Chinese Junk ( Attention, Mao-Mart Customers! )

National Review ^ | May 28, 2009 | John Derbyshire

[rhombus]

We've gone from making things (creating wealth) to running tanning salons and pet boutiques (spending wealth) - not a good base for a national economy.

Agreed but I don't see that changing now that we have a regulate everything mentality. When you sign up to wear the Government pampers you end up with low-paid foreigners wiping your butt.

[LonePalm]

My grandfather taught medicine in Peking in the early 1920's. He never forgave the Chinese communists for what they did to 'his' China.

He used to say, "The definition of a Chinese merchant was one who could buy from a Scotsman, sell to a jew, and make a profit."

Chinese merchants have been cheating each other for so long that it is hardly a challenge to cheat westerners.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Calpernia]

>>>Union membership today is mostly made up of gov’t employees, teachers, service workers etc

And too many of them are more about being political cartels than employee rights.

[jimt]

...but the produce department stank something awful.

Try the fish section at my local "Signature" Kroger's ! Botulism city !

[Calpernia]

>>China has been arming Iran and giving them technological info, they hamper our efforts with the Norks, make deals with Chavez and other enemies of the US, prop up dictators in Africa and who knows what else. <<<

Former Presidential Candidate Duncan Hunter Interview with Hugh Hewitt:

2008

Excerpt:

Duncan Hunter: You know this last report on China actually received lots of criticism from the State Department because it was very candid about assessing this enormous growing military strength of China. The assessment of the Pentagon was they are doing so much more then they have to do for self defense. They are building an offensive capability. When they shot that satellite out of space on January 11th, because America’s military eyes are largely in space, that really hurdled a new era of military competition between the U.S. and China in space. Like it or not, if you have to rely on satellites for movement of special forces or army brigades or marine corps divisions, you have to rely on satellites for that, and your satellites are in danger, you are in trouble. So we have our eyes, our military eyes [on China]. Plus a lot of our economic capabilities are reflected through our space apparatus. You have to protect that. We are going to have to spend a lot of money now and take a lot of effort to neutralize what is an aggressive Chinese policy in regard to space.

Hugh Hewitt: Let’s talk about the media and China. I asked you about this on the radio yesterday, how many questions have you had about China in the course of the Campaign. You have been on the trail for how long?

Duncan Hunter: We have had 4 congressional debates now and we have been out campaigning hard this entire year. We had one great question, I think it came from either Brit Hume or one of his team, during the Fox debate in the South Carolina, last question of the debate to me on China. I was able to give, you only have one minute answer, I try to be a master on the compact answers, I laid out that we have this cheating on trade which is stacking up billions to China and they are using this money to arm. This presents a long term challenge to the United States. Maybe not a direct threat; but a military threat is comprised of two things, capability and intent. They certainly are building a capability to cause us a lot of harm. And the intent of China is always difficult to understand.

Those tough old communists that ran the Politburo are still running things. We see these generals make wild statements like, “We hope you value L.A. more than you do Taiwan”. That is a thinly veiled threat to nuke L.A. Then there will be a flurry of newspaper statements by people saying well, ‘general so and so didn’t mean it’. Well I hope general so and so is pretty far away from that nuclear trigger. Because that is a wild statement. You see those wild statements that came out of Yunnan Island where the American plane was shot down or was forced down, and the wild statements that came out of there diplomacy core after that were tempered by their trade people. But it shows us there is a element of leadership that is embedded in the Chinese hierarchy that is very aggressive, very anti American and very war like. It is difficult to know which element of the Chinese leadership is going to dominate the government in 5 years.

(snip)

[12Gauge687]

This is exactly the point I was trying to make with Kelly but somehow that person didn’t seem to understand. If you read Kelly’s post to me, apparently it all has to do with Communism. The point I was making was that this has been going on for years.

Not too sure why Kelly ignores one of Midler’s observations, as well as that of others, that this has been a constant trait in China. As a person of Chinese descent, I can say that it happened when I was living in Taiwan under one-party Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist) rule. In fact, many of the products were copied and made substandard on a regular basis. Only in the past 25 years has Taiwan gotten on the contract law bandwagon.

[kellynla]

I realize you haven't been around here very long BUT FYI, if you are going to talk about someone, the polite thing to do is to ping them. Got it? Good!

shezzzzzzzzzzz...Newbies...

[Tijeras_Slim]

Interesting article, thanks.

[neverdem]

bttt

[Elsie]

U S A !

USA!

[Elsie]

My implication is that people who buy cheap junk that is made in China instead of quality merchandise made in America are the ones who brought on this financial melt-down.

 

This was entirely inflicted upon America by Americans.

 

 

Not exactly.

 

 

As an 'American' I had always thought (assumed?) that the RETAILER-WHOLESALER was actually checking the stuff they sold to see if it was any good.

 

Or rather, 'assumed' that since the product was made where labor was SO much cheaper, the QUALITY would be the same as the more EXPENSIVE item.

 

 

I guess we were wrong.

 

We have forgotten the old "You get what you pay for" axiom.

 

 

 

 

 

[djf]

Not junk.

Chunk.

[LtKerst]

I bought a Made in China Hand truck...the tires went flat...when I tried to inflate them..the inner tube stems were jammed too far into the rim that I couldnt get my air nozzle onto the end..and the rim edge was flared so far out that it was impossable to grab and hold the stems to force the air nozzle on...after struggling for an Hour I had to give up!!!!! I could not inflate the flat tires!!!

I wanted to throw the piece of crap out into the street!!!

let the buyer beware!!! a cheap price means CRAP!!!

[Jacquerie]

They would dictate our selling price until it became impractical to make the product.

So why did your company continue down the road to ruin? Was Wallyworld your only customer?

[rfp1234]

Now at M.A.O. Schwartz! Read Toy Crealance Sale! Lock Bottom Plices!

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

We never knowingly buy anything made in China. If you can’t find it made in USA new, go to ebay and buy it made in USA 50 years ago, it’s still better than new from China.

Or in your internet search engine, enter “made in USA.” There are sites that will tell you where to find American products.

[penelopesire]

Our manufacturing base left this country because of tax and enviromental laws and lawsuits...not because of ‘Wal Mart’ imho.

[ReneeLynn]

I think I’ll shop at WalMart if I darn well want to.

[JACKRUSSELL]

A ping list dedicated to exposing the quality, safety and security issues of anything “Made in China”.


Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.

(This can be a high volume ping list.)

[kellynla]

“Or in your internet search engine, enter “made in USA.” There are sites that will tell you where to find American products.”

Which is what I have been promoting on FR since 2001.

Like my father used to say “buy cheap, get cheap”

I have New Balance MADE IN USA shoes for five or six years
Levis for 10 or 20 years, all kinds of items MADE IN USA that have held up nicely... I have a RCA 24" MADE IN USA TV I purchased in 1979 that STILL WORKS...I purchased an HD TV that I didn't realize until I got it home that was MADE IN CHINA that had a defective picture after 18 months...I'm just glad I purchased the extended warranty and they told me to send it back because it would cost more to fix it than what it is worth to replace it!!!!

I just wish the American automobile mfgs. had done a better job of marketing their vehicles over the past 20 years...it's not like there haven't been some MADE IN USA vehicles there are just as good as anything built overseas!!!
Heck, I have a JEEP that I purchased new in 89 with over 200K miles on it now that still runs like new and still gets 20MPG!...