jbairdjr on 20/9/2009 at 05:42
I work in the tire industry. I can honestly say that the tires we get from China are crappy compared to other brands.
Briareos H on 20/9/2009 at 08:42
Quote Posted by SD
The Chinese cannot just produce a crap product and hope that it sells by virtue of its lower retail price.
This is a pretty naive thing to say Stronts. I work in the same facilities as people from qualification testing and the running joke is about products from china that get a resounding "NO PASS" and yet are found a few weeks later with fake qualif. stickers everywhere on the european market. You even get entire brands that sell non compliant products and always manage to provide legal qualification results while it's obvious that the products aren't doing what they are supposed to, and are even dangerous. Latest in date was the biggest brand of cheap chinese computer PSUs - which still sells the same models to this day.
And they're doing testing in
electronics, a field where testing is easy...
Swiss Mercenary on 20/9/2009 at 09:11
Quote Posted by Thirith
There's also the other thing: "cheap" very often means, "Yeah, we treat our workers like crap and we pay them crap. Literally. And a bowl of rice." Which is something I have problems with, although most likely I'm ignorant/hypocritical enough to buy stuff from such places half the time.
And if we want to talk about the environment, shipping something manufactured in a nearby state may consume less energy than from the other side of the world - but I could be wrong about this one.
Don't forget the "Foreign manufacturers are taking our market share, GIVE OUR INDUSTRY TAX
CUTS AND PREFERRENTIAL TREATMENT part." Not exactly rational, but a natural result of lifting trade barriers.
And don't get me started on NAFTA...
