This is a super important point. You go to Home Depot and you see something with the American flag on it. You turn it over - “Made in the USA with domestic and global materials.” Read - a lot of Chinese inputs, parts and subassemblies. That along with a small markup for the fellow poorly paid American assembly worker, and a huge markup for the corporation owner. Cut the middle man and let the American worker deal with him many-on-one - something that has to happen anyways, if this shit is to ever get better.
I can attest to this from personal experience. I once worked on a product that I designed in Canada. All the parts were manufactured in China. The only thing done in the US was putting in the five screws to hold it all together. That was enough to earn it a cute little stars and stripes sticker.
Fucking hell. I mean we all suspect it and anyone who’s opened anything can see what’s inside but when you hear it from someone first hand it still hits different. Thanks for sharing!
I bought a pack of hot sauces bottles. The peppers were grown in the US, the sauce was brewed in Flordia, shipped to china (presumably in barrels), bottled and packaged, and ship back to the US. We cant even bottle our own shit any more.
This reminds me of a domestic plastic molding shop that couldn’t make their molds. Instead they sent CAD to China to get the tools made. I think it was a part of SmarterEveryDay’s oddysey into trying to make a BBQ brush in the US.
I recall how happy I was with my stars-and-stripes Stanley FatMax tape measure when I bought it years ago. Back when we were still all-in on the US love affair and the China-bad train.
with a small markup for the fellow poorly paid American assembly worker
You forget that the fellow poorly paid Chinese assembly worker endures even more hardship under a coerced labour regime. We must have transparent global supply chains - something China has been lobbying against for years - ‘if this shit is to ever get better.’
Beware of Chinese propaganda outlets as well. Especially on Lemmy.
Whatever big NGO will have decent information on China, as will anyone who’s been there. It’s openly authoritarian and aggressively nationalist, but pretty well-functioning and stability-loving within those significant constraints. And like anywhere in peacetime, a normal day is normal.
(At least in the core Chinese areas. Obviously Xinjiang is fully in the middle of a genocide, and Tibet does have notes of the same system)
I haven’t. Us cutting the US middle man can only affect my fellow Chinese worker positively since there’s more money left from the transaction without that middle man and less leverage to depress her pay, ceteris paribus.
Oh, no, your fellow Chinese worker will still suffer from forced labour under the same regime while the markup goes the corporation owner. It’s just now a Chinese company owner under the control of a dictator. That’s the same thing, but you criticize the one and praise the other. What a hypocrisy.
The vast majoriry of manufacturing in China has always been done by Chinese companies. Goods we buy from Walmart aren’t made by Walmart factories in China, employing Chinese workers. Walmart finds the cheapest Chinese manufacturer of trays then orders their Great Value branded version, shipped straight from the factory to the Walmart distribution hub. Walmart is the middle man. We cut them. The existing employer of the Chinese worker making the trays remains unchanged. There’s no hypocrisy. We’re cutting the most profit-hungry middle man from the supply chain is all. We know how things work.
This. I starred buying from AliExpress years back because amazon stores were just sending the exact same product for 5-10x the price. People got upset and said I wasn’t supporting american entepaneurs stores they setup. Lol. And that Aliexpress owner is a billionaire. Sure, but why make Bezos rich too? Just buy direct.
I was referring to the possibility of Canada making trade deals with China, which is causing Trump to get butthurt and threaten tariffs.
Of course not everything we trade with China will be consumer goods, but some parts of a trade deal may include consumer goods, which may overlap with similar goods we buy from the US, which are all made in China anyway. Hence cutting out the middleman.
I really wonder what america is even producing at this point. Americans are all high and mighty and shit on “chinese crap”. That’s what i think when i have to use something made in the usa. They use their weird middle aged measurement system to produce cheap garbage where you need said middle aged tools to use or fix. And somehow it’s expensive
Everything we buy from the US is made in China anyway, so we’re just cutting out the middleman.
If we can eliminate US IP protection next then we can build our own technology and do away with them completely.
This is a super important point. You go to Home Depot and you see something with the American flag on it. You turn it over - “Made in the USA with domestic and global materials.” Read - a lot of Chinese inputs, parts and subassemblies. That along with a small markup for the fellow poorly paid American assembly worker, and a huge markup for the corporation owner. Cut the middle man and let the American worker deal with him many-on-one - something that has to happen anyways, if this shit is to ever get better.
The owner of home depot is a trump supporter. I do not shop there.
Same. Rona’s American private equity owned, so also a Trump supporter.
First off, you mean CEO. There were two co-CEO’s. One used to be a Trump supporter. He died.
Oooo can has link so i can gloat?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/05/bernie-marcus-home-depot-dead
I can’t believe these two statements are in the same article lmao. Rest in piss bozo!
Or it was made with prison labour.
That’s a very nice way of describing legal slavery.
Yeah I always forget about that. I’ve yet to internalize that prison labour is an integral part of Anerican production, especially in certain sectors.
I can attest to this from personal experience. I once worked on a product that I designed in Canada. All the parts were manufactured in China. The only thing done in the US was putting in the five screws to hold it all together. That was enough to earn it a cute little stars and stripes sticker.
Fucking hell. I mean we all suspect it and anyone who’s opened anything can see what’s inside but when you hear it from someone first hand it still hits different. Thanks for sharing!
I bought a pack of hot sauces bottles. The peppers were grown in the US, the sauce was brewed in Flordia, shipped to china (presumably in barrels), bottled and packaged, and ship back to the US. We cant even bottle our own shit any more.
This reminds me of a domestic plastic molding shop that couldn’t make their molds. Instead they sent CAD to China to get the tools made. I think it was a part of SmarterEveryDay’s oddysey into trying to make a BBQ brush in the US.
“Assembled in USA” with the stars n stripes and a screaming bald eagle.
Its a shovel with a Chinese steel head in a Canadian wood shaft
I recall how happy I was with my stars-and-stripes Stanley FatMax tape measure when I bought it years ago. Back when we were still all-in on the US love affair and the China-bad train.
You forget that the fellow poorly paid Chinese assembly worker endures even more hardship under a coerced labour regime. We must have transparent global supply chains - something China has been lobbying against for years - ‘if this shit is to ever get better.’
Almost everything I thought I knew about China came from usa sources which I now question.
Beware of Chinese propaganda outlets as well. Especially on Lemmy.
Whatever big NGO will have decent information on China, as will anyone who’s been there. It’s openly authoritarian and aggressively nationalist, but pretty well-functioning and stability-loving within those significant constraints. And like anywhere in peacetime, a normal day is normal.
(At least in the core Chinese areas. Obviously Xinjiang is fully in the middle of a genocide, and Tibet does have notes of the same system)
I haven’t. Us cutting the US middle man can only affect my fellow Chinese worker positively since there’s more money left from the transaction without that middle man and less leverage to depress her pay, ceteris paribus.
Oh, no, your fellow Chinese worker will still suffer from forced labour under the same regime while the markup goes the corporation owner. It’s just now a Chinese company owner under the control of a dictator. That’s the same thing, but you criticize the one and praise the other. What a hypocrisy.
The vast majoriry of manufacturing in China has always been done by Chinese companies. Goods we buy from Walmart aren’t made by Walmart factories in China, employing Chinese workers. Walmart finds the cheapest Chinese manufacturer of trays then orders their Great Value branded version, shipped straight from the factory to the Walmart distribution hub. Walmart is the middle man. We cut them. The existing employer of the Chinese worker making the trays remains unchanged. There’s no hypocrisy. We’re cutting the most profit-hungry middle man from the supply chain is all. We know how things work.
You are just parroting propaganda.
I’m sorry you think that, but I’m not the one with half-dozen accounts spamming China-bad all day, every day:
O.O
Get. A. Real. Job.
This. I starred buying from AliExpress years back because amazon stores were just sending the exact same product for 5-10x the price. People got upset and said I wasn’t supporting american entepaneurs stores they setup. Lol. And that Aliexpress owner is a billionaire. Sure, but why make Bezos rich too? Just buy direct.
🙋 That would have been me some time ago.
Trump’s tariffs are on things Americans buy from Canada.
Indeed.
I was referring to the possibility of Canada making trade deals with China, which is causing Trump to get butthurt and threaten tariffs.
Of course not everything we trade with China will be consumer goods, but some parts of a trade deal may include consumer goods, which may overlap with similar goods we buy from the US, which are all made in China anyway. Hence cutting out the middleman.
I really wonder what america is even producing at this point. Americans are all high and mighty and shit on “chinese crap”. That’s what i think when i have to use something made in the usa. They use their weird middle aged measurement system to produce cheap garbage where you need said middle aged tools to use or fix. And somehow it’s expensive
just source generic version from china,.