Author Topic: China syndrome  (Read 14282 times)

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JoeD

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #75 on: June 22, 2011, 10:52:49 AM »
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Watching this, and being effected by it directly, two scenero's come to mind.  One is that Bachman and their holdings have so much work that they cannot service OEM's, or there is some sort of effort to hobble the other players so they have time to take over more of the market.  I'd like to believe the first, but watching the way folks do business these days, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter.   

As to the tooling issue, as I understand it, if they have it, they have it and you have to ask to use it regardless where it was cut or who paid for it.  I don't know what legal recourse we have, but I know it took almost a year for us to get our tooling out of Kader and to another mfg across the street. 

I'm a pretty easy going guy, but cosidering what has happened, and what I see unfolding with Athearn and Atlas and a number of other's...in the future, if it is a Kader produced product, it stays on my hobby shop's shelf.  I've also educated my local hobby shop owners to what has been going on and asked them to be more selective on their purchases.  My two cents.

Joe
in my civvies here.  I only represent my grandmothers home made Mac and Cheese on Railwire.

victor miranda

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #76 on: June 22, 2011, 10:58:20 AM »
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Yeah, maybe, but considering the USA past record in matters like this I would not be optimistic one bit.  Look at the steel industry's fight to keep foreign steel from being dumped illegally  in this country.   And by "being dumped" I mean sold for below the cost to produce it.  With China holding so much of our debt I don't think the government would act real quickly.

this is a quick court and civil law issue.
the political side of US Government will not be involved with this.

mostly It is going to be a question of the price of a lawyer
versus the price of the items siezed....

victor

victor miranda

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #77 on: June 22, 2011, 11:12:59 AM »
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Hi shipsure,

I enjoyed reading your post.
by across the street I am assuming the tooling has moved to a new factory
and is still in China as opposed to in Oregon USA?

the other thing is how to identify a Kader made item?

last and not least is simply a comment about the situation
in that if it is not possible to get the tools back to the one who paid
to create it, I am beginning to understand why the manufacturers
want to amortize that tooling cost in one run.
sure explains a lot.

ooof...
not fair nor reasonable.

victor

sirenwerks

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #78 on: June 22, 2011, 11:18:09 AM »
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Yeah, maybe, but considering the USA past record in matters like this I would not be optimistic one bit.  Look at the steel industry's fight to keep foreign steel from being dumped illegally  in this country.   And by "being dumped" I mean sold for below the cost to produce it.  With China holding so much of our debt I don't think the government would act real quickly.

It's only "dumped" when people, certain people in the US that is, are against it. Otherwise under-pricing is a viable business practice to lessen a competitors market share or to gain market entry, where companies take an accepted loss in the hope of more business at normal prices in the future. It's done very regularly by US entities in federal contracting. The word "dumped" has an intentional negative implication, despite the fact that the product may be just as good or even better than product manufactured by US entities. We, the US, need to get over such issues. Fair trade and access to foreign markets work both ways, and if another country kicks our collective a$$ in one way or another it's time to cowboy up or shut up.
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

asarge

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #79 on: June 22, 2011, 11:24:29 AM »
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I agree, if somebody took another's bought and paid for tooling and tried to sell product from it in the US. It'll be settled in the courts.

Quote
On a more positive note....

Maybe this is just the post holiday lul. With longer delays in production, they expect items announced now to not arrive until after the Holiday buying season so they, like most years, back off announcments around this time.

Or.....

 With the N scale convention going on now and the NMRA show upcomming, and in Athearns neck of the woods so to say, they are saving up announcements for the show to make the show announcements stronger.


Tony, with us and most hobby shops I would suspect that January and February are pretty hot months for sales. Athearn has not had a spate of show related announcements lately. Usually 1,2 or 0 overall. One might attribute to their attitide about N scael "N scalers don't buy enough". But there are VERY few announcements in HO. I was told they had a new N scale product close to ready to announce about 4 months ago, so hopefully we'll get a hint about it soon. But I wouldn;t bet on it either way.

If I had a guess, I'd say it's a money issue as much as any.


JoeD

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #80 on: June 22, 2011, 11:30:21 AM »
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Victor,

I believe Bachmann is the main one since they are either owner of or major benifactor of Kader.  Still kinda confused on who owns who.

I realize my boycott is symbolic at best, but it's all I got!

Joe

Hi shipsure,

I enjoyed reading your post.
by across the street I am assuming the tooling has moved to a new factory
and is still in China as opposed to in Oregon USA?

the other thing is how to identify a Kader made item?

last and not least is simply a comment about the situation
in that if it is not possible to get the tools back to the one who paid
to create it, I am beginning to understand why the manufacturers
want to amortize that tooling cost in one run.
sure explains a lot.

ooof...
not fair nor reasonable.

victor
in my civvies here.  I only represent my grandmothers home made Mac and Cheese on Railwire.

Bluford Craig

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #81 on: June 22, 2011, 11:49:56 AM »
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Joe,
It's the other way around, Kader owns Bachmann and has for a number of years.

By the way, occassionally Chinese made tooling does make it out of China. It depends on the financial and insurance arrangements...

Craig

inkaneer

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #82 on: June 22, 2011, 06:06:20 PM »
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It's only "dumped" when people, certain people in the US that is, are against it. Otherwise under-pricing is a viable business practice to lessen a competitors market share or to gain market entry, where companies take an accepted loss in the hope of more business at normal prices in the future. It's done very regularly by US entities in federal contracting. The word "dumped" has an intentional negative implication, despite the fact that the product may be just as good or even better than product manufactured by US entities. We, the US, need to get over such issues. Fair trade and access to foreign markets work both ways, and if another country kicks our collective a$$ in one way or another it's time to cowboy up or shut up.

Nope!  Dumping means that a commodity is manufactured in one country then exported for sale in another country at a price below what it cost to produce the product with the difference being subsidized by the exporting country's government.  Dumping is not a practice of individual companies.  It is governmental foreign policy.  It is not fair trade.

inkaneer

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #83 on: June 22, 2011, 07:23:26 PM »
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this is a quick court and civil law issue.
the political side of US Government will not be involved with this.

mostly It is going to be a question of the price of a lawyer
versus the price of the items siezed....

victor

Any court decision by a US court would be meaningless in China if they so choose to treat it that way.  How would you enforce the decision?  Send a sheriff deputy to Beijing?   So it is a lot more complex than what you make of it.   Options are an international court such as the Hague which has no real enforcement authority or political pressure from the U.S government.  How about if we freeze their assets here? 

asarge

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #84 on: June 22, 2011, 09:41:24 PM »
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What would probably happen if it went to court would be the US importer would have to prove the product was made from tooling he paid for and had exclusive rights or title too. If he won a judgement against any importer that did use the tooling, he would be awarded damages that would be paid in cash or any future product made from that tooling.

The judgement would be against the importer. It wouldn't stand in China but then the mmanufacturer in China wouldn't find it financially rewarding to sell one company's product to anothe importer in this country.

At least that's how it was explained to me this evening.

sirenwerks

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #85 on: June 22, 2011, 10:30:21 PM »
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Nope!  Dumping means that a commodity is manufactured in one country then exported for sale in another country at a price below what it cost to produce the product with the difference being subsidized by the exporting country's government.  Dumping is not a practice of individual companies.  It is governmental foreign policy.  It is not fair trade.

And the US is in no place to contest the use of subsidies. There's plenty of agriculture product exported that is subsidized in numerous direct and indirect ways. Airlines are subsidized and compete against foreign airlines for travel to and from the US. Etc. There's no difference whether the differential is made at the production stage or at the price point. And yes, dumping is a practice of individual companies, it's just not a term they use. It's often referred to in less ominous terms such as undercutting and predatory pricing. And let's not forget there are benefits to be had by such activities.

For instance, the long-lived and oft-quoted 1999 dumping charge (contrary to popular belief, it is not an on-going event), a charge that has been significantly and rightly challenged by the WTO as ill-conceived, was only levied on hot rolled steel products - a basic ingredient in most processed steel products. So the steel being "dumped" was actually being consumed by other US steel manufacturers to be turned into American-made processed steel products, giving those other US companies higher profits through lower cost. Ergo, the argument, made by what was touted as the whole US steel manufacturer community was really only Nucor and US Steel; and their was no injury to the whole of the US steel product producing community, as one has been led to believe by the chicken little approach to spinning the event.

Oh, and should we not forget how happy the US consumers were to get lower cost product? What about that benefit?
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 10:42:12 PM by sirenwerks »
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victor miranda

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #86 on: June 22, 2011, 10:35:58 PM »
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Inkaneer,
I wonder of the posts you are reading and responding, 'cause they sure aren't mine....

this has been a calm and thoughtful thread.  be thoughtful.

I will repeat this part...
Any items or products in the usa are subject to US law.

So while the chinese may 'keep' the tooling in china.
the chinese can't import anything that uses the 'kept' tooling.
(and expect to profit from the sale in any case)
I was never talking about products outside of the USA.

Any one who imports items made from 'kept' tooling will lose them.
court order and probable destruction under counterfeiting laws
would be my guess.

this next section is the part I thought went without needing to be written,

No one with any business sense will take a chance on a complete loss like that.
and do not mistake that it will happen here in the U.S.

This next part may be helpful...
This is the reason you do not see "new from Italy"
the old atlas/Rivarossi light mike and pacific.

If I understood what I read in the past, Atlas paid for the tooling
and when Atlas tried to move them out of Italy
the Italian Government declared the tooling to be 'works of art'
and 'kept' them in Italy.
( I also was told Atlas was not paid for the tooling)

US law is pretty clear on this subject.

Ownership in the US is: who paid for the tools.
If you do not own the tools, you can't profit from them
by selling items made from them here in the U.S.

victor



inkaneer

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #87 on: June 23, 2011, 09:08:06 AM »
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And the US is in no place to contest the use of subsidies. There's plenty of agriculture product exported that is subsidized in numerous direct and indirect ways. Airlines are subsidized and compete against foreign airlines for travel to and from the US. Etc. There's no difference whether the differential is made at the production stage or at the price point. And yes, dumping is a practice of individual companies, it's just not a term they use. It's often referred to in less ominous terms such as undercutting and predatory pricing. And let's not forget there are benefits to be had by such activities.

For instance, the long-lived and oft-quoted 1999 dumping charge (contrary to popular belief, it is not an on-going event), a charge that has been significantly and rightly challenged by the WTO as ill-conceived, was only levied on hot rolled steel products - a basic ingredient in most processed steel products. So the steel being "dumped" was actually being consumed by other US steel manufacturers to be turned into American-made processed steel products, giving those other US companies higher profits through lower cost. Ergo, the argument, made by what was touted as the whole US steel manufacturer community was really only Nucor and US Steel; and their was no injury to the whole of the US steel product producing community, as one has been led to believe by the chicken little approach to spinning the event.

Oh, and should we not forget how happy the US consumers were to get lower cost product? What about that benefit?

You didn't mention the specialty steel industry.  This is an industry vital to our national defense.  You don't make jet engine turbine blades out of any old steel.  Yet foreign steel producers were dumping specialty steel here and the specialty steel industry was hard hit.  Apparently the government thought it was more of a problem than you as they imposed limits and tariffs on certain specialty steels. 

As for dumping in general, any "benefits" derived were far outweighed by costs.  People out of work collect unemployment.  They don't consume as much.  They lose healthcare benefits.  They go on food stamps and medicaid all of which is paid for by taxpayers.  So in reality what dumping accomplishes is that it  enables one country to export its unemployment to another.   As for subsidies that is not the same as dumping.  Take farm subsidies as an example.  Farming is so efficient that we can feed the nation and the world without using all of the available farmland.  So we pay farmers to take land out of production.  That ensures that a farmer will get a price for his product that will cover the costs of production.  it also ensures that we don't put farmers in other countries out of work.  Farmers don't get a bundle of cash for their subsidy either.  They usually get credit to purchase farm related items such as watering facilities or farm equipment.  Unlike dumping, farm subsidies stabilize the market.  Dumping destabilizes it.   Airlines get subsidies to service less populated areas.  If not only the big cities would have air service.  It also preserves what is considered an industry that is vital to the national defense.  Railroad passenger service was once in that category.  They were subsidized by the USPS. But in the early 1960's their mail carrying subsidy went to the airlines.     

inkaneer

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #88 on: June 23, 2011, 09:20:37 AM »
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Inkaneer,
I wonder of the posts you are reading and responding, 'cause they sure aren't mine....

this has been a calm and thoughtful thread.  be thoughtful.

I will repeat this part...
Any items or products in the usa are subject to US law.

So while the chinese may 'keep' the tooling in china.
the chinese can't import anything that uses the 'kept' tooling.
(and expect to profit from the sale in any case)
I was never talking about products outside of the USA.

Any one who imports items made from 'kept' tooling will lose them.
court order and probable destruction under counterfeiting laws
would be my guess.

this next section is the part I thought went without needing to be written,

No one with any business sense will take a chance on a complete loss like that.
and do not mistake that it will happen here in the U.S.

This next part may be helpful...
This is the reason you do not see "new from Italy"
the old atlas/Rivarossi light mike and pacific.

If I understood what I read in the past, Atlas paid for the tooling
and when Atlas tried to move them out of Italy
the Italian Government declared the tooling to be 'works of art'
and 'kept' them in Italy.
( I also was told Atlas was not paid for the tooling)

US law is pretty clear on this subject.

Ownership in the US is: who paid for the tools.
If you do not own the tools, you can't profit from them
by selling items made from them here in the U.S.

victor

Victor, I am not naive enough to think that if A and B occur then C will occur next.  Maybe in a perfect world if one existed but not in this country.   It is not as automatic as you suggest.  No one in the government is watching what imports are made from stolen tooling.   That is up to the individual companies to protect their interests.  Only when companies bring a matter to the attention of a federal court and proves their contentions does government get involved.  That takes time.  That also takes money,  a lot of money.  But I doubt if the stolen tooling will ever be used.  It has far better value as a hostage. 

victor miranda

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Re: China syndrome
« Reply #89 on: June 23, 2011, 10:34:58 AM »
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Victor, I am not naive enough to think that if A and B occur then C will occur next.  Maybe in a perfect world if one existed but not in this country.   It is not as automatic as you suggest.  No one in the government is watching what imports are made from stolen tooling.   That is up to the individual companies to protect their interests.  Only when companies bring a matter to the attention of a federal court and proves their contentions does government get involved.  That takes time.  That also takes money,  a lot of money.  But I doubt if the stolen tooling will ever be used.  It has far better value as a hostage.

ok....

it took you three posts to say "yes I agree, Victor."
my apologiges for misunderstanding you.

victor