I don't even see how the shipping/warehousing/packaging costs are met. On a related issue, I bought a new 21" color TV with remote for $90 last year at a supermarket. They had an enormous stack of them near the checkout lines. It works fine. Color TVs cost $500 in the 1950s ... adjust that for inflation! I have seen DVD players for $49. The Asians are amazing.
Have you ever bought one of those strings of 100 lights that sells for $1? I just purchased 8 strings of them for 50 cents a string, on sale--normal price: $1. I have a difficult time understanding how they can be sold at that price, even if the entire manufacturing process is automated. The raw materials alone would seem to cost more than $1.
Norm Strong
Hi Norm,
In many Asian countries people are happy when they earn 50 cents and hour. Pretty sad. Engineers make a little more but not a whole lot (that's where outsourcing comes in...). Problem with many of these cheap products is quality. I remember that the old lighting strings worked forever. This year alone we had four of them croak after just a few hours. They are so flimsy that fixing them is hardly worth it. But here you are, high up there on a ladder, trying to untie everything and realizing that the new string is just a couple inches shorter so all the others connected to the output side need to be untied and re-attached again.
I was more happy with the older expensive versions. Once up there they weathered all the storms through Christmas. If a little light bulb blew you could change it without the whole plastic enchilada crumbling into your hands.
Regards, Joerg
I seriously doubt this. While they may have some fun sorting things out, in their managed way I'm sure they will, perhaps using the cash they've built up with years of a massively-positive balance of trade.
--
Thanks,
- Win
Had me puzzled for a while also - until I studied the econnomics of China a bit: The bad debt in Chinese banks was at Sep. 2004 running at 40% of BNP!!!
So The answer is:
It was made at at Loss; the Chineese manufacturer Lost Money on it, but he did not really care: His "game" is to get turnover, which he will use to borrow more money to fund his "business" ... China is one huge dot.com bubble running on credit, the only "business plan" is to go for market share; however the US "Land Grab" in the Middle East pushing up energy prices and the falling US Dollar will ensure a grim end for the Chineese economy within this decade.
Them "Strategic Interests" again.
Do you have access to Chinese bank accounts to see what they are doing with that cash?
Is that right? I thought it was the other way around.
--
Thanks,
- Win
They tend not to automate that sort of production, they have lots of very cheap labour and an artificial exchange rate.
Leon
They're buying some interesting foreign assets- IBM's PC division, Canada's Falconbridge Nickel, Singer, and others. That makes a lot more sense than following the Japanese lead and buying US Treasuries that have net negative return when you consider the plummeting USD.
They're currently running an overall trade deficit, so presumably the value of the yuan is a touch on the high side.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
It's correct that they are running an overall trade deficit, the other is a matter of conjecture. ;-)
"China's trade deficit hit US$10.76 billion in the first four months with soaring exports and imports."
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
Of course China will be there as a nation in 30 years, but the pension money people put into China funds will not be there. China's "economic miracle" will not go pretty much the same way as it did in f.ex. Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Brazil and the "new economy".
(Japan is somewhat similar and yet different - here the problem is vast losses on property investments buried in banks that cannot write off those losses witout going bancrupt - yet "everybody" knows that is the way things are, so nobody dare invest in Japan just in case the lid blows off that particular economic septic-tank).
Asia times online are quite good on China:
Leaving aside the question of whether this one particular country has a positive trade balance, a trade imbalance means that the other country is sending us TVs, VCRs, steel, wood, etc. and in return we are sending them little slips of paper. We seem to be getting the better end of the deal.
Don't be so quick to laugh - this DOES happen. Oftentimes when there is empty space in a container, the shipping company or an employee of that company will invest a couple of hundred dollars in random junk to fill the space and maybe turn a little profit.
Money.
Here in the US, cheap DVD players are typically found in stores for $30-$40. $35 is easily obtainable during holiday sales without the need for rebates or other gimmicks.
Sure they did, it was just miniscule but they sold ten million of the things...
Calculate how many of those tiny Xmas light boxes will fit into a FULL forty-foot sea-shipment container and you'll have your answer.
Either 2385 or 2690 cubic feet internally.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
"normanstrong" skrev i en meddelelse news:Hl2ud.541131$D%.253933@attbi_s51...
I just bough a DVD-player for one of the children - DKK 339 - or about USD
60 at today's price. That includes 25% VAT, Profit for the shop, profit for the Importer and Shipping from China.Did the Chinese manufacturer make a profit - naah, don't think so.!
A shipping company probably had a ship container that had some unused space, and the lights where used as packaging, sort of hitech bubblewrap
martin
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I wonder what they send bck to china in the containers? I cant imagine the chinese need much from the EU or US
martin
Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared. Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
We send them all the junk the EPA won't let us burn.
-- Best Regards, Mike
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