China and tariffs

Discuss Spyderco's products and history.
Cycletroll
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Re: China and tariffs

#81

Post by Cycletroll »

TomAiello wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:04 am
Cycletroll wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2018 7:10 pm
I know Taiwan is kind of a grey area as concerns China but I hope to support their toehold in free market dynamics ;)
Are you thinking of Hong Kong?

Taiwan and China are two separate countries, which have been formally at war since 1946, with no armistice ever signed between the two.
Exactly! Was thinking of HK. Thanks for catching that!
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Re: China and tariffs

#82

Post by Bodog »

Ankerson wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:55 pm
BODOG,

Yeah, buy quality and buy it once and have it last instead of cheaping out and having to replace it a number of times, actually spending MORE in the long run.

You are correct though about England etc, they have house/building that have been standing for a 1,000 years. Same with Japan and some other Countries.

They don't build things to last like they used to in general.
I'm in a constant struggle with my wife about this stuff. She almost always would go with what nice on the surface rather than go with a quality item that may not have the greatest perks, but will last a long, long time. She'd rather buy a jeep Cherokee than a Toyota Land Cruiser. It has nothing to do with actual capabilities, it has to do with prestige. It has nothing to do with what will last given the job it's supposed to do, it's about seat warmers and GPS and every other thing under the sun than what actually works. And it needs to be some kind of SUV. Not an SUV with good year after year reviews from professional testers, it needs to get good year after year reviews from soccer moms who never do anything with the SUV than drive on asphalt. The appearance of capability is more important than actual capability. The same thing is true with most "knife aficionados"
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Re: China and tariffs

#83

Post by Ankerson »

anycal wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:45 am
I don't have good answers, but this is how I see things...

Not sure who said this but, politically the ability to do good is limited, whereas the ability to do bad is unlimited.

No one is listening to each other. People are feeling left out. The sentiment is that if something doesn't work, let's go back. There isn't a unifying vision for moving forward. This is not good for democracy.

Most big problems today are global. With global landscape (economy, ecology, and environment) we need a different way of thinking. I don't know what this would look like, but given the problems we are facing, difficult decisions need to dealt with on global level. I feel that there is still room for patriotism, but not so much for isolationism.

When it comes to jobs, traditional manufacturing jobs, I think globalism is less to blame than technology. Maybe it started with globalism, but looking at the present and thinking about the future, technology and automation are having a much greater impact, in my opinion.

We are living in a different era. World is complicated, but ultimately, we only have one. And I am generally an optimist...
I doubt anyone really has a good answers, at least not here anyway. :D

I do believe that we in the US need to solve our own issues before trying to solve everyone else's however.

I am a firm believer of putting America 1st.
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Re: China and tariffs

#84

Post by Bodog »

Ankerson wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:22 pm
anycal wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:45 am
I don't have good answers, but this is how I see things...

Not sure who said this but, politically the ability to do good is limited, whereas the ability to do bad is unlimited.

No one is listening to each other. People are feeling left out. The sentiment is that if something doesn't work, let's go back. There isn't a unifying vision for moving forward. This is not good for democracy.

Most big problems today are global. With global landscape (economy, ecology, and environment) we need a different way of thinking. I don't know what this would look like, but given the problems we are facing, difficult decisions need to dealt with on global level. I feel that there is still room for patriotism, but not so much for isolationism.

When it comes to jobs, traditional manufacturing jobs, I think globalism is less to blame than technology. Maybe it started with globalism, but looking at the present and thinking about the future, technology and automation are having a much greater impact, in my opinion.

We are living in a different era. World is complicated, but ultimately, we only have one. And I am generally an optimist...
I doubt anyone really has a good answers, at least not here anyway. :D

I do believe that we in the US need to solve our own issues before trying to solve everyone else's however.

I am a firm believer of putting America 1st.
Absolutely. 100%
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Re: China and tariffs

#85

Post by TomAiello »

A wise man once said that the opposite of war isn't peace, but rather trade.


http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewtop ... =2&t=80124

sal wrote:I believe that in modern societies, we do things backards. The opposite of war isn't peace, it's trade. In society, we use and have always used punishment to guide behavior when we should be using education. In my opinion.

sal
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Re: China and tariffs

#86

Post by Ankerson »

Bodog wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:21 pm
Ankerson wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 12:55 pm
BODOG,

Yeah, buy quality and buy it once and have it last instead of cheaping out and having to replace it a number of times, actually spending MORE in the long run.

You are correct though about England etc, they have house/building that have been standing for a 1,000 years. Same with Japan and some other Countries.

They don't build things to last like they used to in general.
I'm in a constant struggle with my wife about this stuff. She almost always would go with what nice on the surface rather than go with a quality item that may not have the greatest perks, but will last a long, long time. She'd rather buy a jeep Cherokee than a Toyota Land Cruiser. It has nothing to do with actual capabilities, it has to do with prestige. It has nothing to do with what will last given the job it's supposed to do, it's about seat warmers and GPS and every other thing under the sun than what actually works. And it needs to be some kind of SUV. Not an SUV with good year after year reviews from professional testers, it needs to get good year after year reviews from soccer moms who never do anything with the SUV than drive on asphalt. The appearance of capability is more important than actual capability. The same thing is true with most "knife aficionados"

I like the old Land Cruisers and old Land Rovers along with the Old Broncos and Scouts.

The older Jeep Cherokee's were bullet proof.

I have an older Jeep SUV and it's been great, also one of the better ones off road, better than the new ones that's for sure.

The modern SUV is the new Minivan, the reason why they are what they are today, well most of them anyway.

Same with the newer trucks, more car than actual truck for the most part.

And the prices are insane.
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Re: China and tariffs

#87

Post by 500Nitro »

Nice that others see the same thing.

Re houses, an example I have seen here. My house, you can hardly walk in the roof space because of wood frame.
Modern houses have none of it.
My house (and most others) have wide, 24" eaves. Modern houses have none or hardly any. In a hot country,
that's crazy so houses heat up, costs of keeping house cool (aircon) are through the roof because of it.

But like you say, buy once. The problem is, people don't know until they live in a house or the item breaks.

Re quality, I look after my gear and so over the years it costs peanuts per year. I remember really biting the bullet
to buy my first Spyderco, (Endura 1) (but apart from being a possible lifesaver so I had to have it),
it's probably cost me $1-3 a year.

I do look at cost over the lifespan, helps justify lol
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Re: China and tariffs

#88

Post by Ankerson »

500Nitro wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:38 pm
Nice that others see the same thing.

Re houses, an example I have seen here. My house, you can hardly walk in the roof space because of wood frame.
Modern houses have none of it.
My house (and most others) have wide, 24" eaves. Modern houses have none or hardly any. In a hot country,
that's crazy so houses heat up, costs of keeping house cool (aircon) are through the roof because of it.

But like you say, buy once. The problem is, people don't know until they live in a house or the item breaks.

Re quality, I look after my gear and so over the years it costs peanuts per year. I remember really biting the bullet
to buy my first Spyderco, (Endura 1) (but apart from being a possible lifesaver so I had to have it),
it's probably cost me $1-3 a year.

I do look at cost over the lifespan, helps justify lol

Yeah the old houses stayed cooler because of the way they were designed, even without Air Conditioning.

Having trees around the house is a plus too for shade.
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Re: China and tariffs

#89

Post by Ankerson »

TomAiello wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:26 pm
A wise man once said that the opposite of war isn't peace, but rather trade.


http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewtop ... =2&t=80124

sal wrote:I believe that in modern societies, we do things backards. The opposite of war isn't peace, it's trade. In society, we use and have always used punishment to guide behavior when we should be using education. In my opinion.

sal

As long as it's far trade, yes....

However that doesn't happen these days so the point is mute until it's fixed.

What our POTUS is working on now.

Look at the General Motors thing as an example, it's a prime example of everything that is wrong with large Corporations. That and my opinion a lot of why the US is in the position that's it's in today.

They are going to close 4 plants in the US and leave all of them open in Mexico, laying off over 15K US workers.

POTUS needs to slap them down hard and make them pay back every penny the GOV gave them in the bailout.

Then if they do close the plants they need to put a 100% tariff on all products and hit them with a 100% tax on any funds.

And then large fines like $5 Trillion so none of the Corp Management nor the Board Of Directors sees a dime and seize all assets in the US just to make sure.

They want to screw over the US workers then we need to make them a foreign Company and never do business with them again period. And make sure they never see another penny of US money ever again.

It's time for the Government to take a hard stand and make America #1 again.
Last edited by Ankerson on Thu Nov 29, 2018 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: China and tariffs

#90

Post by The Deacon »

I'll admit, I'm a bit confused here. Sal seems to only be asking about the effect the steel tariffs will have on interest in knives made in China. However, if I understand the situation correctly, the 25% tariff is on steel from pretty much everywhere except Australia, South Korea, Argentina, and Brazil. If that's the case, then in addition to Spyderco models made China, won't it affect those made in Japan, Taiwan, and Italy as well as any US models made with Japanese or European steel? Or will the models from Taiwan that use blade steel from the USA be exempt? Would models made elsewhere, including China, be exempt if they switched to American steel? Won't all other knife companies that have knives made in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Europe also be affected?
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Re: China and tariffs

#91

Post by PStone »

sal wrote:
Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:38 pm
As many of you know (or should now) that there are tariffs being created for many products made in China, as well as other countries. You also know that we make a number of products in China, including knives and sharpening parts. We're already experiencing these tariffs on some of the steels we import. Eventually we are going to be hit with up to 25% in tariffs for our Chinese made models. Naturally we will have to pass on those costs. I would like to know your thoughts on this?

sal
My thoughts are that I will continue to purchase Spyderco’s because of your high quality products, amazing customer service, and lifetime warranty. Not price.

If the China Spyderco models go up in price, so will the other cheaply made ones from other companies. I am not going to sacrifice the quality and service Spyderco offers to save a few bucks. I can do that now if I wanted.
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Re: China and tariffs

#92

Post by Rutger »

The Deacon wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 3:07 pm
I'll admit, I'm a bit confused here. Sal seems to only be asking about the effect the steel tariffs will have on interest in knives made in China. However, if I understand the situation correctly, the 25% tariff is on steel from pretty much everywhere except Australia, South Korea, Argentina, and Brazil. If that's the case, then in addition to Spyderco models made China, won't it affect those made in Japan, Taiwan, and Italy as well as any US models made with Japanese or European steel? Or will the models from Taiwan that use blade steel from the USA be exempt? Would models made elsewhere, including China, be exempt if they switched to American steel? Won't all other knife companies that have knives made in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Europe also be affected?
You are correct, most countries/foreign steel is affected. I am not 100% into this but i think that at first the steel import tariffs were only for the raw steel product. To be used in American industry to make products. I think this is why we see less European steels in American made knives lately. More recently Trump has been expanding/increasing tariffs for specific foreign goods/finished products. Which he is mainly focusing on China.

Import tariffs, taxes etc is complicated business. Maybe Sal can explain it better.
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Re: China and tariffs

#93

Post by vivi »

Bodog wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:21 pm
The appearance of capability is more important than actual capability. The same thing is true with most "knife aficionados"
Go to any knife forum and look at how few of the pictured knives have been sharpened. Then consider how few of them have had their edges optimized instead of retaining the factory edge. Speaks volumes.

People are willing to spend more than the price of a car on their cutlery, but they're not willing to get the most performance out of it. Seems backwards to me. People dropping $500 a pop because a knife has titanium and ball bearings and a flipper, meanwhile said knife will be out-cut by a humble Opinel in most cases.
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Re: China and tariffs

#94

Post by The Mastiff »

A wise man once said that the opposite of war isn't peace, but rather trade.
I was thinking of that statement when I wrote my post. In most instances it is right. In the beginning when we began setting up trade with the PRC we thought that the trade and then material wealth would modernize then help democratize them. It did to an extent. By and large it just made the guys at the top rich and sure didn't stop the government from using tanks to turn protestors into goo in the bogies of those tanks.

We let them slide when we caught them spying, hacking our businesses and controlling the value of their money to help themselves we thought " They are getting the hang of it" and let them slide. Right now they have a dictator for life and aside from their annexing the whole china sea they are moving not just to parity with our forces regionally but their long term plans include a larger and yes better military over the next 30 years.

Even the Soviets at their peak wouldn't have rolled up to a USN ship and taken by force a robot sub nor would they have tried to snatch the "football" from the guy next to our president during a visit. These are not normal times and anything less that realizing that while we play by established procedures our opponents do not recognize those procedures and look at us as an enemy to only be worked with when it's to their advantage.


We need to make our own long term plans to maintain our place in the world. When you deal with countries that use trade and money as leverage along with plans to use the wealth not just for parity but for primacy in all things including military then we at the very least need to show that we will see to our own ends.
“If you view economic growth as an existential pillar of your party’s political legitimacy and in fact your national security, it follows that you would do anything possible to maintain that competitive edge,” he said.
Rest of article here:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/us/p ... onage.html
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Re: China and tariffs

#95

Post by 500Nitro »

The Mastiff wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 5:49 pm

Even the Soviets at their peak wouldn't have rolled up to a USN ship and taken by force a robot sub nor would they have tried to snatch the "football" from the guy next to our president during a visit. These are not normal times and anything less that realizing that while we play by established procedures our opponents do not recognize those procedures and look at us as an enemy to only be worked with when it's to their advantage.

No, The USSR just rammed US Warships (A number of times) !

But I agree re Nuclear Football, they didn't try to snatch it when it was in Moscow.
The US and Russian "Footballs" were actually next to each other at one stage.
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Re: China and tariffs

#96

Post by The Mastiff »

No, The USSR just rammed US Warships (A number of times) !
The PRC has tried a bunch of times. They prefer to have fishing boats do it when possible. This stuff isn't all that new though as you note.

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Re: China and tariffs

#97

Post by Bodog »

The Mastiff wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 5:49 pm
we at the very least need to show that we will see to our own ends.
Anything less and our country is gone. That's why i don't understand whatsoever the mentality of so many Americans today. They will sacrifice everything our forefathers sweated and bled for in order to show they're accepting, tolerant, and diverse. If we continue down this path for much longer we are done as a free and open country. We have to look out for our own and get rid of this bs "tolerant" mentality that's akin to suicide. We were once a civilization building society. At times it wasn't pretty, but good civilization was built. We're sacrificing that good society on the altar of acceptance of reprehensible ideals and are scared to challenge anyone who can conceivably hide behind a fabricated protected class. And they found our weakness. It was our love and caring and general good wholesome values and they sunk the knife straight into it. Now we have policies that are not pretty, but they're reclaiming some level of independence and they're meant to simply divert us from the path to inevitable destruction as a country. They're using the propaganda that it somehow is intolerant or whatever to keep that from happening. I'm tired of our country being a punching bag for the rest of the world.

I say the hard line stance Trump has taken needs to be harder. Not militarily, necessarily, we just need to follow George Washington's advice and cut off any treaties with countries that don't blatantly help us out. Tariffs levied against overtly hostile countries are just the beginning. America is no slouch. We built this nation, we built half the world. We should not accept anyone trying to bully us in any way. We are a great country with great people. A lot of our people have just been led astray. Someone finally got into a position to try to right this ship. It's incredibly ironic who it is and how it's getting done. I care more about the destination and getting to that destination than the vehicle in which we're traveling. I shake my head at the clownmobile leading this country, but damned if it isn't getting us where we need to go.

I feel bad for Britian, Germany, Sweden, and a host of other European countries, their people really, who cannot or seemingly will not stop the overt destruction of their societies. Poland is doing something about it. Italy is doing something about it. Japan is doing something about it. I support them as much as i support our current administration. These countries are beacons on the hill for others to follow. If only they'd follow.
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Re: China and tariffs

#98

Post by Rutger »

Maybe a mod could clean this thread from all the off topic political talk?

There is an off topic forum for this BS.
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Re: China and tariffs

#99

Post by Calicoast »

Ankerson wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 2:09 pm


sal wrote:I believe that in modern societies, we do things backards. The opposite of war isn't peace, it's trade. In society, we use and have always used punishment to guide behavior when we should be using education. In my opinion.

sal

As long as it's fair trade, yes....

It's time for the Government to take a hard stand and make America #1 again.
[/quote]

+1

^^^
Call it BS, but I think there are some really good posts in this thread with a lot of facts. I think there was someone earlier that said there is room for patriotism, but not for isolism, and I agree with that.

Anytime you start a thread like this, chances are your going to cross over to politics.

It's well known and fact that China is unethical in many facets. For some that's not an issue, for others it is.

For me it is.
And it needs to be addressed.

I have reported over a dozen fake Spyderco's to Ebay with multiple bid auctions over $100.00+. And in turn, for my time, even sent to managers, nothing. And I mean nothing.

I call that support from a US company.
Why, $$$ that's why.

Lots of people in this world:
•Some like to kick the can down the road
•Some question why they are kicking the can down the road.
•Some stop kicking the can down the road.

Some of the hardest things in life are the things you know you have to do. Obviously something had to be done to level the playing field. And the time is now.

Seeing a knife with China written on it, runs deeper then tariffs to me. It wont ride in my pocket. Again, lots of people in this world. Some without a true picture of how China operates. Politics aside.
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Re: China and tariffs

#100

Post by Bodog »

Rutger wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:47 pm
Maybe a mod could clean this thread from all the off topic political talk?

There is an off topic forum for this BS.
The owner of this forum started this thread. He is a smart guy. I'm sure he knew this thread would involve at least some discussion of the politics that involve tariffs and why some people will support them and why others won't. You can't discuss tariffs and what they mean to us as consumers without having an understanding of why we support the political decision to levy them or not.

It's easy enough for you to not read this thread, it's even easier to not post in it if you don't want to discuss a very real issue that affects our hobby.
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