Hobby Lobby is a one stop shop retailer for arts,crafts supplies, furniture and many other items.
Last time I shopped there I did a little investigating. Everything in the store in made in China!
You're telling me we can't make crayons and pencils in the USA? This is frustrating because now I have to add Hobby Lobby to my list of places to avoid. Michaels is not even as big an offender, although I've noticed they are starting to bring in cheaper and cheaper materials and paints. (at least in my area)
What ever happened to quality merchandise from places like Germany, Sweden, Hungry, and Poland? Less than a month ago I bought a bike in real nice condition from 1963 made in Austria for $35. It rides better than my 10 year old bike! I am very skeptical of items which say "Assembled in America from parts overseas" does anyone else feel like were being duped?
Anyway, you're hardly being duped - you're simply benefiting from cheap overseas labour.
Previously, you could only buy products made in N.America / Europe, and they were always very expensive because of the high cost of labour in those regions - but that was never a guarantee of quality anyway.
Now, you can still do that if you want to, but you also have the choice of buying a Chinese made product, costing far less, yet often of equivalent or higher quality.
You just can't have both.
The bigger issue is that companies (not just in China) now intentionally design products with built-in obsolescence - not because their factories can't produce quality products or to cut costs, but because the company makes more money if you're forced to frequently replace items.
As for the effect on the domestic labour market, balance of payments, etc - that's just too bad. Trying to make some kind of political statement by paying over the odds for something just because of where it was made, is not going to have any effect, and quite frankly it's a luxury I can't afford.
Okay so I'm not cray after all. It's easy to see on certain products in which something is made of plastic (usually a critical part) when obviously they should have chose another material or at least made it thicker. Just imagine that it's the job of an educated engineer somewhere to purposely design a product to fail? RIDICULOUS! Designing a product to fail whether its on purpose or not is a good reason to shun Chinese merchandise.
"American made products not a guarantee of quality?" LOL! Why then did most industrialized counties strive to be more like America then? We built quality automobiles and merchandise in such a way that it impacted the world. In a way we set the standard for the rest of the world which was devastated after World War 2. The design of our highway systems have even been copied by countries like Japan. (Too be fair we based our designs off of the German Autobahn.)
Explain to me why true American made products continually last when their inferior modern equivalent does not? Maybe you should watch an episode of American Pickers?
Unions got too greedy in my opinion which is another issue. I can proudly say that a vast majority of American made products I have owned are indeed quality items. When an entire store carries products from a single country that is a problem! Oh wait the balsa wood airplanes near the cash registers are made in the USA. (HobbyLobby)
Still it makes no sense the size of things are shrinking and the prices rise. I'd be okay with the prices rising if at least products stayed the same size! In a recession things are not supposed to raise in price! Any teacher who knows basic economics will tell you that. Simply put it's just plain and simple greed ruling the planet. Whoever also came up with the idea of a Global economy system should be blasted into outer space.
Originally Posted by NostalgicAlgorithms Okay so I'm not cray after all. It's easy to see on certain products in which something is made of plastic (usually a critical part) when obviously they should have chose another material or at least made it thicker. Just imagine that it's the job of an educated engineer somewhere to purposely design a product to fail? RIDICULOUS! Designing a product to fail whether its on purpose or not is a good reason to shun Chinese merchandise.
"American made products not a guarantee of quality?" LOL! Why then did most industrialized counties strive to be more like America then? We built quality automobiles and merchandise in such a way that it impacted the world. In a way we set the standard for the rest of the world which was devastated after World War 2. The design of our highway systems have even been copied by countries like Japan. (Too be fair we based our designs off of the German Autobahn.)
Explain to me why true American made products continually last when their inferior modern equivalent does not? Maybe you should watch an episode of American Pickers?
Unions got too greedy in my opinion which is another issue. I can proudly say that a vast majority of American made products I have owned are indeed quality items. When an entire store carries products from a single country that is a problem! Oh wait the balsa wood airplanes near the cash registers are made in the USA. (HobbyLobby)
Still it makes no sense the size of things are shrinking and the prices rise. I'd be okay with the prices rising if at least products stayed the same size! In a recession things are not supposed to raise in price! Any teacher who knows basic economics will tell you that. Simply put it's just plain and simple greed ruling the planet. Whoever also came up with the idea of a Global economy system should be blasted into outer space.
It doesn't make sense? Dude, America is the epitome of a capitalist economy. Expensive products that can be manufactured dirt cheap are our lifebood. Unfortunately, Americans aren't willing to work for next-to-nothing and American businesses can't afford raw manufacturing materials like China can. It'd be nice if you could walk into a store and see an American made equivalent for every "made in China" product on the shelf. You DON'T have that option anymore. There are whole stores devoted to imported products (WalMart), but look at the type of people who shop at stores like that. They're just out for savings. That's not embarrassing or petty; it's just reality.
Even if American companies began to manufacture despite the costly materials and expensive labor, the only way they could make up for that is by increasing the cost of their goods. Expensive products that hardly anybody will buy when confronted with the option of buying something comparable and cheaper. That's just how capitalism works in a recession. My girlfriend's aunt is a multi-millionaire who shops at Walmart and DollarTree all the time.
Talk to most any American and they would agree there's not enough American-made, or quality-crafted goods sold in America. That's the public opinion, but the private buying habits of Americans show that the vast majority of us either can't afford or don't care enough.
ChrisD> Employer: Say, wanna see a magic trick?
ChrisD> Employee: Uhh… sure, boss.
ChrisD> Employer: Your job! It just disappeared! Pack your things and leave! Pretty good trick, huh?
Originally Posted by NostalgicAlgorithms Still it makes no sense the size of things are shrinking and the prices rise. I'd be okay with the prices rising if at least products stayed the same size! In a recession things are not supposed to raise in price! Any teacher who knows basic economics will tell you that.
Begging your pardon, but that's exactly what a recession is supposed to do.
Technically speaking, prices don't rise; it's the currency that loses value; that's the definition of recession. It's not an easy concept to understand at first, but when you're discussing rising prices, falling quality of goods, and the nightmares inherent in a global economy, it's important to know the fundamentals like the act of state currency losing its value in comparison to goods, the labor force, and the means of production.
Here's what I recommend people read, should they be seriously interested in this sort of thing.
Good stuff! It would seem my economics teacher was an idiot. He also was convinced you ride a bike toward oncoming traffic... (Florida Education what can I say?)
The USA can make affordable and profitable products. Why and how? Because we used to for many years. Germany admired the US for being self sustaining. They wanted to achieve this but as we know they went about it the wrong way... I don't believe that we have inadequate access to raw materials or can't pay people a fair wage. What it comes down to is power and greed. Unless we are careful work camps are the future and as the division between rich and poor becomes even greater, its only a matter of time before everyone is a slave.
Just because the USA *used to* be able to make affordable and profitable products, doesn't mean it can now. That was before China and India had large scale industry. Those countries will always be able to make basic products to an equally high standard but at a substantially lower cost, because they have extremely cheap labour, lower taxes and far fewer restrictions on working conditions, environmental pollution, etc.
Since you mention work camps, slaves, etc - did you know that:
American prisoners produce 100% of American military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet proof vests, ID tags and other items of uniform. They also produce 93% of domestically produced paints, 36% of household appliances and 21% of office furniture. This allows the USA to compete with cheap imports because the prisoners cannot refuse to work. The incentive to work in prison is that if you do not you are given solitary confinement.
The USA is in much the same situation as Britain, which is that it can't (and shouldn't) compete with developing countries like China and India when it comes to mass producing cheap, low-tech products (such as the stuff you buy from Walmart). Rather, it needs to focus on the high-tech, high-value, low-quantity products that those countries can't make. That's why Germany's economy is doing so well - they're great at that kind of thing (especially luxury cars and other vehicles).
Originally Posted by Sketchy Since you mention work camps, slaves, etc - did you know that:
American prisoners produce 100% of American military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet proof vests, ID tags and other items of uniform. They also produce 93% of domestically produced paints, 36% of household appliances and 21% of office furniture. This allows the USA to compete with cheap imports because the prisoners cannot refuse to work. The incentive to work in prison is that if you do not you are given solitary confinement.
Your words related to prisoner statistics resonated with me, Sketchy. The fate of the US economy and its prisons are thickly intertwined.
There's an idea closely related to the global economy and this "new slavery" called the prison industrial complex. It's the notion that, in order to compete globally with developing countries that have access to cheap labor and a burgeoning economy with hardly any labor laws to restrict development, the US needs to generate cheap labor for itself, outside of unions and outside of its own labor laws. Their answer? Prisoners.
Why has the "war on drugs" continued, in the face of ever-mounting evidence that there is absolutely no reduction in drug use (the supposed purpose of the drug war policies)? Because corporations have a vested interest in continuing the mandatory minimum sentences, illegal status of marijuana, and other draconian laws that disproportionately punish the under-educated, under-represented (in politics), and poverty-stricken. For many reasons, these folks are unable to work at a regular job, or keep it for long.
So instead of constantly staying on welfare/the dole, benign activities are considered illegal, which puts these folks in prisons. Mandatory minimum sentencing keeps them there for an exaggerated length of time, within which they're pretty much required to work for pennies a day in a life threatening environment, with overseers who don't give a damn whether or not the prisoners ever leave.
Communities in the United States today hope that a prison is built in their post-industrial town, because it at least means there will be jobs coming to their area. It's not just prison guards; it's construction, food prep and production, infrastructure such as roads, and so on. As a result, there is no incentive to reduce criminality, and there is a strong incentive to create more laws that will inevitably be broken, producing more criminals.
The only people who want prisoners to stay out of prisons are people who work outside of the state prison system. Guards (courtesy of the vocal police unions) don't want prisoners to be rehabilitated or laws to be abolished, as this jeopardizes their job security.
I could go on and on about this positively despicable development in the US today (including institutionalized racism within the justice system), but it turns my stomach to think on it too much. But here are some damning statistics about the impact of the prison industrial complex in the US.
As of January 1, 2008, more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail (guilty or awaiting trial).
The United States prison population has quadrupled since 1980, in part due to mandatory sentencing laws part-and-parcel of the "war on drugs."
Even though more and more money is being spent each year on local law enforcement, even though local law enforcement is becoming outfitted with decomissioned military hardware, violent crime has dropped noticeably since the early 1990's, shortly before the first Iraq War. Across the board, all reported crime has dropped in the United States nearly 25% between 1988 and 2008.
From the title of the editorial: "Seventy-Two Cops Were Shot and Killed in the Entire U.S. in 2011; LA County Cops Alone Shot and Killed 54 Suspects the Same Year"
http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/11/seventy-two-cops-were-shot-and-killed-in
It's important that the general public learns about these trends, and why it is so important to lobby against the prison industrial complex. It is also important to realize the War on Drugs is not really about reducing drug use; it's about maintaining global economic competition for the United States at the expense of US citizens themselves, and funneling taxpayer's money into the government, where it will serve only to expand government influence and power.
You forgot the UK NostalgicAlgorithms, we have done some particularly fine examples of engineering!
Although I agree with general idea of people not being duped (the mass public are creating the demand for cheap stuff!) most Chinese products are not of an equivalent or better quality. Wait until the cheap electrolytic capacitors in your monitor start to fail . I have repaired a fair few for friends and family. I still have a 28 inch CRT TV (Hitachi, made in Wales) that my parents brought in 93 in my bedroom (after it was retired from the living room a couple of years ago, for my SNES). Still works a treat.
Some of the Chinese electronics I have taken apart have been appallingly designed, not even considering the aforementioned shoddy quality components. Non continuous ground planes, single layer PCBs (no controlled impedance) for high speed differential signals (read USB), poor or non-existent decoupling, etc etc etc.
That said there are a few Chinese companies that are trying to push a quality aspect but they are few and far between.
On a completely different note, if you had been to China and seen the pollution you would be glad that mass industrial production is NOT happening on your door step.
Originally Posted by ..::hagar::.. You forgot the UK NostalgicAlgorithms, we have done some particularly fine examples of engineering!
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No disagreement there. I've yet to have anything made in the UK disappoint me.
I have a few CRT Tv's and Computer monitors I will never give up. Why? Because they just seem to last forever. Also the range of colors simply cannot be beat by a LCD. (not to mention the near instant response time) The biggest complaint about LCD monitors is that they loose focus on an object in motion. Any FPS gamer should know what I mean.
As for the pollution in China so what? A regimented communist society has no say on the matter. (Boohoo!) It's all about what you deem as an acceptable living standard. Only the people can force a change if they're willing. Don't like it? Then change it. That's the price they pay for flooding the global market with their crap. Communism is total fail and so is working your people to death like worker ants. Procreating like a hive didn't seem to help much either, maybe its time the world considered enforcing a type of population control? We cannot just infinitely breed and expand. It's beyond irresponsible! Unless we can learn to live in harmony with this planet we are all doomed. Mr.Obama and his background involving Communism make me very nervous... Doesn't matter though because the ignorance in this country is unrelenting.
On the matter of American Prisons I say put them to work! The free labor would definably help our economy. It would give life some purpose to these career degenerate dirtballs who think prison is a way of life.
Originally Posted by ..::hagar::.. I still have a 28 inch CRT TV (Hitachi, made in Wales) that my parents brought in 93 in my bedroom (after it was retired from the living room a couple of years ago, for my SNES). Still works a treat.
In fairness, I still have a 28" CRT TV not much newer than yours, but made by Tatung(!). I bought it ex-rental for next to nothing, and it's still working perfectly.
I certainly wouldn't buy white goods made in England. My parents always do, and they never last more than a couple of years.
Originally Posted by NostalgicAlgorithms
As for the pollution in China ... That's the price they pay for flooding the global market with their crap.
Yes, it is. But you're the one saying the USA should be making all that crap instead, and polluting their own environment in the process.
Originally Posted by NostalgicAlgorithms
Procreating like a hive didn't seem to help much either, maybe its time the world considered enforcing a type of population control?
You mean like China?
Actually, China are starting to encounter serious problems, precisely because of its one child policy. They have by far the fastest ageing population in the world, and there's no way there will be enough people of working age to provide and care for all the elderly. Unless they start killing off everyone over a certain age, Logan's Run style, it could potentially cripple their whole economy.
@S-M-R:
Here in the UK, we have our own form of slavery - it's called "the work programme".
Basically, anyone who's been out of work for 6 months is put on this programme (althought they're now trying to expand it to include everyone), and they can be forced to work without pay or they will lose their benefits for up to 3 years - but of course, the amount you receive in benefits is roughly 1/3 of the national minimum wage and none of that comes from the employer.
Big companies, including the major supermarkets, were using it as a source of free labour, having these "volunteers" (yes, that's what the government calls them!) do the exact same duties that would otherwise be performed by paid employees - so in effect, it's taking jobs away from people.
Needless to say, these volunteers are not listed as "unemployed" in the official government statistics, and studies have shown that participation has aboslutely zero effect on the likelihood of gaining paid employment, so really, it's just a way to try and kick people off benefits.
In the end, the media revealed what was going on, and there was massive public outcry, leading to many of the companies and charities involved pulling out.
In fact the mandatory work placement is just one part of the deeply flawed scheme. Another part is that private companies are paid to provide support and skills classes to try and help participants back into work. The problem is that these companies are paid based on results, with the vast majority of their payment coming only when the participant has been in a job for 6-12 months - now it doesn't take a genius to see that you simply can't run a business that way. Predictably, a lot went bust, many others pulled out, and some are being investigated for large scale fraud.
So yeah, it's been conclusively proven that the scheme has been a massive failure, it has no public support, and it's possibly not even legal - and yet the government are dead set on not just continuing it, but expanding it.
Don't forget that China also has orphanages full of young girls. (often only babies) They leave them in rooms until the crying stops then dispose of them like trash. I'm obviously not saying shoot people after a certain age but in less than 30-50 years we may be past the point of no return. Not just China but the entire world. Nothing a good war can't fix right?? China caused much of there own problems in my opinion.
Humanity will never become a Type I civilization for as long communism exists.
If we all could live without so much excess we all would be better off. Especially Americans!
@ NostalgicAlgorithms: I respectfully disagree with your attitudes regarding putting prisoners to work, and in particular your notions regarding the United States and its current government ushering humanity into some kind of "Type 1 Civilization" or beyond.
In short, my opinion is that if the United States (or any government) relies on slave labor to advance its agenda, such an amoral, unethical practice (or practitioner) deserves no respect. Regardless of its accomplishments, the institution will never be able to wash the blood from its hands.
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Edited by NostalgicAlgorithms
As of January 1, 2008, more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail (guilty or awaiting trial).
. I have repaired a fair few for friends and family. I still have a 28 inch CRT TV (Hitachi, made in Wales) that my parents brought in 93 in my bedroom (after it was retired from the living room a couple of years ago, for my SNES). Still works a treat.
