Should I care that the knife was made in Taiwan?

[haertig]

I just bought a Benchmade (inexpensive) for my son yesterday. Made in Taiwan. I wasn't expecting much for $24.99 at an Army Surplus store, but I said "What the heck? At least it's got a decent name on it." To be honest, I'm pretty impressed with this low cost Benchmade (a Mini-Pika).

 

[Artfully Martial]

Well, I pretty much only use my knives for opening the occasional box and my all-purpose-tool backup, so I figure the AUS-8 will be fine for this.
Have you had a bad experience with a CRKT blade or liner lock? The liner lock in this M16 is extremely hard to close (unlike my other CRKT) but is starting to get bearable. However, all things considered, due to the secondary locking mechanism, I favor this liner lock over my others.

 

[W.T. Beck]

In my opinion the extent to which we are allowed to buy foreign-made goods is a decision that must be made the government.

I don't think the U.S. will ever become a "consumer only" society. Consumers need jobs and an income to "consume". Those imports may be cheap but they aren't free. If we outsource all of our jobs, we won't consume anything - we will simply starve.

But there needs to be some imports, in part to challenge domestic manufacturers to make a good product. American companies love to try to stick consumers with the poorest quality goods, and competition makes it harder for them to get away with it. Furthermore, as long as the economy is good and everyone is employed, there is no reason not to allow some imports.

However, we still have to have jobs. So some degree of protection is necessary to prevent all industries from succumbing to foreign competion. Imports and outsourcing must be limited to prevent unemployment.

There is no way that the actions of individual consumers (or manufacturers) can achieve a proper balance between domestic production and imports. Free trade leads to everyone acting selfishly to get the best deal for themselves. We must have an agreed upon collective management of trade, in order to balance the needs of consumers against the need to have jobs. Only the government can do this.

The answer to this question, then is no, YOU shouldn't worry about whether or not a knife is made in Taiwan. But your congressman should worry about it, and you should tell him so.

 

[Artfully Martial]

As an aside, jobs might still be present in a service based economy where the average citizen's job was to actually perform some task rather than to produce a physical item.

I've no opinion on a service based economy, just an aside.

 

[W.T. Beck]

A wide range of service jobs are being outsourced. Any job where the employee need not be physically located in the US is in danger. I have seen estimates where that is a third or more of all jobs.

Ironically, it is the offshoring of manufacturing that in the long run cannot be sustained. We are at or near the peak production of oil. Oil prices will continue to rise from now on, and it will become less and less economical to ship massive quantities of goods around the globe, or even across this country. The manufacturing jobs will eventually come back as transportation costs rise.

 

[bubinga]

No, you shouldn't.

Interestingly, CRKT has introduced their assisted-opening line, the Voodoo and the Wild Weasel, as a US-made product (their first). It's made in the same factory that makes the Harley Davidson knives for United (H-D knives presumably wouldn't sell if they were imported). They are definitely bucking (no pun intended ) the trend by starting to manufacture in the US after being a import-only business.

 

[thombrogan]

There is no blame directed at anyone there in anything I wrote, not intentionally anyway. Why or how could it possibly be Artfully Martial's fault or intrepreted as such?

I was actually trying to be funny, Mr. Rice. Apparently, someone cut the blue wire on my humor-bomb before it left my fingers and entered the internet. Kind of like when Smokey Bear admonishes:

"Only you can prevent forest fires"

And a young Steve Wright feels compelled to patrol his neighborhood with a bucket of water.

My bad.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Interestingly, CRKT has introduced their assisted-opening line, the Voodoo and the Wild Weasel, as a US-made product (their first). ... ... ... They are definitely bucking (no pun intended ) the trend by starting to manufacture in the US after being a import-only business.

They had no choice. According to the CRKT website:

While CRKT has achieved an enviable reputation for quality with our manufacturing partners in Taiwan, U.S. federal law requires that assisted opening knives be made in the U.S.A. This reality caused us to find an eager domestic manufacturer with a new, state-of-the-art plant, and we are very impressed by their first production runs of the Wild Weasel.