No Shoes for American feet...and the coming collapse... | |
Judethz User ID: 75895360 United Kingdom 01/14/2020 11:05 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
ONeillSG1 User ID: 76607211 United States 01/14/2020 05:33 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | VERY well-written piece. You're right, that the generation of management ahead of us destroyed American production capacity. They did it by adopting one single goal that became religion. Perpetual growth. American business has somehow decided that if you're not growing, you're dying, and perpetual growth is, of course, not possible. For a long time, to maintain your profitability, even if it rose up and down, was to be successful. Then, it was decided that profits must be greater this year than last year, or there was a problem. We've gotten to the point now, where nothing is more important than quarterly profit growth, meaning long-term concerns are way in the back seat when compared to short-term concerns. Add to that how business has gotten Americans used to paying less for more, and disaster is unavoidable. The only way companies can lower prices (relative prices, taking in the declining value of the Dollar) while increasing profitability is to cut costs, and that at some point, means outsourcing production. Trump is right to want to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., but it's just not feasible, as long as Americans want cheap products and high wages. Unfortunately, few of us understand that they can't have good-paying jobs at a plant making good quality, but cheap products, and that's a problem. "Peace in our time? All it took was everybody about to die." “The way I see it, there’s only three kinds of people in this world. Bad ones, ones you follow, and ones you need to protect.” - Amos Burton |
Vision Thing User ID: 78324119 United States 01/16/2020 05:35 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | That was a very length editorial piece, you should go into writing as a career. Seriously thought, needed to be said, you are right the quality of shoes have plummeted. Quoting: Keilani My mom and I don't even know where to buy shoes anymore, we have high arches, I don't think no one even knows what that means anymore, much less what is leather, good leather??? However, things are starting to become more and more produced in Vietnam, South Korea, many other countries, we don't need China anymore, things have shifted, now they just need to figure out how to make a damn shoe, not that hard. Have you ever looked at those American Duchess shoes? |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 78346890 United Kingdom 01/16/2020 05:41 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 78310900 United States 01/16/2020 05:51 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | If there is a collapse, most adults have 12 pairs of shoes or more in their closets which will last them a good long while until production can be started again. What worries me more are the military parts which are made in China. If we go to war, we will not be able to make or fix our equipment. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 77715188 United States 01/16/2020 08:51 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I know what you mean OP. Are the good times really over for good??? Unfortunately, I think so. I miss back when. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 78298683 Amen to that. A society without values and absolutes is a DEMOCRACY. Our founders specifically, loudly and almost unanimously rejected a democracy. THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW ALL IS ALMOST LOST...when almost every politician, and every talking head on all the major networks constantly says we are a "democracy," and when the younger generations have no idea how evil that is! Drives me crazy when they say democracy. Especially, ignorant politicians who’ve never read the constitution. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 77794577 United States 01/16/2020 09:03 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 77715188 United States 01/16/2020 09:15 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I, too have been saying McCarthy was right. Government, Universities and Hollywood is full of subversives. Throughout history it seems the few who see the truth are ridiculed and the masses always follow hive mentality. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 77715188 United States 01/16/2020 09:17 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I have been warning for about 15 years now, that if we went to war with China, there would be no materials for military personnel to get their uniforms from! Quoting: Tree of Life I think Danner boots out of Oregon still makes some real nice boots, but not sure if all the materials are from the USA, OP. Also, Whites, and Hoffman boots are handmade in the PNW/USA. You’re right, the USA would be much like the civil war south. Minimal industry and dependent on imports. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 78333028 United States 01/16/2020 09:46 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | That was a very length editorial piece, you should go into writing as a career. Seriously thought, needed to be said, you are right the quality of shoes have plummeted. Quoting: Keilani My mom and I don't even know where to buy shoes anymore, we have high arches, I don't think no one even knows what that means anymore, much less what is leather, good leather??? However, things are starting to become more and more produced in Vietnam, South Korea, many other countries, we don't need China anymore, things have shifted, now they just need to figure out how to make a damn shoe, not that hard. Cole Haan still makes a good dress shoe. Their sizing & quality is more consistent than most reasonable brands. Shop them at Nordstrom’s or their store direct- not DSW. It def feels like we’ve gone back to having to shop specialized stores to get reasonable quality anything. Big box stores where pricing is focus have ruined value. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 78333028 United States 01/16/2020 10:04 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Here’s a list of American made shoes from 2019. I’d still check some of these companies more thoroughly. [link to www.usalovelist.com (secure)] |
Question EVERYTHING Traveler In The Matrix User ID: 74186361 United States 01/16/2020 11:56 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | 29 years ago, this month, I got fired as a buyer for one of America's oldest and best-known Shoe Companies--which shall remain nameless for now. I was a 30-year old junior executive moving back to my rural hometown from the New York City suburbs where I'd been in a similar position for a lighting fixture manufacturer the previous four years. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 77140800 This was during the middle of the "outsourcing craze" and some (very few, actually) were just beginning to see what it really meant--the end of good paying, self-satisfying, dignifying jobs... the end of the real American dream, and the end of the real American economy. I complained about the outsourcing, and complained once too often to greedy, deaf, upper-management ears about what this would do to our company. They fired me. Four years late the 124-year old shoe company went out of business. (You can still buy the brand, go to the "outlet stores" and you still know the name, but not one speck of that shoe has anything to do with America, anymore.) Shoe manufacturing is an incredibly complex business. The designs, the machinery involved, the skilled labor--even the more mundane things like the thread suppliers, leather and dye suppliers, shoe lasts (which many younger American's may have never even heard of, or seen) the right injection molding machines, and the compounds (and the right release agents) to make the soles. All of that is incredibly complex, and all of it involved knowledgeable people doing their jobs well and RIGHT, all the way up and down the supply chain in order to produce a beautiful, comfortable, long-lasting pair of American shoes. ALL OF THAT is GONE. And most of it is irreplaceable. All the skilled labor is now dead or beyond retirement age. All of the suppliers are gone, the equipment has all been broken up and sold for scrap metal. The lasts have been landfilled. Donald Trump, bless his heart, can talk all he wants about bringing manufacturing back to America, but when we finally do go to war with China, you will see how complete the breakdown has been, how truly HORRIBLY RAVAGED our economy had been ravaged, and you will begin to see Americans everywhere--within several years-- with no shoes on their feet, and no way to get any. Greed for that "cheap third-world wage" led the bosses of my 1990s era to commit the worst kind of treason against the American people--to literally sell out the soul of the American economy (the manufacturing base) to destroy what made America great, and left the citizens with no shoes on their feet. AND shoes are only one example. In industry after industry--things we import by the container load from a country that hates us-- from machine tooling to television sets, to motorcycles...lighting fixtures...we've lost it, and getting it all back (if we ever do) is going to be tremendously expensive and tremendously difficult--far beyond what most Americans can even imagine. We can talk all we want about the Saul Alinskys, and George Soros's of the world who are, indeed, trying to ring the last vestiges of decency out of our political system. And, yes, it's important to fight COMMUNISM and to maintain our Constitution any way we still can. But the death blows have already been dealt to our economy--where the rubber meets the road. AND IT WAS AMERICAN EXECUTIVES of the generation before mine that did that to us, WILLINGLY AND often with no real thought or conscience decision to betray. BUT BETRAYAL IT WAS, and when these huge container ships finally stop coming...and they will...We will all learn the price of neglect...neglecting to hold our leaders accountable the way others in what we used to call "the third world" do.... BY TAKING TO THE STREETS. We're too comfortable and too fat, and it is going to take those uncomfortable holes in the soles of our feet to finally drive us into action--if it's not too late. Sadly, though, it is. It took over hundred years for the American shoe industry to get to the amazing place it was at in the early 90s before it all went away, and it will take at least a generation to get it back when the time comes. That's a lot of cold feet... Good story. Can't say I disagree with you at all. This runaway capitalism on steroids needs to be reeled in. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. ~ Mahatma Gandhi "Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." ~ George Orwell "The exact level of tyranny that you're going to live under, is the level of tyranny you put up with." ~Thomas Jefferson "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. ~ Thomas Jefferson |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 77682276 United Kingdom 01/16/2020 12:04 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | 29 years ago, this month, I got fired as a buyer for one of America's oldest and best-known Shoe Companies--which shall remain nameless for now. I was a 30-year old junior executive moving back to my rural hometown from the New York City suburbs where I'd been in a similar position for a lighting fixture manufacturer the previous four years. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 77140800 This was during the middle of the "outsourcing craze" and some (very few, actually) were just beginning to see what it really meant--the end of good paying, self-satisfying, dignifying jobs... the end of the real American dream, and the end of the real American economy. I complained about the outsourcing, and complained once too often to greedy, deaf, upper-management ears about what this would do to our company. They fired me. Four years late the 124-year old shoe company went out of business. (You can still buy the brand, go to the "outlet stores" and you still know the name, but not one speck of that shoe has anything to do with America, anymore.) Shoe manufacturing is an incredibly complex business. The designs, the machinery involved, the skilled labor--even the more mundane things like the thread suppliers, leather and dye suppliers, shoe lasts (which many younger American's may have never even heard of, or seen) the right injection molding machines, and the compounds (and the right release agents) to make the soles. All of that is incredibly complex, and all of it involved knowledgeable people doing their jobs well and RIGHT, all the way up and down the supply chain in order to produce a beautiful, comfortable, long-lasting pair of American shoes. ALL OF THAT is GONE. And most of it is irreplaceable. All the skilled labor is now dead or beyond retirement age. All of the suppliers are gone, the equipment has all been broken up and sold for scrap metal. The lasts have been landfilled. Donald Trump, bless his heart, can talk all he wants about bringing manufacturing back to America, but when we finally do go to war with China, you will see how complete the breakdown has been, how truly HORRIBLY RAVAGED our economy had been ravaged, and you will begin to see Americans everywhere--within several years-- with no shoes on their feet, and no way to get any. Greed for that "cheap third-world wage" led the bosses of my 1990s era to commit the worst kind of treason against the American people--to literally sell out the soul of the American economy (the manufacturing base) to destroy what made America great, and left the citizens with no shoes on their feet. AND shoes are only one example. In industry after industry--things we import by the container load from a country that hates us-- from machine tooling to television sets, to motorcycles...lighting fixtures...we've lost it, and getting it all back (if we ever do) is going to be tremendously expensive and tremendously difficult--far beyond what most Americans can even imagine. We can talk all we want about the Saul Alinskys, and George Soros's of the world who are, indeed, trying to ring the last vestiges of decency out of our political system. And, yes, it's important to fight COMMUNISM and to maintain our Constitution any way we still can. But the death blows have already been dealt to our economy--where the rubber meets the road. AND IT WAS AMERICAN EXECUTIVES of the generation before mine that did that to us, WILLINGLY AND often with no real thought or conscience decision to betray. BUT BETRAYAL IT WAS, and when these huge container ships finally stop coming...and they will...We will all learn the price of neglect...neglecting to hold our leaders accountable the way others in what we used to call "the third world" do.... BY TAKING TO THE STREETS. We're too comfortable and too fat, and it is going to take those uncomfortable holes in the soles of our feet to finally drive us into action--if it's not too late. Sadly, though, it is. It took over hundred years for the American shoe industry to get to the amazing place it was at in the early 90s before it all went away, and it will take at least a generation to get it back when the time comes. That's a lot of cold feet... Great thread op. |
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