# This got my blood boiling and my brain to explode (almost)!



## toorski (Jun 28, 2019)

https://arstechnica.com/information...ro-production-from-texas-to-china/?comments=1

*Quote from above:*

_Apple "struggled to find enough screws" when it began making the 2013 Mac Pro, a New York Times article explained. "Tests of new versions of the computer were hamstrung because a 20-employee machine shop that Apple's manufacturing contractor was relying on could produce at most 1,000 screws a day." The screw shortage and other problems caused a months-long delay in Mac Pro sales.

It's mentioned right there.

Manufacturing in China gets you access to state-of-the-art factories and an extremely flexible supply chain. If your partner runs out of screws, you can easily get them from someone else.

Manufacturing is often better in China. It can be worse. But it can also be way better, and makes for much easier supply chains/logistics.

And for a lot of products, the landing costs pre-tariffs were equal between China and the US.
_
*This happens when idiotic so cold journalists, dumb-ass commentators and consumer gadget making Corps get their stories out to the public*_._

Apple, the so called almost trillion dollars worth (on paper) US Corp. can only find a single screw manufacturing vendor in USA with 20 employees to make screws and that’s one of the reasons why Apple decided to move their Mac-Pro production to China!

I’ve spent over 30 years in 3 largest global US Manufacturing Corporation that are involved in design, development, production and procurement of parts or part-assemblies from local US and foreign vendors. We used foreign vendors from Japan, Germany, Switzerland and Italy only when they held patents or a processing technologies that we didn’t have; not because their products or manufacturing of those products were better or less expensive.

But cheap screws? If there aren’t (rly?) enough cheap screw manufacturers in USA for a consumer level computers made by Apple, then screw you - gtfo and move to China!


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## CraigHB (Jun 29, 2019)

Have to see which way this thread goes before I say anything, but I have some comments I could make about manufacturing in China.  I actually do have some experience with contracting production services from over there.

I also have my opinions about Chinese industry in general.  It definitely a has considerable influence on various aspects of life in the USA.  For sure there's some misconceptions on either side of the argument.

But yeah, claiming they had to go to China to get screws is some pretty awful journalism.


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## Crivens (Jun 29, 2019)

One could say that maximizing shareholder value drives you to cheap screws, and now I remove my tongue from my cheek.


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## Phishfry (Jun 29, 2019)

I didn't read the article but Penn makes fasteners for industry. Period.








						PEM - PennEngineering | Homepage
					

We are one of PennEngineering®’s leading brands, the global leader in the fastening industry. We are technical experts and the behind-the-scenes force holding everything together.




					www.pemnet.com
				



Small screws are made on special machines and not sent to the general machine shop.
A single screw machine can turn out 3600 fasteners an hour per spindle.
Trust me when I say that Penn has more than one screw machine. They have hundreds spread over 3 facilities.
They also have many competitors in the US.

Here is an overview of a screw machine:








						Multi-Spindle Automatic Screw Machines - Manufacturing Services, Inc.
					

Manufacturing Services is proud to share our multi- Spindle automatic screw machine capabilities. Since 1970 our main area of business has been our screw machine department. We utilize Davenport multi-spindle machines, the fastest, most versatile and economical multi-spindle machine ever made...



					msicarolina.com
				



:


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## Crivens (Jun 29, 2019)

Yes, but that are, like, _expensive_ screws. No doubt. 

In the end, they will never tell you the truth.


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## Phishfry (Jun 29, 2019)

Knowing how Apple likes to screw people my only guess is they wanted a special screw head for security features.
Something like that could add to delay to make custom tooling, but once in production they can chuck these parts out by the thousands an hour.


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## Spartrekus (Jun 29, 2019)

it is a good move to go to China, in order to make more money, reading your post. They wont find screws in US after some years.

To make good screws or fasteners, you need cost-efficient, modern, production lines. China have that, US not.
The US industry is not pushed like it is done in China. This is a new China, because China has the money.
You need alloying elements, e.g. steels with Cr, V, ... Mn.
You need electricity, cheap from Russia and new renewable energy, e.g. solar.,...
... you get all what you need in China.

China rules the world somehow.

check here.




_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9l2yCH5wBk_


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## Phishfry (Jun 29, 2019)

Well I read the ARS article and the accompanying NYTimes piece about Flextronics. It really seemed quite false.

This particular quote is such bull.


> Another frustration with manufacturing in Texas: American workers won’t work around the clock


Last Friday night I went to work at 4pm and we had to finish the second propeller shaft for the boat to leave.
I worked until 6:30am the next day and returned at 4pm Saturday night to watch the fiberglass coating dry while rotating in the lathe.'
We had the two tailshafts done in 14 days. Our customer had his boat in the water on Tuesday as scheduled.
It was tight time schedule. I was hero and worked 14 hours all night to make the schedule happen.
Did I see anything but a few extra bucks in my check? No. It was business as usual on the waterfront.


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## Phishfry (Jun 29, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> They wont find screws in US after some years.


You need to come visit this country before talking smack.
This article is pure propaganda.
Yes US manufacturing is ill, that does not mean it is down. The problem is optics.
Your silly barchart assumes a Communist future for China.
Me think them all them kids are going to act up soon and hopefully they chop off some Reds heads. They deserve it. That system needs to be eliminated.
See Hong Kong. People can be pushed too far. I hope the Chinese overthrow the commies one day. Then your chart goes POOF.
No more "Glorious Leader" and all this sick stuff we ignore and pretend is normal.


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## Spartrekus (Jun 29, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> You need to come visit this country before talking smack.
> This article is pure propaganda.
> Yes US manufacturing is ill, that does not mean it is down. The problem is optics.
> Your silly barchart assumes a Communist future for China.
> ...


Communism is not a good thing. You are right. 
What to do?


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## Phishfry (Jun 29, 2019)

I think the kids there will settle it and hopefully this race to the bottom ends.


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## Phishfry (Jun 29, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> To make good screws or fasteners, you need cost-efficient, modern, production lines. China have that, US not.
> The US industry is not pushed like it is done in China. This is a new China, because China has the money.


How many innovative devices have Chinese companies themselves developed? They seem to be great at copying things. But designing?
Just how far can you get by copying other people?


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## Spartrekus (Jun 29, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> How many innovative devices have Chinese companies themselves developed? They seem to be great at copying things. But designing?
> Just how far can you get by copying other people?



Sorry but research is today more advanced and innovative in China than the research in US.
Maybe 10 years ago, this was likely true, but today US are copying on China. Look research and scientific publications, China rules again.
China is equipped with best technologies for research. Check in _Nature_ how many manuscripts are from Chinese Universities.

Because China can invest in most advanced technologies for education, industry,... China have an huge advantage.
Since China exists, the system has considered education and knowledge to be of major importance.

You can buy a production line, designed by engineers in China.

Next, Japan was always ahead, top research, top innovation,...


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## Crivens (Jun 29, 2019)

One example: paper money was first done in china. 

They also are pretty efficient in getting things done. Renovating a busy bridge over a river does not take years but *hours*. And yes, copying gets you only up to the original, but they copy from everyone, and they don't copy stupid things. Or have you seen a chinese student loan bubble?


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## Phishfry (Jun 29, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> Next, Japan was always ahead, top research, top innovation,...


Man you need to read some.
You see, after we nuked them into submission (after they attacked Pearl Harbor) we sent our best scientists to help rebuild their society.
This was called the Marshall Plan.Japan Reconstruction
We helped rebuilt their country and trained their manufacturing people in SPC.








						W. Edwards Deming - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



25 years later they were like China today. Flourishing. Making US companies really compete and requiring R&D to keep up.
Where is Japan now? In the 1980's they were buying NY skyscrapers and everyone was afraid of them taking over.


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## scottro (Jun 29, 2019)

To the point where Michael Critchton  wrote a novel warning of the danger of Japan.  By the way, I would recommend everyone who can, go to Peace Park in Hiroshima and look at the museum there, including the section of sidewalk with a body's imprint on it.

Crivens, the loan bubble joke did make me literally laugh out loud.

As for the original post--Apple probably wanted some unusual,difficult to remove and replace screw, because that's how they roll. It may have been easier to find in China, and no doubt, was much cheaper to make.  But if your head is going to explode when a large company in the US tells a lie, or screws <heh, see what I did there> people, I would suggest no one stand too close, lest they be covered in brains and skull fragments.  

But it is good to get angry about things like that. I'm old now, but one hopes the younger generations will help shape the world into a better place.  When you see things like that, see if there's anything you can do to change it, and boring though it sounds, a letter or phone call to your representatives might be the place to start. That goes for any of you angry about anything.  If you see laws making someone's life harder, look at what you can do to change it. I'm speaking for the US now, I know little enough about it, let alone other countries, but a lot of them do have options for you to let your elected representative know.  And regardless of their honesty, they want to stay in office, so sometimes they actually do the right thing if enough of their constituents demand it.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jun 30, 2019)

I don't think that kind of "journalism" is worth reading past the first fanciful mistake. Twenty employees making 1000 screws per day - assuming an 8 hour work day, that's 6.25 screws per employee per day. That is just garbage, and not fact. For sure there are complicated screws that may be hand made, but certainly not for computers. The rest of the "facts" are likely to be just as fanciful. Perhaps it wasn't Apple. Perhaps it wasn't China. Perhaps none of this happened.


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## Phishfry (Jun 30, 2019)

Maybe working for Apple in prototyping is a nightmare.
It seemed to me that a prototype would not need 28,000 fasteners.
It also sounded like they were changing the design a bunch at the last minute.
I know them type customers. You finally have to put your foot down and say "no more changes" or we charge more.
If you showed up to Flextronics or Jabil with some actual schematics and blueprints I am sure they could build whatever you need.
Would it be competitively priced? Probably not. $3 dollars an hour versus $25 is a long way to bridge.
For a $3000-$6000 dollar computer I would say they could still make money.


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## Crivens (Jun 30, 2019)

Cost of labor is not that problem as many would like you to think. The more expensive a thing is, the smaller is the labor part in it. I have only the figures for a VW Golf (one Porsche manager did one shop talk too much for his career) but the labor part is about 5% there for VW. And now consider the threat about relocating factories again. That has more to do with tax evasion or cost of environment protection.
What apple does here is slimming down the parts chain. Instead of shipping all parts separately, they ship the complete box.

Edit: also keep in mind that now a MacPro is sold from China to the US, not the other way. Pinning that on screws is a huge binary-4 salute to those who want trade regulated.


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## Crivens (Jun 30, 2019)

OJ that is 20 per day per person or 2.5 per man hour. Or it is 90 persons management, 7 sales, 2 beancounters and one poor sod to run the shop.

scottro That was not a joke. They also learn what not to do.


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## unitrunker (Jun 30, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> Well I read the ARS article and the accompanying NYTimes piece about Flextronics. It really seemed quite false.


Flextronics in Austin seems to run two shifts. There is no graveyard shift yet. This based on the number of cars in the parking lot.


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## hitest (Jun 30, 2019)

Interesting read, thank you.  Apple makes 70% of its profits from iPhones, the rest comes from hardware and services.  I would never buy an Apple laptop for myself.  I may buy an Apple laptop for my daughter when she enters university depending on which faculty she selects.  The free market will decide the fate of Apple.


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## Spartrekus (Jun 30, 2019)

hitest said:


> Interesting read, thank you.  Apple makes 70% of its profits from iPhones, the rest comes from hardware and services.  I would never buy an Apple laptop for myself.  I may buy an Apple laptop for my daughter when she enters university depending on which faculty she selects.  The free market will decide the fate of Apple.



For students, there is nothing better than learning opensource software.
You may give at your home an Unix machine, BSD or even Linux.
Bring it KDE if you would like or think good, there is a cool desktop and it is libre.

The use of opensource, free, libre software is important for educative perspective. Certainly the first step is to use libreoffice, gnuplot, tex, ...


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## toorski (Jun 30, 2019)

At least Elon Musk admitted that his experience from developing software for on-line payment system did not help him much when he got involved with manufacturing of EV, solar panels, deep cycle rechargeable batteries, building rockets and boring tunnels . R&D, design, testing, manufacturing, QA and compliance of tangible things or products are not ez, very expensive and take much longer to make and profit from than gluing, screwing and packaging of cheap electronic components from China or developing software for screwing people out of their minds and money over Internet.


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## CraigHB (Jun 30, 2019)

Missed my chance to get in on the first talk of China industry.  Lay me say, a little belated, China is like the wild West of industry right now, little regulation and cheap labor.  They're profiting hugely and not by chance, there's some shrewd political maneuvering behind it as well.  They have the money and ownership of industry to be of great influence in the world economy.  It's actually pretty scary.

That said, China comprises a fascist government with less stability.  Things can go ugly with them, and I think they will sooner than later (look at the unrest in Hong Kong).  When that happens overseas companies so heavily vested in Chinese production will be hung out to dry.  They'll either rebuild or the tables will turn demoting first world countries to third world ones.


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## toorski (Jun 30, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> That said, China comprises a fascist government with less stability. Things can go ugly with them, and I think they will sooner than later (look at the unrest in Hong Kong). When that happens overseas companies so heavily vested in Chinese production will be hung out to dry. They'll either rebuild or the tables will turn demoting first world countries to third world ones.



You are too harsh about China.  I know personally enough Chinese ex-pats, current citizens and their culture along with their work ethics that I have nothing against. They’re not trying to kill or eat anyone, at least not yet. From what I know, Chinese are hard working, able to learn howto, copy others and then improve on how and what they make, as the rest in the Global Business Markets. China’s business sector plays global games, just like US, Japan, Germany, France, Russia ...etc. But, China has a different culture and political system that may not agree with other players.  Tho, the others play similar games under different names and in different style. The bottom line is that money, greed, power, laws and crime have no language barriers, national boundaries, political preference or shame – some places are worse, or much worse, than others.  USA is my home, for better or worse, which is much better than many other places.  Tho, we would be better off  here if Apple used screws Made in USA for their POS Mac-Pro


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## Spartrekus (Jul 1, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> Missed my chance to get in on the first talk of China industry.  Lay me say, a little belated, China is like the wild West of industry right now, little regulation and cheap labor.  They're profiting hugely and not by chance, there's some shrewd political maneuvering behind it as well.  They have the money and ownership of industry to be of great influence in the world economy.  It's actually pretty scary.
> 
> That said, China comprises a fascist government with less stability.  Things can go ugly with them, and I think they will sooner than later (look at the unrest in Hong Kong).  When that happens overseas companies so heavily vested in Chinese production will be hung out to dry.  They'll either rebuild or the tables will turn demoting first world countries to third world ones.



maybe yeah. 

there is pollution in China, likely more regulations in next years. this can slow down China, quite a lot.

However, the big difference with EU and US, the Chinese industry is maintained, governed to specific directions, which makes China much stronger. Similar was in Mongolia. Education is important, the knowledge is first important for Chinese gov, rather than or next to industry.  In US, industry goes first and then, maybe, .. philosophy at last. Sustainability.


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## hitest (Jul 1, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> For students, there is nothing better than learning opensource software.
> You may give at your home an Unix machine, BSD or even Linux.
> Bring it KDE if you would like or think good, there is a cool desktop and it is libre.



Thanks for the reply.  Oh believe me I've tried to spark an interest in open source software with my two children.  At my house I run a collection of Linux and BSD machines, and one Win 10 Pro laptop.  They're not interested in open source software; they prefer proprietary software.  It is what it is.


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## Spartrekus (Jul 1, 2019)

hitest said:


> Thanks for the reply.  Oh believe me I've tried to spark an interest in open source software with my two children.  At my house I run a collection of Linux and BSD machines, and one Win 10 Pro laptop.  They're not interested in open source software; they prefer proprietary software.  It is what it is.


Win and Apple, we teach them to smoke and to be dependent. Once they smoke, they will not go back to non smoking. it is over after the first cigarette.

If you start a first use of PC, then, it is already won. If you have machines with Windows or Apple, it is over for opensource, libre outstanding Unix software.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 2, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> Win and Apple, we learn them to smoke. Once they smoke, they will not go back to non smoking. it is over after the first cigarette.
> 
> If you start a first use of PC, then, it is already won. If you have machines with Windows or Apple, it is over for opensource, libre outstanding Unix software.


I wouldn't go that far, because there is nothing _naturally_ addicting to MS-Windows and Apple products. The kids have to be taught the things like new and shiny and commercial is something to like. I wasn't like that as a kid. I didn't generally want new things and I didn't like plastic and commercial stuff. But then perhaps I was just stupid.  Or my parents showed me a different way. ... dunno. 

hitest  Bottom line is that it's not easy to be a parent (been there, done that) - especially with TV and other malicious advertising around.


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## Spartrekus (Jul 2, 2019)

OJ said:


> I wouldn't go that far, because there is nothing _naturally_ addicting to MS-Windows and Apple products. The kids have to be taught the things like new and shiny and commercial is something to like. I wasn't like that as a kid. I didn't generally want new things and I didn't like plastic and commercial stuff. But then perhaps I was just stupid.  Or my parents showed me a different way. ... dunno.
> 
> hitest  Bottom line is that it's not easy to be a parent (been there, done that) - especially with TV and other malicious advertising around.


It is far easier to find cool and simple to use Office, rather than learning the TeX language. 

OJ:
Likely this happened first, you discovered Word, and all possibilities with it at the time.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 2, 2019)

The biggest advantage in producing in China these days is their logistics. If you need some custom "screws" you just need to get to the prefecture (or how they call it), then they you will point you to all "screw" industries in the city. You just need to literally knock their door, specify the desired quality, and do the order. If they need to hire 1000 people overnight, they can do it and they will.

Now, first of all, you can't hire people overnight in probably all western countries, this is illegal. Second, try to order custom "screws" and will see yourself in deep pile of bureaucracy of regulations, obligatory tests and so on.


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## Phishfry (Jul 2, 2019)

> The skill here is just incredible,” Mr. Cook said in China


So your taking people from rural China slapping them in a factory for $2/hr. and saying these are skilled tech workers?
Yea right. Chain them to their machine and make children work 12 hour shifts. Lock all exits in case of fire.
It's all for the glorious leader.
Human slavery is making your $6000 Apple.
Signed American Laborer.
Complete with our pesky safety regulations including no children in factories.


> In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room,” Cook said.


This guy has been sniffing his own farts too long

I have actually attended the Machine Tool Show in Chicago. It is the worlds preeminent machine tool show.








						International Manufacturing Technology Show - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



Not only can you fill a room with the tooling engineers. You can fill McCormick Center. A huge convention center. 
100,000 attendees. Probably more than half of them tooling engineers.

What Mr. Cook did was slam US Manufacturing worse than any communist ever could. Bald face lying to the press.
I would not feed that dude a penny of my money. He is an corporate extortionist. The epitome of greed.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 2, 2019)

OJ said:


> The kids have to be taught the things like new and shiny and commercial is something to like. I wasn't like that as a kid. I didn't generally want new things and I didn't like plastic and commercial stuff. But then perhaps I was just stupid.  Or my parents showed me a different way. ... dunno.



When I was a wee lad plastic items were consider cheap in quality, as was anything made in Japan or China. New and shiny doesn't capture my attention. If it's old and still works to my satisfaction it's probably good enough for me.



Spartrekus said:


> If you start a first use of PC, then, it is already won. If you have machines with Windows or Apple, it is over for opensource, libre outstanding Unix software.



The first computer I used was an Apple II. My niece gave me a mid-2007 Mac Mini last year I have no interest whatsoever in and would rather have had an Apple II.

The first PC I owned ran Win98. I liked Vista best but was fascinated by all the Live CD's of Linux. I tried a lot of them but was done looking when I discovered a FreeBSD variant with a pre-installed desktop.

I had tried out FreeBSD while I was using Win98 but the installer looked too complicated for my skillset at the time. Once I found something that got me to the desktop I looked under the hood to see how it worked and taught myself to use it as FreeBSD. I still remember the thrill I got the first time I installed FreeBSD from scratch.

There is only one person I've ever met personally who has used Linux. He knew knew what BSD meant too and lives in my building. He said he's been out of the loop for 6 years and if it works out plan on teaching him BSD and bringing him up to date.

Everyone else I know uses Windows. One person asked what version of Windows I used like it was the only game in town. My sister works at a computer all day and will admit FreeBSD is too complicated for her.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 2, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> So your taking people from rural China slapping them in a factory for $2/hr. and saying these are skilled tech workers?
> Yea right. Chain them to their machine and make children work 12 hour shifts. Lock all exits in case of fire.
> It's all for the glorious leader.
> Human slavery is making your $6000 Apple.
> ...



We have a huge industry of electric motors in my country which opened a facility in China in the beggining of this movement, they are still in there but with more facilities now.

They always paid decent wages in there, and countless times they got their good Chinese workers and put them to do the very best courses available in their specific area, fully paid by the company, whether that would be (USA, Europe, you name it) because they wanted to have some Chinese in higher positions in the company.

All of them, *100% of them*, did all the courses and when finished, usually next day they come back to work, they gave a huge middle finger to the company and move on to another which offered the exactly same package he/she was receiving plus 10 bucks. Doesn't matter how much that package was about. That happened with people earning US$5000-15000 monthly too, just for 10 bucks more.

At some point they realized they can't trust those people at all, and changed to the full Chinese model: draining everything they can from every single employee, no Chinese is allowed in any position above middle management, and now everyone is happy and everything works.

They don't give a down, they want money and every cent count.

*[EDIT]*

We need to make a very clear distinction when we talk about Chinese: Hong Kong and Mainland (IDK too much about Taiwan).

Hong Kong people are very fine ones, the mainland Chinese...


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## Phishfry (Jul 2, 2019)

Locking the emergency doors might be more like Bangladesh but it happened in the US too in the '80's.
I really hate seeing kids having to work at 15. I did it but it was newspaper routes and summer farming.
Not 12 hour factory work very far from home. Kids should be in school.


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## Phishfry (Jul 2, 2019)

I too have no grief with any Chinese person. It is the people who hide Tienanmen Square from their populous who I despise.
Brainwashers who grant themselves power for however long they desire.
I really thought after Gorby tore down the wall that we would have peace.
Nope, now its economic warfare. Buy their debt and sell them shiploads of cheap stuff. That is the new paradigm.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 2, 2019)




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## fernandel (Jul 2, 2019)

"History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time."
Anonymous


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## fernandel (Jul 2, 2019)

rigoletto@ said:


>


I saw similar in Buenos Aires and in Chicago. It is not unique for China. Maybe you can find in Rio too?


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 2, 2019)

Quite unlikely, we have weird things being sold in the street at night but never heard of anything ever close of that. Leave alone being used in restaurants and hotels; however we have tons of restaurants/cafes owned and runned by Chinese too.


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## Spartrekus (Jul 4, 2019)

OJ said:


> I wouldn't go that far, because there is nothing _naturally_ addicting to MS-Windows and Apple products. The kids have to be taught the things like new and shiny and commercial is something to like. I wasn't like that as a kid. I didn't generally want new things and I didn't like plastic and commercial stuff. But then perhaps I was just stupid.  Or my parents showed me a different way. ... dunno.



Kids take the happy meal at mac do because there is a toy.

Kids will usually take all the sweets, given in a shop. The best marketing is when kids are below 8 years old or about 10 y. old.

Later, they will use the clouds given for free by microsoft, apple, google,... and free close-source softwares preinstalled, like Microsoft Office,.... nothing to pay, it is free. facebook is free too. You just give free access to your steps, to your life style, your pictures, your videos, your tex or word documents, your data, your contacts, your messages, your emails,.... only this.

Education matters sure, but after 18 years old or 20 y. they will master their life and take the direction they want.

Ah really, what you prefer, to lay on the sunny beach and do nothing
versus
learning 10'000 millions pages to master karate ?


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## Phishfry (Jul 5, 2019)

I do owe the Swiss an apology.
I made it sound like the "Screw Machine" is uniquely American when infact we just copied Swiss designs.
My grandfather would have called them Swiss machines. They Swiss were known in their watchmaking and thus tiny screws.









						Understanding Swiss-Type Machining
					

Once seen as a specialty machine tool, the CNC Swiss-type is increasingly being used in shops that are full of more conventional CNC machines. For the newcomer to Swiss-type machining, here is what the learning curve is like.




					www.mmsonline.com


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## CraigHB (Jul 7, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> So your taking people from rural China slapping them in a factory for $2/hr. and saying these are skilled tech workers?  Yea right. Chain them to their machine and make children work 12 hour shifts. Lock all exits in case of fire.



Capitalism always seeks out those cheap labor markets.  That's the kind of thing that makes them cheap.  You never get skilled workers that way.  They get trained on the job.  I think that's a pretty obvious lie on the author's part.  Unfortunately, it seems you only have to publish something on the net these days and people will believe it.

People get fired up in the US when you start talking about socialism or communism, but our economic system is not without fault.  It takes advantage of these cheap labor markets with human cost.


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## fernandel (Jul 7, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> I do owe the Swiss an apology.
> I made it sound like the "Screw Machine" is uniquely American when infact we just copied Swiss designs.
> My grandfather would have called them Swiss machines. They Swiss were known in their watchmaking and thus tiny screws.
> 
> ...


Looks are not just Asian countries 'copy' from the others...


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## Spartrekus (Jul 7, 2019)

fernandel said:


> Looks are not just Asian countries 'copy' from the others...


Copying is something just human.
... since ages in our human history.

Copying means also ability to understand how it works and to make it. It is a great method for learning basics, and then freely create new things.


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## CraigHB (Jul 8, 2019)

The difference is that culturally in the US (and other developed countries) it's bad to copy others' work and is generally considered plagiarism.  This is not the case in Asian countries, it's actually encouraged.  The idea is to copy from the masters to become a master.  We see it as bad, they see nothing wrong with it even though they may be using intellectual property they're not entitled to.  It easily extends to reverse engineering and even downright industrial espionage.


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## Spartrekus (Jul 9, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> The difference is that culturally in the US (and other developed countries) it's bad to copy others' work and is generally considered plagiarism.  This is not the case in Asian countries, it's actually encouraged.  The idea is to copy from the masters to become a master.  We see it as bad, they see nothing wrong with it even though they may be using intellectual property they're not entitled to.  It easily extends to reverse engineering and even downright industrial espionage.


From which philosophy is this image to become master coming from?


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## CraigHB (Jul 9, 2019)

Some time ago I watched a video of a couple guys that documented their move to the China industrial district from the UK and talked about the cultural differences after living there for some time.  That's a quote from something they said about the culture there, unfortunately I'd be hard pressed to find the video, it was on YouTube.  The guys seemed quite credible.


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## Spartrekus (Jul 9, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> Some time ago I watched a video of a couple guys that documented their move to the China industrial district from the UK and talked about the cultural differences after living there for some time.  That's a quote from something they said about the culture there, unfortunately I'd be hard pressed to find the video, it was on YouTube.  The guys seemed quite credible.



the culture in china compared to us or eu is quite different.
there are also lot of differences, e.g. money, within the society ; larger gap - money and lifestyle.


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## balanga (Jul 9, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> The difference is that culturally in the US (and other developed countries) it's bad to copy others' work and is generally considered plagiarism.



Doesn't seem to have mattered to one of the world's richest men





__





						Bill Gates, Harry Evans and the smearing of a computer legend
					

Source code of DOS, CP/M diff'ed, expert miffed




					www.theregister.co.uk


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## Spartrekus (Jul 9, 2019)

balanga said:


> Doesn't seem to have mattered to one of the world's richest men
> 
> 
> 
> ...



the code is here, maybe a quick check if those are cp/m
https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS


is that true?


> The first 26 system calls of MS-DOS 1.0 are identical to the first 26 system calls of CP/M.


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## msplsh (Jul 10, 2019)

It's not about just the screws.  (And they're probably not "cheap" either.)  They're steel screws, probably specced a specific alloy, a couple more other specific requirements & tolerances, and if you scratch the finish on the heads, they are scrap.  Apple found one vendor and they couldn't produce enough of them.

Repeat for every part in the machine and it's hard to deal with.

The point of the anecdote is that the USA isn't some manufacturing powerhouse anymore.  You're dealing with two different kinds of "cheap" here: cost and value.  They want high value parts at low costs.  Apple could probably have found somebody who could have produced the same screws but not at the cost they wanted, whereas in China, there's more competition and cheaper labor, so their bar isn't as hard to reach as it is in the USA.


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## Spartrekus (Jul 10, 2019)

msplsh said:


> It's not about just the screws.  (And they're probably not "cheap" either.)  They're steel screws, probably specced a specific alloy, a couple more other specific requirements & tolerances, and if you scratch the finish on the heads, they are scrap.  Apple found one vendor and they couldn't produce enough of them.
> 
> Repeat for every part in the machine and it's hard to deal with.
> 
> The point of the anecdote is that the USA isn't some manufacturing powerhouse anymore.  You're dealing with two different kinds of "cheap" here: cost and value.  They want high value parts at low costs.  Apple could probably have found somebody who could have produced the same screws but not at the cost they wanted, whereas in China, there's more competition and cheaper labor, so their bar isn't as hard to reach as it is in the USA.


Maybe it could be that they have better steels in China for screws than in US.
Since China pushes the basic industry, next to iphones and smart toys, they can afford larger, most efficient, production lines. Those in US are extremely old, since trump does not support only NSA... i.e. the virtual world. 
US have old production lines, which makes them less competitive and less good ratio price / quality for those designed screw materials.


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## ronaldlees (Jul 14, 2019)

Spartrekus said:


> Sorry but research is today more advanced and innovative in China than the research in US.
> Maybe 10 years ago, this was likely true, but today US are copying on China. Look research and scientific publications, China rules again.
> China is equipped with best technologies for research. Check in _Nature_ how many manuscripts are from Chinese Universities.
> ...



The U.S. is in serious trouble, economically.  I don't mean that to say we're in trouble at this minute, but we are in trouble in the long term.  At some point we decided that our country should become a green theme, genteel society that didn't pollute and didn't have mundane industrial jobs.  We succeeded.  China, OTOH, has removed all the green from the visible light spectrum, and utilized low and moderately paid folks by the many millions in those uninteresting mundane industrial jobs.  While they are steadily building robots to replace those jobs, they still make heavy use of manual, cheap labor.  So, we have two extremes when comparing US and China.  China ideology is not what I want and does not impress me.  But, for this post I set the ideologies aside.

What the US should have done was to remain an industrial power while converting to a clean industrial power, so as to have the best of both worlds.  As it stands, our industrial infrastructure is antiquated. Most of our GDP is in real estate, and much of that is not new production (just changing hands). 

YouTube has a number of blogs by Americans and others living in China.  In these blogs, the real knowledge of China is exported for our view.  This knowledge is not found in US journalism nor is it supplied much by the Chinese.  It's an eye opener to view these blogs (SerpentZA is a good one).  I'm not trying to be pro China or anti US (after all, I live in the good ole USA).  However; the obvious facts put forth by these bloggers indicate a new China with glimmering, new cities (like the huge city Shenzhen, for example) - where *nothing* is older than 10 years, and the skyline glitters with the newest, tallest sky scrapers.  Newish cities are not everything - I like old country boy stuff since that's what I am.  But it speaks to general prosperity.

When the tariff war started, the Chinese found it hard to retaliate, excepting for agricultural product.  Our manufacturing has become so decimated that it is often almost impossible to find a domestic variety of an item - including - yes - even screws.  Some time ago I found myself purchasing chinese screws because there were.no.us.equivalents.  The problems are real, but easily ignored by the segment of US society that is in control, because they still have jobs, or don't need them.

I seriously don't know how American inertia keeps us going.  We must have had a large store built up in the past.


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## ronaldlees (Jul 14, 2019)

OJ said:


> I don't think that kind of "journalism" is worth reading past the first fanciful mistake. Twenty employees making 1000 screws per day - assuming an 8 hour work day, that's 6.25 screws per employee per day. That is just garbage, and not fact. For sure there are complicated screws that may be hand made, but certainly not for computers. The rest of the "facts" are likely to be just as fanciful. Perhaps it wasn't Apple. Perhaps it wasn't China. Perhaps none of this happened.



You have that right.  I met an expat Canadian a while ago, who was running a screw company from his garage.  He could make tens of thousands of screws in short order to fill bins, but didn't have logistics and distribution network so went belly up.   The point is - he ran his company with two employees and a purchased screw machine.  Screw machines are not that expensive and have high volume, so Apple's story seems to have another agenda IMO.

Chinese logistics are helped by the postal system.  Ever wonder why you can buy (well, before the tariffs happened you could) -  a $2 item from a Chinese company with free shipping?  It's because all shipping is paid by the Chinese government, for all Chinese citizens and all Chinese companies.  So - they don't care about efficiency of shipping, and will ship you that $2 item at zero shipping cost to you. The government subsidizes them with free shipping.


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## Phishfry (Jul 15, 2019)

ronaldlees said:


> Apple's story seems to have another agenda IMO.


Yes some really nasty reporting in the NYTimes from an arrogant liar CEO.





						Tooling Engineer Jobs, Employment
					

13,670 Tooling Engineer jobs available on Indeed.com. Apply to Security Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, Tooling Engineer and more!




					www.indeed.com
				



Ask yourself, If there were only a handful of tooling engineers would the position only be paying $50-100K??
Fact checking is so inconvenient these days.


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## Phishfry (Jul 15, 2019)

ronaldlees said:


> The government subsidizes them with free shipping.


I think the same could be said for ebay before the USPS increased rates around 2010.
They had a $3.90 deal for "electronic media" for quite a while.
Now it is Amazon that benefits from USPS with them delivering to my door on Sundays via USPS.
I think they have a fleet of sprinter vans I see now. They prospered off USPS to get where they are today.
Through taxpayer subsidization. Not free but cheapened.
At the expense of future USPS labor obligations thru underfunded pensions.


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## ronaldlees (Jul 15, 2019)

Phishfry said:


> ... They prospered off USPS to get where they are today.
> Through taxpayer subsidization. _Not free but cheapened ..._



Of course you're right about that.  Didn't really think about it, but the US has had heavily subsidized shipping forever.  I never use anything but USPS for that reason.  I recently sent a parcel to the other side of the country for $3 with USPS.  Would have been $10-12 probably with any other carrier.  That doesn't really add up unless it's subsidized or the other carriers are all making a killing LOL ...

I imagine the overall Chinese philosophy for absolutely free shipping speaks to their overall plan for total market domination.  Sending a $2 item (6x4x4 inch parcel: plastic box) overseas while charging $0 for shipping puts them in the hole on the transaction (their govn't - not the company).  I guess they win market mind that way tho ...


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 15, 2019)

Interesting that the USPS denies that subsidy. They claim otherwise and say that there are multiple factors to consider when calculating the actual cost. So, it's your word against theirs unless you have access to some internal documents in that regard. I know Trump has talked about the USPS subsidy, but I'm not sure about his competence in this regard and I don't think that his word in itself bolsters the veracity of the statement.

Here in Canada the shipping costs are too high because Canada Post makes a big profit. I think they should operate as a service to Canadians (private and business), but that philosophy does not sit well in the current environment so I just have to accept the situation.

Regarding free shipping from China, I really like that when it's inexpensive items, like adapters etc. But when it's something with higher value and generally more important to have, then it's a real nuisance that it takes 3 months to arrive (2.5 mo for me on average) because I'd rather pay something to have the item arrive in a timely manner.


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## CraigHB (Jul 15, 2019)

Yeah you're not getting the benefit of that Chinese shipping subsidy so much.  I'm in the Los Angeles, CA area and I'm getting stuff sometimes in as little as a week and usually no more than two weeks.  Crazy isn't it?  I can get stuff overseas from China sometimes faster than domestic.

From what I understand China worked out a deal where the US is paying a considerable part of that subsidy through a USPS discount handling goods on our side.  It comes from some third world trade act congress passed ages ago.  At the time China was considered a third world country and still qualifies for this subsidy, totally ridiculous.

US vendors should be up in arms about the US subsidy, but it seems nobody cares about anything anymore here in the US, either that or the system has shut down anybody's ability to protest.  It's quite  a coup on the part of the Chinese to completely rule the consumer market in the USA.


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## ronaldlees (Jul 16, 2019)

OJ said:


> Regarding free shipping from China, I really like that when it's inexpensive items, like adapters etc. But when it's something with higher value and generally more important to have, then it's a real nuisance that it takes 3 months to arrive (2.5 mo for me on average) because I'd rather pay something to have the item arrive in a timely manner.



I've had items come by the slow boat, as you say, but sometimes the Chinese ship (free for me) air post, and I get it as quickly as I would from a domestic producer.  Like CraigHB wrote, it's often crazy fast.  That $2 mini project box was free air post to me.  I remember wondering about what the item could be when I pulled the parcel from the mail box, since I wasn't expecting anything so soon. 

Sorry the Moose express is so expensive.   I don't know for sure anything about subsidies to the USPS, but if they are _not subsidized_, then our "free market" system is not working so well with regard to their competition.  Many times the price difference is twice the amount - and sometimes close to three times the amount.  Delivery times are often par.  The extra money buys a day or two.  Wow.


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## getopt (Jul 16, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> It's quite a coup on the part of the Chinese to completely rule the consumer market in the USA.


Do not forget that domestic greedy managers started exploiting cheep workers around the globe and called that globalism. Now you harvest what has been  seeded.

Thinking that protectionism will draw back the wheel won't work out. Consumers have the illusion that they are smart but they aren't. Give them the stupidest adds on the planet and they buy even bullshit. A resisting boycott might help as it hits the companies balance sheet. But that needs some strength for not going easy and not acting selfish.


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## CraigHB (Jul 16, 2019)

Barring the sad part, it's humorous the political economic culture in the USA is sort of anti-globalism right now (i.e. increasing tariffs) yet nobody says a peep about the fact our government is footing part of the bill for overseas shipping.

Crazy system we live under here in the US.  I mean c'mon, if you want to give American consumer industry a leg up at least don't help provide free shipping for overseas products.  I shouldn't complain though, who doesn't love buying something inexpensive without that shipping fee that sometimes costs more than the actual product.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 16, 2019)

Yes, maufacturing going off-shore was a problem in the early 70s already. In the 80s US tried various campaigns to bring it back, but failed miserably. The sad fact is that the US is not going to fill that bill any time soon, certainly not in this or the next generation. So, the bottom line is that any shipping subsidy is actually a US consumer subsidy. That looks to me like it could be a good thing.


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## toorski (Jul 16, 2019)

I don’t blame China or Chinese people for taking over global production and markets. I blame the global marketeers, banksters, financial and political systems manipulators that don’t give a shit where they do it, who they do it with or to and who gets screwed along the way, as long as they’re in control of power and/or money.

Facebook doesn’t make much of anything other than more money from others money - the shareholders.  Facebook’s product is over a billion brainwashed beings from around the world who help Facebook stay rich and powerful, just like Microsoft, Google, Apple or alike that make  create shit that people could live without.

In US we don’t produce much of anything anymore, other than money from anyone and anywhere. China makes products and sell them here in exchange for the funny money. When the shit hits the fan it’s not going to be very funny when China will eventually ask for the real money. or else


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## CraigHB (Jul 17, 2019)

Yeah it's all about the economic system capitalizing on cheap labor markets.  If it wasn't China it would be somewhere else.

China will never ask for the money we [the USA] owe them.  It keeps us right where they want us.


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