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Aussie/China relationship........

shane_3800

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Maybe for some, I'm at the point that I'll look for better quality at a higher price if it's going to last more than a few uses. We have become a throw away society to the detriment of the planet and the people who live on it.

Yes I'm like that too. Quality is my preference as I've bought enough China crap in my time to know better.
My socks I wear at work are an Australian made bamboo sock and my first 3 pairs are still going strong after 3 years.
The majority of my tools are expensive hell I bought a Snap-on drill because it was assembled in Kenosha unlike everything else on the market.
I hate Chinese crap.

The only good product I've seen out of China is Audio-GD which is an exception to the ruel.
 

J_D 2.0

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we've become so accustomed to cheap goods that we see it as normal now.
You might think goods are cheap but their cost to you bears no reality to their production cost.

Most processes are automated now and the labour component isn’t that big a factor in a lot of products now.

When I started in my current job nearly everything from our major supplier was made in Australia or other western countries (yes I’ve been there that long!). Progressively more and more stuff has been moved over to being made in China or India and funnily enough the prices that we pay haven’t gone down at all, in fact they continue to go up with “inflation”.

Before production started moving to China and India I saw invoices accidentally left on goods that had been delivered to us made in Europe and the markup to us was on the order of three to four times their cost and then we put our modest mark up on it! Now most of their stuff is made in China or India so the markup is probably five to six times or more what we pay for it now.

It was always well within their scope to keep production in western countries but they want to make even more exorbitant profits than they were making before!
 

DavesSV6Tonner

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A couple of years ago I watched a Four Corners investigation into cancer clusters in the workers in a Chinese factory that exclusively manufactures iPhones. At the time of the story the current model was the iPhone 6. The journalist was talking to the owner/manager of the factory and he asked how much they received for manufacturing an iPhone 6. IIRC the owners reply was US $4.00 per phone, boxed and ready for shipment to the shops.
How much does it cost to buy an iPhone? Around 1k? Someone is making a killing.
 

shane_3800

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A couple of years ago I watched a Four Corners investigation into cancer clusters in the workers in a Chinese factory that exclusively manufactures iPhones. At the time of the story the current model was the iPhone 6. The journalist was talking to the owner/manager of the factory and he asked how much they received for manufacturing an iPhone 6. IIRC the owners reply was US $4.00 per phone, boxed and ready for shipment to the shops.
How much does it cost to buy an iPhone? Around 1k? Someone is making a killing.

That's assembly cost not parts. LG and Samsung are the only two screen makers in the world so Apple has to pay them. I phone 6 was a Samsung screen then they switched to LG for the 10.
Then there's chips, Apple have their own design but still pay for manufacture all the other phones pay royalties for CPU desgin and Apple will too soon with the ARM chips.
There's a lot more then assembly in a phone.
 

Immortality

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Anybody remember the suicide nets around the outside of the iPhone Manufacturing plant? They didnt appear because Xi was concerned with his citizens .

Corporate greed is what it comes down too.
 

mpower

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You might think goods are cheap but their cost to you bears no reality to their production cost.

Most processes are automated now and the labour component isn’t that big a factor in a lot of products now.

When I started in my current job nearly everything from our major supplier was made in Australia or other western countries (yes I’ve been there that long!). Progressively more and more stuff has been moved over to being made in China or India and funnily enough the prices that we pay haven’t gone down at all, in fact they continue to go up with “inflation”.

Before production started moving to China and India I saw invoices accidentally left on goods that had been delivered to us made in Europe and the markup to us was on the order of three to four times their cost and then we put our modest mark up on it! Now most of their stuff is made in China or India so the markup is probably five to six times or more what we pay for it now.

It was always well within their scope to keep production in western countries but they want to make even more exorbitant profits than they were making before!

The products produced today many of them are orders of magnitude more complex and require complex manufacturing processes this is why there is so much automation - and automation isn't free, instead of a bloke with a hammer you have years of development, engineers and technicians to look after these machines now - simply because the bloke with the hammer is completely incapable of the same work the machine can do (TLDR automation isn't free labour and does actually cost money).

Have a think about what a computer for example cost you in let's say 1990. Now look at an infinitely more complex computer and what it's worth today. People under think just how much technology is in the devices they use day to day. They also conveniently forget that a computer in the 90's was worth thousands and the equivalent today costs less. Back then your dollar didn't go anywhere near as far.

Televisions is another, a television today is cheaper than one in the 90's yet is orders of magnitude better and made from more advanced techniques and componentry. The factories that make these televisions are a marvel of modern manufacturing whereas the old factory was a bunch of people doing stuff by hand on simple production lines.

Consumer products have not gone up with inflation, they have become markedly cheaper as the cost to produce them has gone down yet they are orders of magnitude better, more complex and require complex manufacturing techniques that just didn't exist in days of yore.

The labour component is greatly exaggerated as part of the total cost, however in our economy labour is so ludicrously over-priced as a percentage of a product that cuts a cent here and there and also due to the much higher rate of consumption of the very goods we're making. Back in ye olde times people didn't churn through pocket computers (yes phones) at the rate they do now (a great example of segments that didn't even exist), or teles, white goods, cars or pretty much anything.

There are many factors at play but the China factor has driven much higher consumption of goods than ever before.
 
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VS 5.0

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China now complaining about the market price for iron ore and want an investigation into it.

There is no end to their desire for total control.

Time to cut the ties.
 
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