[quote user=“don7”]
If you have shareholders they want max profit.
If I had shares in a manufacturing company and I would most likely receive higher dividends if the
And again Don, Bachmann was a small privately held company before being bought by Kader - no stock holders.
Why is that such a hard idea for you to get your head around?
The OWNER decided to out source production to Hong Kong. Maybe he saw declining sales, rising production costs and saw no other way to control costs and keep prices at a level that would promote sales?
I live near Baltimore, where years ago we made steel, cars, telephones, wire, Tide, bleach, watches, King Syrup, Noxzema, toasters, chemicals, refined oil, etc, etc. etc. And I watched government regulation, high taxes, and union wages price every one of those factories out of business.
When the cost to produce stuff exceeds what OTHERS in the community can afford to pay for those items, production goes somewhere cheaper. Henry Ford doubled wages in his factory during the depression and actually made more money. He also held off the productivity killing unions as long as he could.
Sheldon
GLOBAL ECONOMY A century ago, most western nations had a trade deficit with China from buying tea and silk and opium. This deficit was in money as gold and silver. Made in USA included a lot of gold and silver, so really, we were trading gold and silver for tea and silk. Meanwhile, we can remember the hot trains of tea and silk that scorched the rails of the western railroads.
US EXPORTS Oakland, California is a port that ships more containers than are received. BNSF runs several trains of empty well cars out of Oakland every day. The in-bound empty containers are distributed for loading with California agricultural products and commodities. We are still trading stuff for stuff.
FUNNY MONEY All the major currencies are fiat money… not based on gold and silver. Our trade deficit is really a matter of what China and the US decide the money is worth and what the markets are willing to pay relative to a container full of model railroad stuff or a container full of almonds. Study the history of global economics, and it will be seen that markets, central banks, and monetary policy have more effect than trade deficits.
Trade deficits, that is just a gag that governments use to push policy. The government is under no obligation to even trade goods for dollars. That being said we do because it is good for both sides. Funny thing about Ford is, yes they paid as high as double wages back in the old days but few qualified for them but that is no different from today, unless you are Union, then as a whole you get raises but people like me would get less, hence I never worked union. In fact when I moved back to California from Maryland, I was more than annoyed at the labor laws limiting the amount of hours I could work in a day without overtime, employers do not like to pay overtime!
Personally, I think everyone here and abroad should have decent wages and working conditions even if it means I pay more for goods.
But that aside, manufacturers produce stuff as cheaply as they can. Some while maintaining their own level of quality, but most while maintaining just enough quality to satisfy the consumer.
If that means in China, then it’s in China. As history shows, it won’t last. As cheap manufacturing moved from Japan to Korea and Taiwan to China (and now some to Vietnam) it raised their standard of living. it will eventually move somewhere else until the end of the road is reached and then prices will go up. And each country along the way will have to transition from just being cheap to producing better quality goods.
Enjoy
Paul
Agreed. How long until we’re moaning that all our trains are made in Africa?
Stu
This topic or some variation of it comes around regularly.
Problem is, it soon turns into a circular argument, with all kinds of questionable solutions and theories from those with no skin in the game.
Yes, prices have gone up. Fact of life. So has your income. But people are bad at comparisons, they compare one half of the equation while ignoring the other half. In many cases the costs have declined over time thanks to new materials, better processes, and more efficient manufacturing.
Those who complain about track shortages, well, there are alternatives, but those are not options because it costs more than the track in short supply.
Manufacturing moved to China because it costs less to get tools cut and things assembled. Those who are so vocal about it are also unwilling to pay what it would cost to make it domestically.
Those who complain about regulations, ask yourself, how much is your life worth? Or would you like to be one of people standing in line at a third world factory waiting for someone to be injured or killed so you can jump in and take his place? (Didn’t think so.)
It is the way it is, get used to it. The rest of us have accepted it. These endless discussions are very unproductive and take time away from the trains.
When robber barons ruled the industries that’s the way it was here.Cheap disposable labor.Today its greed of Corporate America using the same tactics with foreign and to some degree domestic labor.
When profit means lost lives and injuries because of unsafe working conditions…That’s just plain wrong.
Larry, it’s convenient to point the finger for those things at greedy corporations, but the fact is people are generally unwilling to pay more for competing goods that may be produced with more regard for working conditions. It is a two-way street, as almost everything is.
As someone wiser than me once said, “there is no product that someone can not make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the person who purchases by price alone are that person’s legal prey.”
If you want to know how strongly someone feels about something, do not listen to their words, look at their actions. It is a little like the people vehemently protesting about construction of a Wal-Mart, yet on opening day, there they stand, in line to get in like everyone else.
We are, indeed, going in circles on this thread, but the entire issue (and those like it, MRR-oriented or not) are ultimately circular. There is no magic bullet to these issues.
And that’s the sad part…We could surely use that magic bullet.
I also agree with your assessment…However,I was thinking more on the line of worker’s safety vs. corporation greed…
In the end it’s government regulations and their enforcement that protect workers. While I don’t like them any more than most folks, I don’t have a better system.
Paul
Forty years ago when I was in the production end of the model railroad business, I would drive to the Athearn factory to deliver parts and visit with Irv Athearn. He would take me around his factory for a tour. Back then he had a factory full of unskilled workers. I remember some operating the printing machine for box cars with really poor quality printing jobs on them. Only way to get that box car to look better was to weather it heavily. The diesels were simple to put together as old friend John Munson, the Athearn company engineer had designed the mechanism to assemble easily. At the time Johns son Leo did the art work for all the lettering on the Athearn models. This was all state of the art for the day. I still have one of the first SD9’s that John Munson had put together as first test runs, he even added miniature ball bearings to the motor. He personally cast the running gears and other parts at the correct plastic temperature so the parts would stay within tolerance. (only time that was ever done! This SD9 is the only Athearn model that ever ran like a Swiss Clock, and it still runs on my layout.
The early 1970s, I knew the guys that ran the other model railroad manufacturer’s in the Los Angeles area, Campbell Scale Models, Central Valley, Scale Structures Limited, I ran Century Foundry. I was a jobber and made white metal castings for many of the companies. We would have a monthly meeting of the manufacturer’s at some restaurant. At the time I was the youngest member of this club being in my early twenty’s. Old Irv would fall asleep at times during the meetings.
Things change, when Life Like brought out the E9’s that had plastic handrails and grab irons, opening doors on their diesels. All that Athearn and other plastic models that have been cranked out for years became instant junk! Yes it was made in China, and yes I will buy those Chinese made models for my layout. There are many more small mod
Unfortunately, that does not work all that well, either. I think it is the enforcement part. I am a contractor to an agency in the government that I have worked with or for for 24 years now. Back in the 90’s they were planning to announce to the world that they were going to become more efficient by modeling themselves after a company in the very industry they were the regulator/watchdog over.
Two weeks before this magical announcement, the company was involved in a disaster including significant loss of life. The subsequent investigation revealed inspections that did not happen, reports of non-compliance that were buried from above after they were submitted, unacted upon violations and concerns, etc.
I’m sure that happens with some decent frequency today (hence part of the term crony capitalism). It seems like researching the problem and solutions, accounting for the “equal and opposite reaction,” establishing the rules, and then enforcing them uniformly is beyond our grasp.[|(]
As I have posted before, on this and other forums, when this topic comes up, and after consulting my friends at one model train manufacturer–who formerly did make all their trains here in the U.S., including locomotives in multiple scales, if you or anyone else is going to design and build a new from the ground up HO diesel here in America, the MSRP of that new diesel would have to be pretty nearly $1000 for the standard pricing structure currently in effect to work.
Now–who is willing to pay imported brass diesel prices for a new, truly “made in USA”, HO plastic diesel?
The actual MSRP for made in China is going to be about $300 for the exact same diesel.
This estimate is based on real world numbers verbally agreed to by said manufacturer’s current owner, specifically person-hours of manufacturing time for someone to assemble a well-detailed model to high quality standards, and only modest profit for the manufacturer, distributors, and dealers. This also includes the reality that finding and training (yes it actually takes significant training and time to develop the workforce to do the work) competent, trustworthy people here in the U.S. is a challenge, and those people will want some kind of health benefits. Also, our environmental laws here are particularly restrictive on manufacturing model trains.
To those who may be looking for work in the U.S., I respect and am very compassionate toward that need (have been laid off myself), but you must also realize that not everyone is capable of doing final assembly of HO trains to high quality standards. In fact most men are incapable of matching the speed, fine motor skills and coordination of women–in the past most of the manufacturer’s final assembly and kit sorting/packaging was actually done by women. They we
Michael,
Your ear’s,‘‘Ringing’’,are they?? One things for sure,you got more info,than you anticipated…LOL…
Cheers,
Frank
the problem with this thread, is that there are a couple ongoing events in the MRRing world.
Track shortage and (I didn’t see any) but the complaints about cost.
The track shortage, sure it’s easy to say go out buy another brand use that so on and so forth. That’s not resourceful, all of this amazing stuff gets built, detailed etc. but a track shortage is enough to make some up and quit supporting a company. it’s very easy to work around the track shortage, I dropped the big layout and opted for another small one. With all the track I had on hand I’ve got a full mainline, now I’ just waiting on the rest of the items I’ve bought.
The cost of model trains shouldn’t be a source of irritance, or at least it’s not for me. what is irritating is misinformation this time it’s about costs. whenever an N vs HO argument pops up, the cost factor is discussed. If there is going to be cost comparison it better be compared right out of MRR itself. let’s take the July issue as an example the Bachmann F7A & B $169 a piece compared to the Kato N scale F3A and F3B $90 for an A unit, $85 for a B unit tack on another $50 for a drop in decoder and the cost still isn’t the same all together. The argument that N scale and HO scale costs the same has just been eradicated, this being taken into account might prevent further incursions on what’s cheaper.
stuff being made in china is out of our hands, why it’s being fretted over is beyond me.
deleted
UP 4-12-2 I was not around in the 80’s, so I don’t know how much they cost. If they don’t understand it why does it keep getting brought back up, there’s nothing anyone can do about it just like there’s nothing I can do about not being able to retire. the sooner it’s accepted that nothing can be done the better of we’ll all be.
This thread started out political and has gone downhill from there. Please find something to discuss other than geopolitics, thanks. This thread will be locked.