Flex track

I have no idea how a thread on flex track turned into this. ha ha. But just to throw in my two cents... I have not only lived in CA for over half my life, but I've also run a biz here. I am pro 'USA made', both in my products and the products I purchase. Most of my products are made right here, by me, using primarily 'made in USA' materials. Which is not easy, let me tell you.

I'm not one of those doom and gloom people. I'm not going to rant about how America is dying. However... One scenario I potentially see, is numerous large cities or regions, falling into a Detroit scenario. Los Angeles being a very good prospect for that. Like Detroit, you have more and more poor people pouring in. You combine that with politicians that want to appease that voting strength, by offering freebies, and then also offering something that the average public loves more and more each year... The idea that anybody who has more than them, should be punished. If you're white, a wealthy person, a corporation, a corporation that participates in DOD procurement, the military... Basically anybody who has power or money... a good portion of the general public thinks those people should be punished, and they're more than happy to elect people who claim they will do it. So what do you eventually get? You get Detroit. You get people with money leaving, because they get tired of being punished... and then nothing but poor people are left, still waiting for their freebies. Except, there's no money left for freebies, because all the people who paid that money in, are gone.

Los Angeles came dangerously close to this scenario about 10 years ago. All the money was going to the poor areas. The wealthy areas were being ignored. No cops, poor fire response... People were tired of it. After all, you have some of the highest property tax areas in the country in L.A. So a large swath of townships (wealthy townships) within L.A., decided to start trying to secede. The county services were more than happy to pickup the business, so that was set. But... L.A. City knew what this meant.... If these townships seceded, then other wealthy areas would follow. Before long, most of the wealthy areas would all be gone, along with all that tax money. The city would be left with nothing but the poor areas, and no money in the bank. So the city spent millions on TV ads, using scare tactics about how you supposedly wouldn't have police or fire, if the measure passed. The gullible public bought it, and the prop to secede failed. Had it passed... L.A. would be in some serious trouble, and probably well on their way to being the next Detroit.

As long as CA wants to continue living in a fantasy world, where stuff like banning plastic grocery store bags is a big priority, nothing will change. CA affects the whole country. A good example... CA created a law, that requires your products to be 100% made in the US, to be able to advertise them as 'made in the US'. That means, no single component, no matter how small, can be made someplace else, if you want to advertise it as 'made in USA'. That's almost impossible to do, because there are tons of things that are not made at all, in the US anymore. You couldn't buy them here even if you wanted to. But if you have a product that is virtually all made by you, with mostly made in US materials, but it has a couple screws made in China... Technically you could be sued for false advertising, if it is advertised as 'made in US'. And there are plenty of people more than happy to get a lawyer and do just this, because, after all... you're one of those evil, rich business people that should be punished. My products fall into that category. So thanks to CA legislation, I cannot legally advertise my products as 'made in the US', even though they are about as close to made in the US as humanly possible. And since advertising crosses state lines, this means that this most extreme law, becomes the precedent for the country. Obviously you can't stop somebody in CA from viewing your website, even if you're in VA or something. And why was this law created? Because they want to appease the... 'all business people are evil and should never be trusted'... crowd.

So to pull this back on track. It is almost impossible to make good products (like models) in the US, because the majority of the public refuse to pay a dime more than they have to. And when you try to explain why you have to charge more, you're labeled as one of the greedy evil business people, who's out to gouge everybody. Did some company START the migration to overseas manufacturing years ago? Yes. But is that what continues to fuel it? No. What fuels it, is the fact that, if you have a model that's $20, and a model that's $28... guess which one Americans will buy, and guess which one is made overseas. If you don't buy the one made overseas, then they stop making them overseas, and the problem is solved. But that won't happen.

As a person trying to operate a business in the US, making 'made in US' products... It can be done, but you are basically setting yourself up to have a considerably more difficult life.

 

Every time I see one of these "it can't be done here any longer" posts, I keep wondering how Micro-Trains (and Kadee) still manages to keep running a production facility in the USA.
The MTL SOO Line 40' boxcar released this month has an MSRP of $18.20 versus $26.95 for a made offshore Atlas car.
Care to explain or rationalize that one?

 

Made on the west coast in Oregon, not the cheapest state to do business in. Anyway, I'm done, this is going to get political and I have some straight outta Compton kits to assemble.

 

It is a dark age for American manufacturing in general, and you can thank the MBAs for the decline. Instead of investing in new technology, they pocketed the money and sent things off shore. And the sad part is that with the right capitalization, and the proper investments in technology, we could make almost everything here again. It used to be there are too many lawyers, now it is too many greedy dishonest MBA's.

 

As somebody who graduated high school in 2004 I can give some insight to whats taught in school.lol

There use to be a life skills if you will call it class where you learned to budget a check book, manage a savings account, figure what you needed to do to make ends meat etc. This class was pulled to make way for economics 101 where we learned about how starbucks was under threat because of the price of the coffee bean was going up.

I was the last graduating class to do Automotive where for a year I learned to take apart a car engine and place it all back together again and get it to run. Change oil, breaks, minor body work etc. They cut the program due to the budget and that the school needed a high tech server system for the schools computer lab.

We had CAD, that too was cut.

I took woodshop and metal work. That too cut because they were not useful courses.

ROP programs hardly exsist anymore due to the budget. This is where a student could gain all kinds of skills in there interest and potentially lead to a future job. No more.

In history WW1 and WW2 was a chapter of 8 pages. Korean war was a paragraph. Vietnam a page. That was about all we covered. Shameful I know.

Algebra give me a break! To this day I never use algebra and im in emergency medicine.

English was analyzing Shakespeare..... a dead language. Hemingway, catcher in the rye! Both a rare chance to read due to all the hoo hah some parents had with such literature.

Science was about plants and saving the environment and stopping global warming...... (yawn)

There is no room to explore, build or to come up with anything new. Its a pastry factory where everyone comes out the same. Don't dream or be creative. The computer will take care of that.lol

 

Is it entirely the fault of the MBAs, or can some of the blame be laid at the feet of investors demanding unreasonably large returns in an unreasonably short time period - which the MBAs attempted to deliver in the most expedient way possible?
How many businesses still have a 5-year plan?

 

The MTL tooling is decades old, and less detailed than the Atlas one, therefore its ROI is much better than the new Atlas tooling. If you use the Trainman 40ft boxcar, its $11.95, its from the same era as the MTL/Kadee car vs the Atlas PS-1.

 

I graduated in 2003, so similar experiences. Had a cooking class, but mine was the period after lunch, so those days I got to be a fat kid. We didn't have "life skills," my parents taught me to balance a check book, do a budget, etc.

In US history, we were lucky if we even made it to WWI, seemed most classes barely made it past the civil war into the industrial revolution.

I don't understand why when I graduated, I need 4 years of English, 4 years of "Social studies," but only 2 or 3 of math and sciences. We wonder why the US is behind in education, we care more about literature than math and sciences. Those are the classes needed for engineering jobs, yet more and more students are willing to take classes to get a BA vs a BS degree, then wonder why they can't get jobs in their field of study.

Also did wood shop, but it was these are the projects we are going to build, not come up with a design for a piece and lets make it.

Didn't do automotive, we didn't have it, in any of the 4 high schools I went too. On this note, I feel that certain basic skills regarding a car should be part of the drivers test, basic skills being changing a wheel to the spare, jumping a dead battery, and checking your fluids. You'd be amazed how many times either I or my wife get a call from one of her friends, "stranded on the side of the road" with a flat, or car won't start, etc. I understand doing certain task, brakes, oil changes etc not everyone wants to do, so shouldn't be required, but changing a tire, jumping the car etc should be something every driver should know.

 

QUOTE=J911;989471]As somebody who graduated high school in 2004 I can give some insight to whats taught in school.lol

There use to be a life skills if you will call it class where you learned to budget a check book, manage a savings account, figure what you needed to do to make ends meat etc. This class was pulled to make way for economics 101 where we learned about how starbucks was under threat because of the price of the coffee bean was going up.

I was the last graduating class to do Automotive where for a year I learned to take apart a car engine and place it all back together again and get it to run. Change oil, breaks, minor body work etc. They cut the program due to the budget and that the school needed a high tech server system for the schools computer lab.

We had CAD, that too was cut.

I took woodshop and metal work. That too cut because they were not useful courses.

ROP programs hardly exsist anymore due to the budget. This is where a student could gain all kinds of skills in there interest and potentially lead to a future job. No more.

In history WW1 and WW2 was a chapter of 8 pages. Korean war was a paragraph. Vietnam a page. That was about all we covered. Shameful I know.

Algebra give me a break! To this day I never use algebra and im in emergency medicine.

English was analyzing Shakespeare..... a dead language. Hemingway, catcher in the rye! Both a rare chance to read due to all the hoo hah some parents had with such literature.

Science was about plants and saving the environment and stopping global warming...... (yawn)

There is no room to explore, build or to come up with anything new. Its a pastry factory where everyone comes out the same. Don't dream or be creative. The computer will take care of that.lol [/QUOTE]

[video=youtube;WZEJ4OJTgg8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8[/video]

 

Right and thats the point I was trying to drive for. We have become way less of learning the basics to get by in day to day situations. Our woodwork class, metal class we were asked to come up with a year end project design anything you want and build it. In automotive I made a go kart that ran off of propane and explained different fuel sources to power a small motor. Metal, made a large scale box car. Wood, a porch chair. I would of given anything for science that mattered like say mechanical engineering.lol

 

[video=youtube;WZEJ4OJTgg8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8[/video][/QUOTE]
EXACTLY! LOL!
Soon we willbe ordering flex track from borg pickard! LOL

I think of this everytime I see a blue tooth. Of course from my ambulance they all look schizophrenic to me.

 

I didn't say it can't be done... I just said that I'm one who's doing it. I said it CAN be done, but at a much greater sacrifice. I could do the overseas route, sell stuff cheaper, have more people buy it at cheaper prices, and make way more money. I choose not to, at a great sacrifice to my income level.

I can't explain how Kadee does it, because I have no idea what the details of those two businesses are. I'm pretty sure that Atlas is a bigger operation. ie: More overhead, more products, more R&D, and more bills. It comes down to how much debt you have, how big your operation is, what you expect to get out of it, and what your monetary needs are. Obviously a couple semi retired people just trying to keep the biz going, are going to have less overhead and monetary demands... than a larger biz that has investors and so-forth. I don't know if that's the actual situation, but it could be. Kadee could be barely breaking even for all I know. I have a competitor in my business that sells products in the US, at ridiculously cheap prices. He drives a 20 year old car and lives in a trailer. Is that how people should live to be able to run a business in the US, for cheap prices? Would you bust your butt every day to live in a trailer? I wouldn't. Even without knowing the details though, I can guarantee you that Kadee's profits are much smaller... That I would bet on. But anyway you look at it, nobody is getting filthy rich off selling woo woo woo, that I guarantee. But somehow, that seems to be the perception by a lot of people. I have no idea why.

 

Guess how many of those investors have MBA's....................

Most of those investors are either venture capitalists or fund managers. All with the dreaded MBA.

 

The number of entrepreneurs in this country has always been low. The days of gentlemen farmers died with Thomas Jefferson. The days of Farming itself being the biggest employment died with the industrial revolution. In point of fact, while being a small business owner is always talked up every 4 years. The reality shows that most everyone is now and always has been a worker bee. It is a frustrating aspect of the American psyche. The myth of the entrepreneur.

 

Boy, it must be downright miserable to be stuck in California. People fleeing by the thousands, government bankrupt, tumbleweeds blowing down the streets ...

Or maybe not.

A story from the LA Times one month ago:

Flush with optimism from California's resurgent economy, lawmakers approved a $156.4-billion state budget that expands preschool for children from poor families, increases welfare payments and provides critical funding for building the nation's first bullet train.
The state's financial turnaround has allowed the Democratic-led Legislature, with the blessing of Gov. Jerry Brown, to spend more freely just a few years after the recession prompted deep cuts to government services. And if tax receipts outpace expectations, the budget could send even more money to schools, public universities and local governments.
Lawmakers also are addressing more of California's lingering financial problems, stockpiling cash in a rainy-day fund and chipping away at pension costs.


And from the LA Daily News in February:


Tracy Rafter, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, a business advocacy group whose membership includes 120 chambers of commerce, trade associations and economic development entities, said the group’s consensus is that better times are ahead.
“Just from talking to all the businesses and associations I would characterize it as cautious optimism,” Rafter said of the outlook for the months ahead. “There is definitely movement. Happily, construction and building are moving again. Tourism is dong well and some of the service sectors of light manufacturing are coming back.”

And the San Gabriel Valley Tribune in February:


California is on track to reclaim its status as the Golden State, according to a report released today.
The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.’s 2014-2015 Economic Forecast & Industry Outlook notes that California’s unemployment rate is falling, more people are finding jobs, the housing market is improving and budget surpluses are finally in sight.
The state has regained 70 percent of the more than 1.3 million jobs it lost as a result of the Great Recession, the report says, although the recovery continues to be “very slow.”
“Regionally, the recovery is advancing in nearly every part of the state,” the report says.

What a hellhole!

I forget who first said it, but I've always liked this quote: We are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.

Jim

 

When it comes to the news media. I believe very little of what I read in a newspaper or watch on TV. Most of the articles are slanted to the bias of the paper and it's owner's. Never mind their political bent. Most of them have their heads buried in the sand. A polite way of saying something else.

Odd that we talk about the gentleman farmer and when he died. It may be true the gentleman, could be in question but farmers have merged into large conglomerate's and if you remember anything about Spanish Land Grants, there are Spanish families still farming their land. If we are saying farming had died...hardly. We'd be eating dirt if they had.

The fact that we are all worker bee's. I'd agree but one must be a worker bee to climb to the top and lead other's to do the same. Ambition still counts.

YoHo you are working for an entrepreneur who stuck his and her neck out, collectively to make your company happen. Still a big part of what America is all about. You are apart of the collective chain that keeps it afloat.

Just something to think about.

 

Depends who ya ask and who writes the story.
Google >>> california's declining economy <<< and pick your poison !!!!

Inline with your quote...I always love this one...


“There are three sides to every story...your side, his side and the truth”

 

Bill and Dave are long dead and even they would have been nothing without the power of Governor Stanford and his wife and their grant to the University of the same name. They didn't stick their neck out nearly as far as the myth would say they did. I didn't say there weren't Entrepreneurs. I said the myth of entrepreneurs was a lie.

There was also a recent study done that showed that actually startups aka Entrepreneurs do not drive innovation the way the American myth says they do. That big corporations actually have a much larger impact than the typical US small business/entrepreneur wants to admit.
The US also, as a people has a pretty fat head on it's shoulders. We're always the best in the World at everything we do...except well, our Education system sucks even in affluent districts and rather than emulate what other countries do. We double down on stupid. (that's not a political assessment, the Education policies of both parties do not look anything like the most successful countries in the world) If I could move my kids to Germany or Japan or one of the other leading education countries I would in a heartbeat.) Our healthcare sucks, but we tell ourselves it's the best in the world, even though others are living longer and paying less. etc etc etc.


I didn't say farming had died. Farming as the driving occupation in this country died. A long time ago. But there's this myth that most americans farm the land still. They don't most americans live in an Urban area and work for some big company. That's the reality. Anyone who panders to someone else is telling a story as real as Cinderella.

Again, this conversation could get political, but...