Made in America

A little OT, but here is an interesting article about insourcing. I grew up in a blue-collar town in the midwest and this made me feel good. I recently purchased one of the high-efficiency heat pump hot water heaters described in the article (made in USA).

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/

Consumer demand leads, and corporations follow. On another current AudiogoN thread, a member is lamenting the fact that dealers won't sell across state lines. He wants the product for less, and who wouldn't? Corporations know this.

Consumers have an expectation (right or wrong is irrelevant) that newer versions of product A will be better, faster, smaller, more efficient, more powerful, AND lower in price than the earlier versions of the same product.

Corporations try to meet these expectations. UNTIL CONSUMER DEMAND CHANGES, CORPORATIONS WILL NOT CHANGE!

Personally, I don't think the consumer expectation is unrealistic. I think the financial burden placed on US companies by federal and state governments is bordering on counter productive.

Ironically, I think high end audio is a bit immune to this. Enthusiasts will pay outrageous amounts of money for nearly anything from feet and cables to speakers and amps. Obviously, there is enough margin in the few units sold to keep some of the "American" high end companies still in business.

Pgawan, it is a much more complex issue than consumer demand. The market sets the prices for products. Companies then make the decision to produce those products based on profitability and capital investment. (It takes money to make money). Just a few years ago, I was paying $89/month for cable but now it costs me $140/month for the same level of service. I am not happy about that at all; but I have not found a suitable, cheaper alternative. This cable outfit is making a ton of money for their investors and they reward their CEO handsomely for it. The market dictates the prices and companies must find ways to produce and make a profit. The point is, most of our mainstream products are produced by large global companies. These companies have resources the world over and the decision to invest in this country or that is based largely on profitability. What you did for me yesterday doesn't matter. Its all about what can you do for me today. Senior level management is filled with egocentric people. That is a reality. They likely, generally speaking, have failed marriages and/or fractured family lives. These same management teams also fail to maintain relationships with their direct employees that produce their products. Being egocentric, they tend to severe those relationships and move on. They cannot break those paradigms just as much as sometimes older manufacturing plants are not able to break old paradigms and move on. A good example is a certain tire plant in the midwest a couple of decades ago. It was a US owned plant. Quality was poor, productivity was poor and the plant was loosing money. The management closed the plant and sold it. They said that they had no other options. They blamed the workers for all of the issues. A foreign firm bought the plant and rehired the same workers. They invested money into the plant and it became a top producer with excellent quality and profitability. The only change was the management team. Is that the case every time? No, of course not, but it is more often than not. The relationship between senior management and their manufacturing plants is just like a marriage. Both sides have to work at it and let go of the baggage. Egocentric management teams, however, tend to fold up the game board and go home when things do not go their way. Start a new relationship in a new location and lay down their egocentric rules. It works for a while until that new plant becomes restless and tired of the onesided relationship. If you follow the news at all, you have seen this played out over and over again.
Yes, enthusiasts will pay outrageous amounts of money for nearly anything from cables to speakers and amps. There is a market for high end equipment and none of us can really guess at the motivation of the leadership of these high end US companies. Maybe they love this hobby too and they keep their manufacturing close at hand so they have more control over it and the day to day operations. Maybe they feel a sense of duty to their local community. Maybe, if they had the capital and market growth potential, they would invest in a plant overseas to generate maximum profits.

Too many maybes. Your first premise is likely the correct one. My wife here in Canada works for a well known outfit that converts full size vans into motorhomes. This company has been on a downward spiral for the last ten years due to exactly the same thing. One hand doesn't know what the other is doing. The problem is, neither does it seem to care. However in this case the workers are to blame! Consequently so is upper management. Production is down so they hire 50 workers from a plant that just went under for the same reason and guess what happened? Production actually went down. Why? Because in that 50, they also hired the management team! Upper management appears for a weekly pep talk but doesn't want to hear the details or complaints. That's up to, you got it, the management team who consistently turns a blind eye to inefficiencies in the plant. Otherwise they'd have to admit they've been incompetent letting it go for such a long time. The workers see very clearly what's going on and play along, save for a few. Everyone sees very clearly they're eventually going to be out of a job. Look what happened to General Motors. Not much difference there. Or in a lot of companies. It's not just about losing jobs overseas. New immigrants come in, see what's going on, and jump on it(but I'm referring to self employment here). Production is the number 1 goal elsewhere. The Federal government is well aware of the laxidaysical attitude of entitlement the unions have garnered and ingrained in the mentality of the labor force. Up here in Canada the immigration flood gates are wide open. It's no different south of us. So we have companies heading overseas while the Federal government tries desperately to stave off the inevitable by increasing immigration. But the immigrants ultimately end up adopting the status quo as soon as they learn the ropes. No one's gonna make a fool out of them. In the the end the population just keeps increasing along with the deficit.

Don't get me started on cable companies. My bill was going to go from around $130/month to over $200 for the very same service. I had to call customer retention and argue for many a minute until I got a supervisor who very quickly and politely gave me the same service for $15 more per month. Getting that supervisor was more difficult than in the past. Persevere folks, persevere.

What we now have are telecommunication cartels that carve up territory and block any and all competition. What I pay $145/month for I can get in France for about $45/month because they allow competition. Who would have thought? Aren't we told that competition and "free markets" are what drive this economy?

Please.

All the best,
Nonoise