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From: AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: silca and Tariffs
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2025 10:35:49 -0500
Organization: Yellow Jersey, Ltd.
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On 4/27/2025 9:15 AM, Catrike Ryder wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 16:47:54 +0700, John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 04:47:34 -0400, Catrike Ryder
>> <Soloman@old.bikers.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 07:40:05 +0700, John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 14:33:53 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 4/26/2025 1:15 PM, cyclintom wrote:
>>>>>> On Sat Apr 26 13:41:16 2025 Catrike Ryder  wrote:
>>>>>>> On 26 Apr 2025 09:14:12 GMT, Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> <https://youtu.be/VKz5J5PPt-Q?si=ntPrbZPhCguTIuQM>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Josh of Silca does a good job of explaining how the tariffs are effecting
>>>>>>>> US companies certainly small ones, as ever it?s a moving target so may well
>>>>>>>> change.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Roger Merriman
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Many countries have tariffs on products from the USA. I see no reason
>>>>>>> why the USA shouldn't have tariffs on their products. Maybe it will
>>>>>>> bring manufacturing back, maybe not. The USA used to be a
>>>>>>> manufacturing powerhouse and the bureaucratic jackasses let it slip
>>>>>>> away. I don't know if Trump's plans can save the country, but it was
>>>>>>> definatly going to hell with the same old, same old plans. At least
>>>>>>> he's trying something new.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> According to the Democrats tarriffws are good for other countries but not for Ameriucs. It was perfectly OK for Clinton to apply larger tarrifs to foreign goods than TGrump is doing but perfectly awful for Trump to do titfor tat..
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Time to put these people away.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> You do not understand the problem.  Duty disparities are
>>>>> broad, deep, convoluted and often at multiple cross
>>>>> purposes. Oh, and they span every administration since
>>>>> nearly forever.
>>>>>
>>>>> All that applies in spades to domestic micromanagement in
>>>>> targeted areas in this and every country, what with
>>>>> incentives (bribes) and disincentives (punishment) of a
>>>>> hundred flavors in thousand of iterations.
>>>>>
>>>>> Small example-
>>>>>
>>>>> United States of America is written in Japanese as Beikoku:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.pngegg.com/en/png-fnrij
>>>>>
>>>>> or "rice" + "country", as the reformation of language in the
>>>>> 1860s was contemporaneous with plentiful and inexpensive
>>>>> American rice imports.
>>>>>
>>>>> That was long, long ago, before nearly all Japanese
>>>>> administrations encouraged (subsidized)  extremely small
>>>>> inefficient farms. Along with the votes of farmers, whose
>>>>> numbers would decrease if farms were combined into larger
>>>>> fields. (this is happening in USA now, a continuance of a
>>>>> long trend, with more food production from less labor, but a
>>>>> side effect is decreased farmer votes. In some counties this
>>>>> has had major political effect.)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://ap.fftc.org.tw/article/1327
>>>>>
>>>>> And don't think we're better. Review USA sugar subsidies,
>>>>> price supports and duties which are no better than policies
>>>>> for rice in Japan.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or the Harley Tax. Or the Chicken Tax.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have been an importer of tubular bicycle tires across a
>>>>> half dozen entities, including Yellow Jersey, for over 50
>>>>> years. That's a product we have not made here in USA since
>>>>> before The Great Pacific War.  I pay import duty on each and
>>>>> every tire and the rate hasn't changed, up or down, in a
>>>>> half century.
>>>>
>>>> Ah but... what would be the cost of setting up a factory and
>>>> manufacturing bike tires in the  U.S.? Is it possible for the U.S. to
>>>> compete with foreign bicycle tire makers?
>>>
>>> I suspect that building a bicycle tire factory costs less then the
>>> building an automobile factory and auto manufacturers have been moving
>>> their factories around for years.
>>
>>
>> True and usually for very good reasons, cost of operations. Normal
>> minimum salary in Mexico were a number of car factories have recently
>> open is US $2.04/hour while in the U.S. it is $7.25/hour.
> 
> It's true that high wages in the USA was the major factor in the loss
> of manufacturing in the USA, even though your figures are not
> representative of wages for auto workers in Mexico and in the USA.
> 
> It's a shame that the labor unions and the complicit factory
> management were allowed to drive workers wages out of the market.
> 
> The labor unions had too much power....
> 
> Auto manufacturing was largely responsible. Every year, it seems, the
> auto unions picked one car company to attack and workers all over the
> country demanded and got raises. Wages everywhere increased
> and the resulting inflation in the USA took place to nullify the
> increases.
> 
> The stupidity was believing that raising wages was to counter
> inflation, when instead, they were creating inflation.
> 
> --
> C'est bon
> Soloman


Review the sad history of Huffy in Dayton Ohio, one of the 
world's most efficient producers of anything at one time.

 From the late 1960s through early 1980s they were taking in 
raw steel and shipping complete boxed bicycles in a 45 
minute cycle 24 hours a day with no average retail price 
changes (despite severe inflation!) over that span.  From 
the Huffman days they were always very engineering driven, 
with multiple improvements every year. With my extensive 
experience on XMart level bicycles, Huffy are repairable but 
that couldn't always be said of Murray Ohio, Rollfast, 
Columbia and their other competitors.  In short, perhaps of 
Spartan design to us, but not junk and they sold well, 
better than any 'bike shop' brand, for decades.

The union leaders were myopic, brutal and unrelenting. 
Management was as bad or worse.  Eventually management 
closed the facility in a fit of "f**k you too" but without 
good plans.  A facility was built in northern Mexico among 
other maquiladoras but was never fully tooled and produced 
not one bicycle.  The corporation is now just another 
communist china crap importer.
-- 
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971