quotas. Otherwise there is no economic incentive to rebuild the factories in the US.
We won ww2 because of our manufacturing capabilities that no longer exist.
It's okay. I have been assured that an army marches on its stomach.
Or crawls.
Something like that.
China wins its wars these days without firing a shot.
China just buys a country’s pols.
Who needs an army?
A lot of those machine tool companies were in New England. We are now infested with libtards, but still make shit ton of guns.
1978-1981 I worked at a family-owned manufacturer of super precision ball bearing lead screws and I recognize the names of those NE companies...We made their ball screws, and by mid-1980 we had incorporated a half-dozen or so Asian-made CNC machine tools on the shop floor. There was also a huge increase in the number of customer orders requiring metric threads. There was a lot of momentum towards foreign imports from Japan and Korea and it coincided with the slump in the automotive industry.
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