China!

[Nick]

"The solution is a little less greed all around, from company owners, directors, managers down". Including workers?

Average Cost Of A Factory Worker In The U.S., China And Germany [INFOGRAPHIC]

From your article interesting.


U.S. factory workers do have one critical advantage over others: They're really productive. In fact, U.S. factory workers produce $73.45 per hour in output, one-third more than German factory workers and twice as much as workers in Taiwan, according to the BLS. That's in part because U.S. workers still tend to build more expensive products than someone in Taiwan, such as airplanes instead of shoes, Brookings labor economist Gary Burtless said.


Do you really want to go back to this for your workers?

Chinese and U.S. workers differ in another important respect as well. Factory workers in China are more than three times more likely to get killed at work than their American counterparts, and the government's health insurance programs do not cover basic care.

 

[Robert May Eng.]

From your article interesting.


U.S. factory workers do have one critical advantage over others: They're really productive. In fact, U.S. factory workers produce $73.45 per hour in output, one-third more than German factory workers and twice as much as workers in Taiwan, according to the BLS. That's in part because U.S. workers still tend to build more expensive products than someone in Taiwan, such as airplanes instead of shoes, Brookings labor economist Gary Burtless said.


Do you really want to go back to this for your workers?

The increase in output could also be more to do with automated production. A man standing in front of the latest cnc lathe will for sure outpace his Chinese counterpart standing in a mud hut on a pre war manual job. I also feel that all the time we have any form of unemployment we should have production of lesser goods like shoes and clothes. A trade deficit is a clear failure on behalf of the government and business leaders. If we are to be reliant on foreign manufacturer`s we should at the very least have them set up in this country using English labour. I know some of the car industry are set up here but that could be rolled out on a bigger scale and it would keep a healthy working relationship with our eastern chums.

Bob

 

[flatchat(Chris)]

I think i'd be happy to co exist with Chinese than Muslims.
50 odd years ago we were flooded with cheap Japanese gadgets (known as Jap crap) now look at 'em, apart from being in melt down.
Then the Taiwanese flood of machinery etc now the Chinese, then the Indians -- they are a force to be reckoned with as the western world isn't wanting to dirty up its own back yard any more.
Besides these countries are handy to Australia for we need somewhere to dump all our natural resources and at this rate it won't be long before Australia becomes a giant swimming pool

 

[just ernst]

last night in TV

there was an interesting discusion on austrian tv with an ex finanz-ministry, a good man in the past, he tell that china comes in troubles,.....
more products need more technik,...better technik to can compete against western, trumpf-laser, moriseiki, hermle are sold out for long time with machine-selling to china, but in china there is only a small, good schooled, worker-space, so they need new scools to learn youngs for better work,....they must rework the total infrastruktur for better products and effektiever transportways, they need a lot more motorways, trains, tankstations, railways to can transport all goods, and worker with knowledge get every month more money,.....all in all,....we only must be in fear for cheap, less quality products, products we dont need for our normal live,..... all better products will be expensive like ours in moment,....and for export goods this situation is good, bmw sells so much cars to china, this also exports all troubles around to china, better bmw shops, better worker with more knowledge, better machinerie to can fix problems, at last, price goes higher and higher and chinese products gets expensiver,.....
our biggest trouble in west ar this shop-people want to earn 100% winn and more, buying the cheapest scarry products in china and selling it in our countrys for good money, going rich and richer with 20$ mud-products and we are silly enough to buy this, tonn for tonn,....we makes the economy,...if we only want to have good quality for a fair price, chinese have no chance to sell so much, no one needs the laws or gouverment to close borders, we close borders for cheap and weak,.....but we still buy dirt
ernst

 

[Keith]

Interesting comment Ernst....

 

[Jeff Young]

I frankly think it is a good thing China is developing. Number 1, they need us as much as we need them now. We are their biggest market. Number 2, as they develop and a middle urban class is created there (Beijing is amazing, nothing like the movies we used to see Social STudies class, cars and consumerism everywhere), that middle class will want more say over government, a cleaner environment, etc. THAT is the biggest threat to the government there.

It's a hell of a lot better than a North Korea like hermit-kingdom of 1.5 billion people who no hope for the future and a leadership totally disconnected from the world community.

The Chinese economy by simple math due to the size of the country will pass ours sometime in the near future, and that's not anything to be scared about. Our per capita income and living standard is still much, much higher and will stay that way so long as we continue focusing on high productivity, high wage jobs.

China and India developing and becoming richer is a good thing, and no, it does not have to come out our expense. Rising tide lifts all boats and such.

 

[Paul Brameld]

All very interesting responses, but I am intrigued that the subject of Intelectual Property/Patent Infringements has not been addressed. Or did I miss it somewhere?

 

[Robert May Eng.]

All very interesting responses, but I am intrigued that the subject of Intelectual Property/Patent Infringements has not been addressed. Or did I miss it somewhere?

The east appear to be immune from any of the above, its pretty much accepted they will rip off western products with scant regard to patents etc. When you consider their products are aimed at a world market I suppose its of little or no consequence if they tread on European manufacturers toes. A patent is almost worthless in these countries, really if the western world wants to protect a product from being ripped off they should make and sell it at a price that makes a repro/rip off look less than a viable proposition.

Bob

 

[Keith]

All very interesting responses, but I am intrigued that the subject of Intelectual Property/Patent Infringements has not been addressed. Or did I miss it somewhere?

You might have thought that membership of the EU would make it easier to protect IPR?

Think again. Unfortunately the Italians are masters of copyright theft. Have you ever tried to sue an Italian company?

We used to put around £500,000 budget aside yearly for protecting our famous (and often copied) trademark. Over half that sum was routinely spent in Italian courts to no avail. Then we gave up.

China is much the same, but on an industrial scale.

Manufacturers are just going to have to get smarter.

 

[Nick]

All very interesting responses, but I am intrigued that the subject of Intelectual Property/Patent Infringements has not been addressed. Or did I miss it somewhere?

The east appear to be immune from any of the above, its pretty much accepted they will rip off western products with scant regard to patents etc. When you consider their products are aimed at a world market I suppose its of little or no consequence if they tread on European manufacturers toes. A patent is almost worthless in these countries, really if the western world wants to protect a product from being ripped off they should make and sell it at a price that makes a repro/rip off look less than a viable proposition.

Bob

Very good points Paul and Bob, you can produce things very cheaply when you do not have to pay R&D costs.

"But where other vendors have merely copied Cisco commands, the Huawei engineers had gone one better. They'd allegedly stolen Cisco code and implemented it verbatim, even replicating bugs. The dispute was eventually settled out of court."

For what it's worth I work on Cisco and Huawei switches not sure how they thought it would go unnoticed

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Nick, I really don't think they care.

 

[Nick]

Nick, I really don't think they care.

Pete,

I concur, it's just before we all start attacking the cost of much maligned workers and the goods they produce, in the West compared to the East, we need to understand the game is not played on a level playing field.

 

[Paul Brameld]

Pete,

I concur, it's just before we all start attacking the cost of much maligned workers and the goods they produce, in the West compared to the East, we need to understand the game is not played on a level playing field.

Agree 100%. I hope I am still around when the West start nicking China's IP.
That will be fun to watch :idea::idea: