China - correct me if I'm wrong.

A

averageguy

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Today, the better part of the production knives sold around the world are manufactured in China - in terms of number of knives.

In 5 - 10 years, 95% of the production knives made and sold in the world
will be made in China.

There will be no more production knife manufacturing in this country.
 
Well I for one think you are wrong. China will produce the majority of the cheap production knives, but there will continue to be knives made in Taiwan, Japan, Pakistan, etc.

It is my belief that in five years there will still be lots of production knives made in the US.
 
How big a role China will play in terms of production knives in five years' time remains to be seen. China's biggest economic advantage right now is its extremely low labour cost.

It helps if you have 1.3 billion people. If knife companies find it cost effective to move their factories to China or elsewhere, they will probably do so. Of course they have to maintain quality or better still, improve on it. This they can do so by sending their personnel for on-site quality control.

I believe this is already the situation with regard to other products manufactured in either Taiwan or China, or even Thailand.

The prospect of manufacturing items away from the homeland is not something new. It has been going on for decades. The Japanese are very good at this. But somehow quality control sometimes is not equal is all areas. It is one of the percularities of economic realities.

But yes, China will feature rather prominently in the global market (manufacturing) in the next 10 years and thereafter. There will always be a demand for home-grown customs knives. That kind of interest will never die, thus ensuring the livelihood of knifemakers in their countries of origin.
 
China's economic strength comes only from the government's manipulation of currency and control of information. As we've seen in every other communist government to ever exist, this is only temporary. There will always be knife makers in the US because people who are particular about knives are willing to pay extra for that. In other words, as long as there is a market there will be sellers.
 
It would make for an interesting article in one of the national knife publications about how many "US" designers / manufacturers are now - and have been - in Taiwan / Communist China / People's Republic of Vietnam for some years now.

This thought process began many years ago due to the Japanese cutlery industry's never ending manufacturing / materials costs - the US specialty and better known brands providers essentially becoming slaved to the Japanese cutlery industry - Taiwan was the first "new horizon" opened up by US makers - with the Japanese following with their ususal efficiency -

China / Vietnam have since been opened up - neither encouraging the Japanese for historical reasons - but US and EURO firms are knee deep in both countries due to labor costs / materials costs / and a growing capability to produce high quality bladeware - whether Made in China and imported, or 'Made in the USA" after being parted together here and meeting the minimum standards for such a label - more blades than we might imagine are SE Asian in origin -

Will we see such an article in one of our national knife magazines???

Nope -

GW
 
That's an assumption / prediction that came out of my ass.

Think televisions 30 - 35 years ago. There was no homegrown demand for these when all production moved off shore.

It is unlikely that any manufacturer outside of China will be able to compete with Chinese quality in any price range.

In fact, it is possible to expand this analogy to include any number of categories of manufactured goods.

In the last century the U.S. was the industrial and manufacturing powerhouse of the world.
In this century it will be China.
India will take over a healthy amount of our R & D and other "white collar" jobs - and funny enough, some service jobs also.

I guess this is why this is happening. People just aren't getting the big picture.

I rent four modest apartments - but they are not cheap - this has become a pricey area to live in. Three tenants work in the service industry, one works for the state. Of all my personal friends and family, only one is employed by a manufacturing concern.

I'll make one more observation, since I am already moving off topic for this forum.
Illegal immigration is the greatest present and future threat to this country and our way of life. There is no credible rationale for not sealing our borders immediately.

The knife pictured below is Chinese - try to imagine what it will look like in 10 years with VX9000 series complex carbon stainless.
 

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averageguy said:
In the last century the U.S. was the industrial and manufacturing powerhouse of the world. In this century it will be China.
India will take over a healthy amount of our R & D and other "white collar" jobs - and funny enough, some service jobs also..
Click to expand...

True, but both nations will remain poor/third world.

averageguy said:
I'll make one more observation, since I am already moving off topic for this forum. Illegal immigration is the greatest present and future threat to this country and our way of life. There is no credible rationale for not sealing our borders immediately..
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more.
 
averageguy said:
I'll make one more observation, since I am already moving off topic for this forum.
Illegal immigration is the greatest present and future threat to this country and our way of life. There is no credible rationale for not sealing our borders immediately.
Click to expand...

I think I heard a Native American say that once?

Does anyone else find it slightly ironic when Americans say stuff like this considering how they got this country?

Things change.......your never going to stop it.
 
As long as there's people willing to buy quality, well made knives, there will be people with a passion to make them. High quality knives like Golden-made Spydercos, Benchmades, and Camillus might feasably be made cheaper overseas, but they simply won't be the same quality, and that's the reason we buy them. And I have absolutely no fear of Microtech or Protech ever moving production overseas.

While it's true some American companies have lines that are made overseas, like Benchmade's Red Line, this is for a very logical reason. Not everybody wants a $150 knife. Catering to the less-spendy class of knife user allows them to continue making their higher end knives. Of course, pretty much every decision is done in the interest of profit (a long-standing American ideal), but if it keeps the company in business and making the knives we want, who's to argue?

You can't outsource pride overseas.
 
I think this thread belongs in the Political forum.

Some comments:

Manufacturing in China depends on the market outside of China, much of it in the USA, if the economy in the USA goes down then so will the market and the demand and the manufacturing.

Manufacturing in China is good for many other countries, not only because it provides large numbers of inexpensive products but because China has also become a large consumer of copper, steel, machinery, etc., whatever they need for their manufacturing.

It's OK to decide how many immigrants a country will accept and what profile immigrants should have, for example if there is a shortage of farmers or computer programmers or whatever. The problem is that it cannot be enforced, sealing the borders immediately just cannot be done.

If people from third world countries cannot go to the USA and get jobs, then the jobs will likely go out of the USA to third world countries.

Illegal immigrants in the USA are important for USA economy, in the past there have been attempts to legalize them by giving resident status to all illegals that have been in the USA for a certain time, but this has not solved the problem because more illegals keep getting in all the time, many of the illegals do not want to stay in the USA, they just want to go for a while, make some good money and then go back to their countries and families (this is at least what I see as a Mexican but I would guess it's the same for others)

IMHO the USA is very capable of competing with Chinese manufacturing particularly in high end good quality products, I'm outside the USA and keep buying USA products even though I pay for them a lot more than what USA citizens do.

It's true that most of electronic manufacturing has moved out of the USA, but that has not made the USA a weak economy and has not made electronics any less available to the American consumer.

The USA is a nation of immigrants, immigrants have made it strong and free, I think immigration has been good in the past and is good now.

Perhaps a bit off topic but since you brought up the immigrants issue hey, from a Mexican point of view I could say that it was US immigrants who declared and made Texas independent from Mexico, that wasn't so bad for Texas was it?, I guess if I had been there at the time I would have probably taken their side (don't worry I don't think that Mexican immigrants in California are interested in declaring California's independence any time soon).

The USA will continue to be very strong for a very long time.

Luis
 
No offense, but I really don't see how the opinions of a Mexican national should affect our immigration policy. At this time, Mexico is part of the problem and not the solution.

"It's OK to decide how many immigrants a country will accept and what profile immigrants should have, for example if there is a shortage of farmers or computer programmers or whatever. The problem is that it cannot be enforced, sealing the borders immediately just cannot be done."

It's not OK - our children should be receiving the education necessary to fill these positions.

"It's true that most of electronic manufacturing has moved out of the USA, but that has not made the USA a weak economy"

Wrong again. Our economy is weaker for this.




Yes, our forefathers immigrated to this country as they did to many countries around the world - but mine did it legally.
The earliest Americans had no laws regulating immigration - they migrated here themselves.

On two occasions over the last 125 years this country has taken serious steps to curtail immigration. The problem is way more out of hand than it has ever been. We must apply an effective and permanent fix.

We can seal our borders - for a fraction of what it will cost to overhaul our social security program. The quality of life all Americans would gain from this (or at least be able to maintain) is far greater than any other single action we could take.



*I enjoy history and am saddened by the abuses against native inhabitants around the globe.
 
"(knives) might feasably be made cheaper overseas, but they simply won't be the same quality"

Are you kidding? Do you think Japanese electronics and automobiles are not high quality items.
The Koreans now rival the Japanese for quality auto production.
The Chinese have a manned space program. You don't think they will be able to make a high quality knife in 10 years?
 
Don Luis said:
The USA is a nation of immigrants, immigrants have made it strong and free, I think immigration has been good in the past and is good now.
Click to expand...

Primarily European that shared similar languages, cultures, religions. They were assimilated and there offspring are regular Americans like you and me. This type of immigration is dead. There is zero attempt at assimilation. We cater to them in their languages and their cultures. They in turn, issolate themselves. That is the problem. And problems like that lead to the mess in Yugoslavia and the current one in Candada.
 
The Last Confederate said:
I think I heard a Native American say that once?

Does anyone else find it slightly ironic when Americans say stuff like this considering how they got this country?

Things change.......your never going to stop it.
Click to expand...

I understand your point, but it's not irony. Intersting response coming from someone called the Last Confederate.
 
averageguy,

No offense taken.

I am not trying to affect your immigration policies, in fact I am saying that it is for you to decide, I am not saying that you must accept immigration, you can decide no immigrants at all. I am also against illegal immigration, I do think it is not an easy problem to solve and do not see how you could seal your borders.

Jobs that require education are being taken by immigrants not because they are better educated but because they get paid less, educating your children will not change that. Interestingly enough in Mexico we have Immigrants from India working in software development, not so many to consider it a serious problem though.

We disagree in some points but I do respect your opinion.

By the way, just for background, my grandfather was born in Mexico but was a legal resident in the US for a while, my mother was born in Chicago and so was a US citizen, I could have claimed US citizenship, perhaps still can.

Luis
 
nenofury,

I agree with you only partially about assimilation of immigrants in the past.

I also believe that there is too much catering to immigrants in their own languages (not necessarily in their own cultures), I was 4 years in the USA as a foreign student back in the 70's and met some Mexicans who couldn't speak English at all, I believe they were limiting their own personal growth and missing most of the advantages of having migrated to the USA, as you said, isolating themselves. I would have thought that as time has passed there would be less people like that, like with cable TV, the internet, etc. they would have more of a chance and an incentive to learn English, get involved with general US affairs, etc., but apparently it hasn't been so.

Luis
 
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