Looking forward to your impressions, but I'm well stocked on the "classic" Craftsman tools. I still have a good collection of my dad's stuff he bought when he left the Navy in the mid-Seventies. Beyond that, I started working at Sears in 1997, collecting SO many duplicate tools when they'd have clearance sales. Also collected a wife who worked there for 19 years, until they closed our local store.
My current hand tool needs are simple - good flat-head screwdrivers to replace the Craftsman ones I've banana'd into prybars over the past three decades.
I'm in the same boat. My father worked at Sears in the early 70s while earning his MBA (ahem, Jack. That said, he was in risk management and accident investigation for heavy construction and worked in the field in such places as Alaska and Guyana) and bought all kinds of Craftsman tools. They're still going strong and serve me well.
I gladly overpaid for a 10mm Classic Craftsman wrench on ebay after the original from the set met a watery grave. I'm going to have it buried with me in Pharaoh fashion.
While trying to build a tube amp for my stereo, after I welded a screwdriver to the chassis bleeding off the power supply capacitors, I switched to some ceramic potted wirewound resistors.
The thing I hate about so many manufacturers going to china is that there is only ONE VERSION of the product, even if twenty different companies are selling it (look at push mowers for example).
It's the Communist vision of 'there will only be ONE APPROVED VERSION' taken to the extreme.
I learned this when I wanted to buy a small band saw. EVERY bandsaw coming out of China, regardless of who is stamping their name on it, is the same exact saw. Oh, they paint different colors, stamp different names, add fancier covers on the adjusters or bolts - but the one sold at Harbor Freight for less money is the EXACT SAME as the one sold for twice as much at Lowes.
Commies don't get free enterprise and they don't get variety. Everything is always the damn same.
And the idiots from Harvard and Yale with their MBA's who have never worked a real job in not only their entire life, but in the last three generations of their families don't understand that people do not all want to buy the same exact thing made it the same fucking plant by the same fucking people.
Jul 25, 2023·edited Jul 25, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
I respectfully disagree. Late-stage capitalism is defined by multinational corporations and flows of capital, globalized markets and labor, and mass consumption - all of which have led to the situation you have described because it minimizes costs while maximizing shareholder value. Why would a company go to the time, trouble, and expense of designing a bandsaw when it can simply slap its name on whatever is produced at the lowest possible cost. It's simple economies of scale. Yes, there are some companies that do go to that trouble and expense, but they operate at the margins (ie sell at a higher price to people who actually care about quality, which is by definition a smaller share of the market). Most consumers will go for whatever's cheapest.
I'm not arguing that your underlying point - lack of choice, a homogenization of the market - isn't a problem, nor do I disagree that it does harken to the darkest days of the USSR. Rather, I am arguing that, from an economic / business perspective, there is precious little difference between the worst aspects of communism and the worst aspects of capitalism.
Late-stage capitalism is distinguished by the "flat world" of labor and limitless influence over government. None of the Victorian thinkers ever envisioned a world like what we have now.
I'd be curious to see how late-stage communism and late-stage capitalism compare in terms of things like wealth inequality, wage stagnation and inflation, mental health and addiction, general feelings of optimism, and the like.
I've only started pondering this, but I do wonder if the end result of the two systems is all that different - wealth and power consolidated in the hands of a small elite, an eviscerate middle class, and everyone outside of the elites encouraged to fight among themselves or against "others" so as not to focus on the real problem.
Is Animal Farm a parable for both Communism and capitalism?
It's not late stage capitalism. It's the government - our government - promoting predatory practices by other governments while hamstringing our our producers who are no longer operating in a capitalistic society. China uses forced labor and a lack of all laws so they can cut their prices.
American companies are burdened with more and more rules, regulations, and laws, forcing the price of their product through the roof. We are currently engaged in a trade war with China, one in which our government is siding with the enemy. There is NO capitalism involved. At all.
Calling it 'late stage capitalism' is just BS, plain and simple.
And you're definitely wrong. You get no choice in Communism - you do with Capitalism. But we don't live in Capitalism anymore. People WILL pay MORE for a better made product. People always paid more for products made in America, the world round, because they lasted. Try looking more into what did away with that. It wasn't capitalism. It was our government.
Jul 25, 2023·edited Jul 25, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
I appreciate your perspective, but I don't agree. Even if the US didn't have regulations and rules and promote predatory practices (not arguing that isn't a problem), I believe we'd still be in this situation. Corporations by definition exist to maximize profits and value for shareholders, and to that end and with all other things being equal, they will *always* go where labor and other costs are lowest.
As to the idea that people will pay more for a better made product, I don't believe that is supported by the market. Mac Tools earned $220 million in revenue last year. Snap-On earned $4.5 billion. Stanley Black & Decker earned $16.9 billion. People are quite happy paying for cheaply made products even though higher-quality, more expensive American tools are readily available. One aspect of late-stage capitalism is maximizing consumption to keep the machine running. That means the lowest possible cost and planned obsolescence. It's a feature, not a bug.
Ultimately, though, I believe we are both decrying the same problem and are merely disagreeing over what to call it, so with that I'll cede the floor to others.
its an interesting thought experiment, but here's another one I sometimes think about:
what is a nuclear aircraft carrier--or for that matter almost any surface navy vessel--in relation to a submarine with submerged drone swarm launch capability ?
The Chinese navy doesn't have that capability. No one does. The average torpedo is bigger than your car. It takes a lot of explosives and it takes a lot of fuel and other things to make one work.
How long will it take the most numerous, best educated, most determined and most focused people on earth (who happen to also have the most advanced drone tech) to get there?
They only really need to blow off the defensive capability. A floating "anvil" is still mostly useless. You cant launch aircraft when you are under attack.
With substantially more submarine tonnage constructed, and more on the way, China will have more shots on goal in any such situation.
Remember that now, the main goal of the military, as with everything else, is to put America at as much of a disadvantage as humanly possible, and emphasize “DIE” and trans-rights.
I guess what you describe means it depends on what we think that Cruiser's submarine detection capability is. Not clear what level of detection / evasion is possible.
Also, submarines can't take even a single hit. A modern torpedo can split a destroyer or cruiser in two, but a significant number of the crew can escape the wreck.
If a sub takes a hit from a modern ASW weapon while submerged, everybody on board dies.
To my sorrow, that is also what America is up against. China has orders of magnitude more production capacity than we have. They have more resources, factories, tools, and engineers. If you stopped all trade between USA and China tomorrow, we would immediately run out of everything from critical medication to welding wire. China would run out of... black-on-white porn?
We should do that, painful as it would be in the short term. Because it would be the first step to rebuilding our own manufacturing base - and more importantly, serve as a lesson as to why we must never again become dependent on any other nation.
SOME of their products aren't the best. Their drones? world leading. Their 3d printing? the default recommendation to every new maker is an Ender. And little household goods - like say a french press? Well for 25 measly bucks, instead of a fragile glass Bodum, you can get this thermally insulated, laser welded, indestructable-and-will-outlive-us-like-the-cockroaches-after-nuclear-war, chinese one, here:
People who say the Chinese don't make good stuff either don't interact with it or have outdated information or ???.
Their current product roster could not be replicated in the west at less than 4x the cost. Look at the finishing on that french press. Inspect the laser welds. When was the last time anything less expensive than a CAR made in america had laser welds on it?
The most significant potential leverage the US currently has over China in the balance of trade, aside from finance and financial services, is food. China needs to import a large, and growing. portion of its food, largely from the US and Canada. Xi has recently started a kooky Great Leap Forward-esque program to increase domestic grain production at all costs, in an almost certainly vain attempt to achieve self-sufficiency: https://chinachange.org/2023/04/30/in-zealous-effort-to-increase-grain-production-china-deploys-force-and-coercion-to-manage-the-countryside/
Of course, China can import food from elsewhere, so it would be painful for them in that respect, but not an existential crisis. However, China *would* starve (and suffer severe shortages of other critical goods such as refined petroleum products) if it were placed under a full US (+allies) naval blockade.
I once saw that when the Jews revolted against Roman hegemony, Rome was reluctant to go to war because they didn't want to disrupt the trade in wine from Judea and grain from what is now Jordan.
Here in California, a substantial amount of our water is feeding Chinese cows is the form of alfalfa. It may take some time to feel effects of a full trade stoppage due to storage and alternative sourcing, but it will be hard to staff their factories if the population is starving.
I bought the 88-piece Craftsman set (free pickup!) but finding US-made garden irrigation parts has been tough.
Never mind - like others, it shows in stock at my suburban Lowe's but they can't actually find any. I'll have to order from other locations around here and hope for the best!
China is full of people who know how to take orders. All the stuff they have, all the advancements they've made, have been because someone else (Americans, Europeans, Japanese) have gone in there and shown them how. Their entire corporate structure is set up to do that. Every order stems from the central government. Sure, they look strong, they look like a country that can get shit done, but the reality is that they're just another Soviet-style Potemkin country. Put on a good show while covering up their aging, shrinking population (and rest assured, they've been shrinking for years), and their endless unrest (student protests, anti-local-CCP protests, "quiet quitting" or laying down or whatever they're calling it). I'm sure they have a decent production capacity, but it's nowhere near as good as any official reporting of it. One should NEVER believe what the CCP says about itself nor what anyone says about it, because they're not officially allowed to say anything outside of the party line. Reagan once said, "Trust, but verify" about the Soviets. About the CCP, Hong Kong Man was right: "Don't trust China, China is asshoe!"
Whereas here in the US, sure we have issues, but this is still a country where people know how to get shit done without being told to. John Stossel recently talked about how during the government response to covid business owners adapted and established new ways of doing things without some government official coming into their shop/restaurant and telling them exactly what to do. While the corporate media certain does its best to make our leaders look good, there's plenty of great independent reporting going on that tells the truth. And honestly, in a country like this stocked with people like us I don't see any reason to be afraid of China. We can adapt to whatever. We're still (relatively) free, especially in comparison to them. They are who they've always been. Japan supposedly had us by the balls twice: in 1941 and in the 80s. Neither time did it end the way the experts told us it would end. China will find the same disappointment.
However I do think some of the theoretical "problems for china, that they can't solve" are really actually "problems the west has, and can't solve."
China has repeatedly over the centuries proved the ability to sacrifice tens of thousands or more recently tens of millions of its own people to advance an ideological goal. They would have no trouble sacrificing tens or perhaps even a few hundred million in a martial struggle with the west, and their aging population is (for similar reasons) no big deal--for THEM. They have plenty of young people and plenty of talent and unlike in America, the young people however demotivated are average-105iq-chinese, not [COMMENTARY REDACTED]
"And honestly, in a country like this stocked with people like us I don't see any reason to be afraid of China. "T
The country is no longer stocked with people like us. Higher-IQ and higher-achievement Americans aren't reproducing at replacement rate. The swell in American population is due to immigration, and those immigrants broadly split into sub-100-IQ workers and the disaffected global-citizen crowd who see the USA as a fruit to be picked for shipment back to their home countries.
We have about as many traditional European-Americans in the country as we did in 1962, but as a group we are now older, fatter, more depressed, and more drug-addicted than we were in 1962.
The planes will start falling out of the sky within a decade, I think. Look for basic public services to become spotty almost everywhere by 2045.
I was around for the Japanese hysteria of the Eighties, but it was mostly based on the idea that they could build things better than we could. Now that's irrelevant because nothing is built here :)
Not that China could "conquer" the USA in a hundred years. It would take 10,000 of their soldiers to occupy my 1,700-person township, and they'd lose a hundred a week for a long time. And they may not rise to the standard of world leadership set by the USA in 1980. But neither will the United States retain an ability to project power around the world and make people take the fake money we're printing.
Jack, your recent mention of The Rising Sun finally got me off my ass to start reading it--I've only been hearing about that book my entire adult life.
By the way, I thought I remembered an ACF reading list...is that still here somewhere?
I came to the same conclusion when I went to buy a bandsaw and wound up with the small Wen because I liked the look of the bits and bobs better. What did get?
I bought the harbor freight one because I didn't want to pay an extra 80 dollar for different color paint job. Also the 'more expensive one' was broken out of the box. The HF one wasn't, though it needed a few minor 'adjustments'. But that was went I realized they were both the same exact thing from the same exact factory.
Now that I've secured them, and taken the time to actually look at what I bought, I realize the 88 piece kit is pretty much identical to the first tool set I bought myself to work on my clapped out 280zx back in 2003. That kit was also a made in USA set but the ratchets have since been rebuilt with the shitty raised box overseas guts and just don't work the same. I'll report back if I find any other MIUSA stuff at the store when I go to pick these up.
Don't blame the overseas. They will make anything you want for a price. You want cheap? You get cheap. You want expensive and well made? You pay for it.
There's a minimum to cheap in the USA. The foreign companies don't have to accept garbage items. But they do. They figure the amount of goodwill lost by garbage is a lot less than buying the garbage in the first place. Lose some customers? Well, f'em.
I picked these up at lunch and my initial non functional impression says they appear as good as Gearwrench stuff. The ratchets have a noticeable heft to them, similar to my older Taiwanese Craftsman Pro series ratchets. The products say made in the USA from global materials, so these very well could be just assembled in the USA out of existing parts they already had in their supply chain. I used to be well versed in the requirements to qualify something as Made In USA but have since forgotten the details but high level it boils down to 60% of the work content being done domestically.
This particular store did not have any of these kits on the shelf, the only item that I saw in the store that was Made In USA Craftsman was a 1/2" drive socket rail.
I cannot imagine the amount of capital equipment being wasted by abandoning this venture. They must have found a buyer for it OR they're shipping it all to some LCC to continue production, and using the bonkers real estate market to get money back on their greenfield investment.
Unfortunately my house was immune to the rising prices last year. Took out a HELOC on our old house to pay it off and get some cash to throw into our new house, then barely got the HELOC covered when the house sold. Just one more financial misstep on my own personal road to serfdom.
Maybe they can zone that spot to make it residential or something. Or we can all go in for some fractional ownership and turn it into the best indoor motorsports park in Texas.
Warehouse and Industrial is the only bright spot in commercial RE, especially in TX. Guessing once the machinery is removed, it will be repurposed as a warehouse/DC for a handsome profit.
Ordered, thanks! I've been looking to replace my harbor freight stuff for some time now but while I love my collection of Klein drivers, rachets have been expensive enough for me to hesitate.
Much easier said than done. Went over during lunch and had a very typical “Lowe’s experience” the tool set shows as in stock in inventory but has no assigned location and no one can find it.
Yup I found the smaller set in a cardboard display in the aisle, the 88 pieces were nowhere to be found. An employee went looking up in the upper parts of the shelving with me, no luck. I ended up ordering a set at the *ahem* less urban location closer to my house prepaid pickup at one of those lockers and it was ready for me within a few hours.
Thanks for the heads up, Jack--just secured a set our here in Oregon. Wall Street Journal had a piece on this enterprise over the weekend and of course, I immediately thought of ACF/Made in the USA.
Look on eBay for NOS USA Craftsman. There are a LOT of good sets still in the plastic, largely because soft-grip screwdrivers are now the de facto standard in the trades.
Thanks Jack. Mission success! I am actually out of town for a mother-in-law funeral and I sent the family to breakfast, read your article, noticed the Lowe’s across the street and acquired said set.
I can always use another socket set--doubly so if it’s a good one.
Nothing wrong with having an MBA. Some people, largely psychopaths, draw the wrong conclusions.
Confession: Have an MBA and an EE degree. Maybe they cancel out? (Seriously, my finance prof was great: taught finance as if it were physics, with time value of money replacing F=MA.)
On second thought, I have seen companies destroyed by Wharton grads in particular. One Wharton-trained idiot prioritized payment terms over vendor relationships. That did not end well.
Both of my wives have had MBAs. It's not the degree -- it's the mindset taught in the "better" schools. That mindset treats human beings as replaceable trash and elevates the quarterly result above all else.
Notes on David Brin: He's brilliant, even if his best writing is behind him. He (blog at davidbrin.blogspot.com) is a good counterpoint to this site once one filters out the Trump Derangement Syndrome and assorted liberal talking points. He is smart enough to see through some of them, and he is a good enough writer to be irritated by the use of "they" as an identity indicator rather than of quantity, as everyone should be. I find it interesting that he comes to many of the same conclusions that are common on this site, though arriving from the opposite direction.
He's a classic example of Scott Alexander's Grey Tribe; intellectually they can see that corporate leftism is bankrupt but they are too desirous of social approval to become a public non-progressive.
Looking forward to your impressions, but I'm well stocked on the "classic" Craftsman tools. I still have a good collection of my dad's stuff he bought when he left the Navy in the mid-Seventies. Beyond that, I started working at Sears in 1997, collecting SO many duplicate tools when they'd have clearance sales. Also collected a wife who worked there for 19 years, until they closed our local store.
My current hand tool needs are simple - good flat-head screwdrivers to replace the Craftsman ones I've banana'd into prybars over the past three decades.
New old stock Craftsman USA screwdriver sets are omnipresent on eBay and the pricing isn't bad.
Actual American tools from the Cold War are quickly becoming Atlantean artifacts.
Yeah, I looked at those too, but my old Craftsman set (bought back in the 70s) is still going strong.
I'm in the same boat. My father worked at Sears in the early 70s while earning his MBA (ahem, Jack. That said, he was in risk management and accident investigation for heavy construction and worked in the field in such places as Alaska and Guyana) and bought all kinds of Craftsman tools. They're still going strong and serve me well.
Accident investigation in Alaska?
That sounds like the premise of an AWESOME sci-fi horror movie!
I didn't think of it until you mentioned it, but John Carpenter essentially did it in The Thing, but set it in Antarctica.
I gladly overpaid for a 10mm Classic Craftsman wrench on ebay after the original from the set met a watery grave. I'm going to have it buried with me in Pharaoh fashion.
You are going to need a mortsafe to keep people from stealing that 10mm.
The joke will be on them. I'll have it constructed with hundreds of 10mm bolts.
Flatblade screwdrivers are multitools.
Miniature prybars, chisels, battery testers, car keys, emergency roll pins...
"battery testers"
ow
Both deliberate AND accidental!
Talk about versatility!
Hand ventilators, too.
And drifts, too!
While trying to build a tube amp for my stereo, after I welded a screwdriver to the chassis bleeding off the power supply capacitors, I switched to some ceramic potted wirewound resistors.
Wera for your flat head screwdrivers
Go buy Williams screwdrivers from Amazon or similar. They’re the same as the hard handled Snap-on ones at a fraction of the price.
Yes, Williams screwdrivers and ratchets.
The thing I hate about so many manufacturers going to china is that there is only ONE VERSION of the product, even if twenty different companies are selling it (look at push mowers for example).
It's the Communist vision of 'there will only be ONE APPROVED VERSION' taken to the extreme.
I learned this when I wanted to buy a small band saw. EVERY bandsaw coming out of China, regardless of who is stamping their name on it, is the same exact saw. Oh, they paint different colors, stamp different names, add fancier covers on the adjusters or bolts - but the one sold at Harbor Freight for less money is the EXACT SAME as the one sold for twice as much at Lowes.
Commies don't get free enterprise and they don't get variety. Everything is always the damn same.
And the idiots from Harvard and Yale with their MBA's who have never worked a real job in not only their entire life, but in the last three generations of their families don't understand that people do not all want to buy the same exact thing made it the same fucking plant by the same fucking people.
Some understand and don't care. Some understand but 'fuck you'.
Both of you are describing late-stage capitalism.
It's not Capitalism. It's Socialism wearing Capitalism like a skin suit as it dances around pissing all over everything.
I respectfully disagree. Late-stage capitalism is defined by multinational corporations and flows of capital, globalized markets and labor, and mass consumption - all of which have led to the situation you have described because it minimizes costs while maximizing shareholder value. Why would a company go to the time, trouble, and expense of designing a bandsaw when it can simply slap its name on whatever is produced at the lowest possible cost. It's simple economies of scale. Yes, there are some companies that do go to that trouble and expense, but they operate at the margins (ie sell at a higher price to people who actually care about quality, which is by definition a smaller share of the market). Most consumers will go for whatever's cheapest.
I'm not arguing that your underlying point - lack of choice, a homogenization of the market - isn't a problem, nor do I disagree that it does harken to the darkest days of the USSR. Rather, I am arguing that, from an economic / business perspective, there is precious little difference between the worst aspects of communism and the worst aspects of capitalism.
I think you have it right here.
Late-stage capitalism is distinguished by the "flat world" of labor and limitless influence over government. None of the Victorian thinkers ever envisioned a world like what we have now.
I'd be curious to see how late-stage communism and late-stage capitalism compare in terms of things like wealth inequality, wage stagnation and inflation, mental health and addiction, general feelings of optimism, and the like.
I've only started pondering this, but I do wonder if the end result of the two systems is all that different - wealth and power consolidated in the hands of a small elite, an eviscerate middle class, and everyone outside of the elites encouraged to fight among themselves or against "others" so as not to focus on the real problem.
Is Animal Farm a parable for both Communism and capitalism?
Indeed, Mr Smith never imagined anything like the globalization of capital and expected it to be more tightly bound to land.
It's not late stage capitalism. It's the government - our government - promoting predatory practices by other governments while hamstringing our our producers who are no longer operating in a capitalistic society. China uses forced labor and a lack of all laws so they can cut their prices.
American companies are burdened with more and more rules, regulations, and laws, forcing the price of their product through the roof. We are currently engaged in a trade war with China, one in which our government is siding with the enemy. There is NO capitalism involved. At all.
Calling it 'late stage capitalism' is just BS, plain and simple.
And you're definitely wrong. You get no choice in Communism - you do with Capitalism. But we don't live in Capitalism anymore. People WILL pay MORE for a better made product. People always paid more for products made in America, the world round, because they lasted. Try looking more into what did away with that. It wasn't capitalism. It was our government.
I appreciate your perspective, but I don't agree. Even if the US didn't have regulations and rules and promote predatory practices (not arguing that isn't a problem), I believe we'd still be in this situation. Corporations by definition exist to maximize profits and value for shareholders, and to that end and with all other things being equal, they will *always* go where labor and other costs are lowest.
As to the idea that people will pay more for a better made product, I don't believe that is supported by the market. Mac Tools earned $220 million in revenue last year. Snap-On earned $4.5 billion. Stanley Black & Decker earned $16.9 billion. People are quite happy paying for cheaply made products even though higher-quality, more expensive American tools are readily available. One aspect of late-stage capitalism is maximizing consumption to keep the machine running. That means the lowest possible cost and planned obsolescence. It's a feature, not a bug.
Ultimately, though, I believe we are both decrying the same problem and are merely disagreeing over what to call it, so with that I'll cede the floor to others.
" . . . there is precious little difference between the worst aspects of communism and the worst aspects of capitalism."
Because both systems in their current state are heavily regulated. We haven't had anything close to free market capitalism for a long time.
except ownership which is VERYVERY important!
China is building the world's biggest navy?
Uh huh. By sheer number of vessels, the New York Yacht Club is the world's biggest navy.
How good do you suppose each ship built by a culture that has no respect for craftsmen actually IS, anyway?
its an interesting thought experiment, but here's another one I sometimes think about:
what is a nuclear aircraft carrier--or for that matter almost any surface navy vessel--in relation to a submarine with submerged drone swarm launch capability ?
About what Musashi was when confronted by the Douglas SBD.
An anvil, that's what:
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-why-it-took-four-weeks-to-scuttle-uss-america-the-only-supercarrier-ever-sunk/
You'll wear yourself out trying to break it.
Or it will catch fire and no one will remember how to put it out. Or crash into something big. Or poison the crew with jet fuel.
How idiot proof are those reactors, anyway? A meltdown in a major port would be a doozie.
Edit: Our government purposely sinking 'America'. Oof, right in the feelz.
Idiot proof? I have no idea.
I'm pretty sure that an American naval reactor is the best-protected, most durable powerplant of its kind in the world.
Until Lt. Lexus replaces the coolant with Brawndo. It's what powerplants crave.
The Chinese navy doesn't have that capability. No one does. The average torpedo is bigger than your car. It takes a lot of explosives and it takes a lot of fuel and other things to make one work.
These days?
Not THAT much bigger...
How long will it take the most numerous, best educated, most determined and most focused people on earth (who happen to also have the most advanced drone tech) to get there?
They only really need to blow off the defensive capability. A floating "anvil" is still mostly useless. You cant launch aircraft when you are under attack.
With substantially more submarine tonnage constructed, and more on the way, China will have more shots on goal in any such situation.
Remember that now, the main goal of the military, as with everything else, is to put America at as much of a disadvantage as humanly possible, and emphasize “DIE” and trans-rights.
That hypothetical sub and its drones would have to make it past a cruiser, two destroyers, and about six dozen aircraft to get to the carrier.
Appreciate the response.
I guess what you describe means it depends on what we think that Cruiser's submarine detection capability is. Not clear what level of detection / evasion is possible.
Also, submarines can't take even a single hit. A modern torpedo can split a destroyer or cruiser in two, but a significant number of the crew can escape the wreck.
If a sub takes a hit from a modern ASW weapon while submerged, everybody on board dies.
The United States won WWII with Liberty ships that were welded in such a hurry that they went into the water with the Vise-Grips still on.
Japan lost WWII with officer's swords that often represented months of work.
The Japanese were also up against an industrial nation with orders of magnitude more resources, factories, tools and engineers. Weight of numbers.
To my sorrow, that is also what America is up against. China has orders of magnitude more production capacity than we have. They have more resources, factories, tools, and engineers. If you stopped all trade between USA and China tomorrow, we would immediately run out of everything from critical medication to welding wire. China would run out of... black-on-white porn?
We should do that, painful as it would be in the short term. Because it would be the first step to rebuilding our own manufacturing base - and more importantly, serve as a lesson as to why we must never again become dependent on any other nation.
We should at least do it before China does it for us. I'd be shocked if they don't during my lifetime.
I often wonder how good their engineers actually are considering the products they make perhaps aren't the best. Sure are a lot of them though.
But we also have a push for "inclusivity" and "diversity".
SOME of their products aren't the best. Their drones? world leading. Their 3d printing? the default recommendation to every new maker is an Ender. And little household goods - like say a french press? Well for 25 measly bucks, instead of a fragile glass Bodum, you can get this thermally insulated, laser welded, indestructable-and-will-outlive-us-like-the-cockroaches-after-nuclear-war, chinese one, here:
https://www.amazon.com/Secura-Stainless-French-Coffee-Screen/dp/B00JE36GLQ/
People who say the Chinese don't make good stuff either don't interact with it or have outdated information or ???.
Their current product roster could not be replicated in the west at less than 4x the cost. Look at the finishing on that french press. Inspect the laser welds. When was the last time anything less expensive than a CAR made in america had laser welds on it?
And you have to ask the question: Why did our leaders PROMOTE and all but force this situation to happen?
The thought in the eighties was that by going in to China, they would be opening up the market for their own product sales.
The most significant potential leverage the US currently has over China in the balance of trade, aside from finance and financial services, is food. China needs to import a large, and growing. portion of its food, largely from the US and Canada. Xi has recently started a kooky Great Leap Forward-esque program to increase domestic grain production at all costs, in an almost certainly vain attempt to achieve self-sufficiency: https://chinachange.org/2023/04/30/in-zealous-effort-to-increase-grain-production-china-deploys-force-and-coercion-to-manage-the-countryside/
Of course, China can import food from elsewhere, so it would be painful for them in that respect, but not an existential crisis. However, China *would* starve (and suffer severe shortages of other critical goods such as refined petroleum products) if it were placed under a full US (+allies) naval blockade.
I once saw that when the Jews revolted against Roman hegemony, Rome was reluctant to go to war because they didn't want to disrupt the trade in wine from Judea and grain from what is now Jordan.
As said by Smitherfield in this thread: FOOD.
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/imports/united-states (may not be an authoritative source)
Here in California, a substantial amount of our water is feeding Chinese cows is the form of alfalfa. It may take some time to feel effects of a full trade stoppage due to storage and alternative sourcing, but it will be hard to staff their factories if the population is starving.
I bought the 88-piece Craftsman set (free pickup!) but finding US-made garden irrigation parts has been tough.
Never mind - like others, it shows in stock at my suburban Lowe's but they can't actually find any. I'll have to order from other locations around here and hope for the best!
China is full of people who know how to take orders. All the stuff they have, all the advancements they've made, have been because someone else (Americans, Europeans, Japanese) have gone in there and shown them how. Their entire corporate structure is set up to do that. Every order stems from the central government. Sure, they look strong, they look like a country that can get shit done, but the reality is that they're just another Soviet-style Potemkin country. Put on a good show while covering up their aging, shrinking population (and rest assured, they've been shrinking for years), and their endless unrest (student protests, anti-local-CCP protests, "quiet quitting" or laying down or whatever they're calling it). I'm sure they have a decent production capacity, but it's nowhere near as good as any official reporting of it. One should NEVER believe what the CCP says about itself nor what anyone says about it, because they're not officially allowed to say anything outside of the party line. Reagan once said, "Trust, but verify" about the Soviets. About the CCP, Hong Kong Man was right: "Don't trust China, China is asshoe!"
Whereas here in the US, sure we have issues, but this is still a country where people know how to get shit done without being told to. John Stossel recently talked about how during the government response to covid business owners adapted and established new ways of doing things without some government official coming into their shop/restaurant and telling them exactly what to do. While the corporate media certain does its best to make our leaders look good, there's plenty of great independent reporting going on that tells the truth. And honestly, in a country like this stocked with people like us I don't see any reason to be afraid of China. We can adapt to whatever. We're still (relatively) free, especially in comparison to them. They are who they've always been. Japan supposedly had us by the balls twice: in 1941 and in the 80s. Neither time did it end the way the experts told us it would end. China will find the same disappointment.
Appreciate the response.
However I do think some of the theoretical "problems for china, that they can't solve" are really actually "problems the west has, and can't solve."
China has repeatedly over the centuries proved the ability to sacrifice tens of thousands or more recently tens of millions of its own people to advance an ideological goal. They would have no trouble sacrificing tens or perhaps even a few hundred million in a martial struggle with the west, and their aging population is (for similar reasons) no big deal--for THEM. They have plenty of young people and plenty of talent and unlike in America, the young people however demotivated are average-105iq-chinese, not [COMMENTARY REDACTED]
"And honestly, in a country like this stocked with people like us I don't see any reason to be afraid of China. "T
The country is no longer stocked with people like us. Higher-IQ and higher-achievement Americans aren't reproducing at replacement rate. The swell in American population is due to immigration, and those immigrants broadly split into sub-100-IQ workers and the disaffected global-citizen crowd who see the USA as a fruit to be picked for shipment back to their home countries.
We have about as many traditional European-Americans in the country as we did in 1962, but as a group we are now older, fatter, more depressed, and more drug-addicted than we were in 1962.
The planes will start falling out of the sky within a decade, I think. Look for basic public services to become spotty almost everywhere by 2045.
I was around for the Japanese hysteria of the Eighties, but it was mostly based on the idea that they could build things better than we could. Now that's irrelevant because nothing is built here :)
Not that China could "conquer" the USA in a hundred years. It would take 10,000 of their soldiers to occupy my 1,700-person township, and they'd lose a hundred a week for a long time. And they may not rise to the standard of world leadership set by the USA in 1980. But neither will the United States retain an ability to project power around the world and make people take the fake money we're printing.
Jack, your recent mention of The Rising Sun finally got me off my ass to start reading it--I've only been hearing about that book my entire adult life.
By the way, I thought I remembered an ACF reading list...is that still here somewhere?
I've done some recommended books. Could do more.
This British documentary series called War Factories appears to have been done well. It looks at all of the combatants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-4TqhjgQu4&list=PLfMrqOdrCidQ2gpuSIxW07ylqTu0Fln3v
Actually, and unfortunately, most people don't care where the goods are produced. They mostly care about price.
That's not really true. Or at least it didn't used to be.
Then again, why has the government passed certain laws to keep people knowing about some things being made in China?
Like viruses?!
I came to the same conclusion when I went to buy a bandsaw and wound up with the small Wen because I liked the look of the bits and bobs better. What did get?
I bought the harbor freight one because I didn't want to pay an extra 80 dollar for different color paint job. Also the 'more expensive one' was broken out of the box. The HF one wasn't, though it needed a few minor 'adjustments'. But that was went I realized they were both the same exact thing from the same exact factory.
Just bought two of the 88 piece sets for store pick-up. The store near my office claims to have 9, well 7 now.
Now that I've secured them, and taken the time to actually look at what I bought, I realize the 88 piece kit is pretty much identical to the first tool set I bought myself to work on my clapped out 280zx back in 2003. That kit was also a made in USA set but the ratchets have since been rebuilt with the shitty raised box overseas guts and just don't work the same. I'll report back if I find any other MIUSA stuff at the store when I go to pick these up.
Don't blame the overseas. They will make anything you want for a price. You want cheap? You get cheap. You want expensive and well made? You pay for it.
There's a minimum to cheap in the USA. The foreign companies don't have to accept garbage items. But they do. They figure the amount of goodwill lost by garbage is a lot less than buying the garbage in the first place. Lose some customers? Well, f'em.
I picked these up at lunch and my initial non functional impression says they appear as good as Gearwrench stuff. The ratchets have a noticeable heft to them, similar to my older Taiwanese Craftsman Pro series ratchets. The products say made in the USA from global materials, so these very well could be just assembled in the USA out of existing parts they already had in their supply chain. I used to be well versed in the requirements to qualify something as Made In USA but have since forgotten the details but high level it boils down to 60% of the work content being done domestically.
This particular store did not have any of these kits on the shelf, the only item that I saw in the store that was Made In USA Craftsman was a 1/2" drive socket rail.
The sockets and ratchet handles are forged with domestic steel in Texas. The internals may be Taiwanese.
#MeToo
Going to be christmas gifts to some young people starting out.
I cannot imagine the amount of capital equipment being wasted by abandoning this venture. They must have found a buyer for it OR they're shipping it all to some LCC to continue production, and using the bonkers real estate market to get money back on their greenfield investment.
The bonkers real estate market is strictly residential, unfortunately.
Unfortunately my house was immune to the rising prices last year. Took out a HELOC on our old house to pay it off and get some cash to throw into our new house, then barely got the HELOC covered when the house sold. Just one more financial misstep on my own personal road to serfdom.
Maybe they can zone that spot to make it residential or something. Or we can all go in for some fractional ownership and turn it into the best indoor motorsports park in Texas.
ACF Indoor Karting Racetrack?
Solid.
Warehouse and Industrial is the only bright spot in commercial RE, especially in TX. Guessing once the machinery is removed, it will be repurposed as a warehouse/DC for a handsome profit.
So glad the 2020 election worked out correctly!
The Our Democracy was Saved
"Democracy, Mr. Cromwell, was a Greek drollery."
Fortified, by top men, women, and those who are sexually confused.
Top. Men.
Just ordered mine for pickup, thanks for the heads up! I was needing another set and being able to buy American one last time is icing on the cake.
Hell yeah bro. Already bought and will pick up later.
Ordered, thanks! I've been looking to replace my harbor freight stuff for some time now but while I love my collection of Klein drivers, rachets have been expensive enough for me to hesitate.
Ordered from canton lowes, thanks for the heads up, will be collectable maybe, will be useful at the very least.
Very nice will run over to pick up a set today after work. My 4 year old can have my current Kobalt "travel" set.
Much easier said than done. Went over during lunch and had a very typical “Lowe’s experience” the tool set shows as in stock in inventory but has no assigned location and no one can find it.
Just had the same experience with thr smaller set. Not sure I'm gonna just grab the big one but I don't really need it
Best thing to do is to buy it online and have it set for pickup. That's what I did.
At the store I went to they are on display in the aisle, adjacent to where the other Craftsman hand tools are.
Yup I found the smaller set in a cardboard display in the aisle, the 88 pieces were nowhere to be found. An employee went looking up in the upper parts of the shelving with me, no luck. I ended up ordering a set at the *ahem* less urban location closer to my house prepaid pickup at one of those lockers and it was ready for me within a few hours.
Thanks for the heads up, Jack--just secured a set our here in Oregon. Wall Street Journal had a piece on this enterprise over the weekend and of course, I immediately thought of ACF/Made in the USA.
Just what I need for my Montana home. Picking up at the Kalispell store later today. Review to follow.
Thanks Jack. I just purchased the 88 piece set online for pickup in Merrillville Indiana. The site claims there are 18 in stock.
Thank you Jack. This reminds me that I could use a set of Philips screwdrivers, though cordless drills have taken over most of the usage.
Look on eBay for NOS USA Craftsman. There are a LOT of good sets still in the plastic, largely because soft-grip screwdrivers are now the de facto standard in the trades.
Thanks Jack. Mission success! I am actually out of town for a mother-in-law funeral and I sent the family to breakfast, read your article, noticed the Lowe’s across the street and acquired said set.
I can always use another socket set--doubly so if it’s a good one.
MBA.
As far as I'm concerned, hiring MBAs to work in your company's upper echelons is like putting an extended swingarm on your literbike.
It screams "I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M DOING!"
To the contrary! Both scream "I'M GOING TO RUIN EVERYTHING, VERY QUICKLY!"
Ah! That too!
When i graduated college, i wanted to be a consultant. Im glad i lucked out of that one.
Nothing wrong with having an MBA. Some people, largely psychopaths, draw the wrong conclusions.
Confession: Have an MBA and an EE degree. Maybe they cancel out? (Seriously, my finance prof was great: taught finance as if it were physics, with time value of money replacing F=MA.)
On second thought, I have seen companies destroyed by Wharton grads in particular. One Wharton-trained idiot prioritized payment terms over vendor relationships. That did not end well.
Both of my wives have had MBAs. It's not the degree -- it's the mindset taught in the "better" schools. That mindset treats human beings as replaceable trash and elevates the quarterly result above all else.
Late to post this, but David Brin on MBAs and supply chains:
https://www.thestreet.com/phildavis/news/more-repercussions-in-a-plague-year-and-some-long-term
Notes on David Brin: He's brilliant, even if his best writing is behind him. He (blog at davidbrin.blogspot.com) is a good counterpoint to this site once one filters out the Trump Derangement Syndrome and assorted liberal talking points. He is smart enough to see through some of them, and he is a good enough writer to be irritated by the use of "they" as an identity indicator rather than of quantity, as everyone should be. I find it interesting that he comes to many of the same conclusions that are common on this site, though arriving from the opposite direction.
He's a classic example of Scott Alexander's Grey Tribe; intellectually they can see that corporate leftism is bankrupt but they are too desirous of social approval to become a public non-progressive.
Well that was a fascinating, but long, read. Thanks.