The last of the furniture factories

[Ellyllions]

The last of the 6 furniture factories that helped my hometown become a city will be shutting its doors in '07. That's it. Right here in the prosperous US of A one small city is losing it's last blue collar manufacturing industry. In a place where the median income doesn't surpass $30,000 a year, and the median age is over 30 years old...next year they will be sitting at almost 25% unemployment.

The factory held on as long as it could. The other 5 dropped out rather quickly and succinctly. The last tried to pick up as many of the lay-offs as it could. The owner called a meeting with the entire force on Monday and he told them, "Unfortunately I'm not a powerful man. I tried to bend Congress ear, I tried to get the representatives involved, but they're all more interested in getting product cheaper. Please don't think badly of me. I did what I could. But I'll shut my doors before I'll work on China's products or for China's products. They're beating us out by only $200 per suit, and yet they're beating us out by our own government's hand." He cried. The silent crowd was proud of him even though his news meant that sometime next year they will become unemployed. He ended the meeting by telling them all that he would make sure that unemployment paperwork for all 800 of them would be taken care of by the factory's office.

At least a 3rd of the workforce is over the age of 45 and have been with the company 10 or more years. They are the ones who will be hurt worse by this. Only a handful of them are literate, and even less of them graduated high school, as that city is a different world where farming, or going to work is more important than spending a day in school. Hungry mouths need food. But this handful is amongst the first wave of baby boomers who will be added to the amass that will be drawing Social Security in the coming years. Add to that strain on the SS system, unemployment compensation, and welfare.

And why?

Oursourcing serves many purposes.
a) creates an environment for cheaper labor
b) makes governments happy
c) USES UNTAPPED RESOURCES
Yep, one theory about all of this outsourcing is that it's a raping and pillaging of untapped natural resources. Wood products, land, etc... Just like in the old days, we go somewhere that has an amass of something we need, we pay the natives next to nothing, and we drag it back home (now for free if we go through the right channels) and charge our public a 300% mark-up for it because it's "imported" (=special). When the resources are all used up, we move on to the next batch of suckers and do it all over again.

With NAFTA, we're not only doing that, but we're allowing the rich to get richer and ignoring the HUGE problem we're creating in our own society. Cause if we ignore it, it doesn't exist.

It's a sad day for me. I just hope I can get my parents down here where I can make enough money to adequately help them.

[Hardrock69]

I read an article last year on how China was beating the shit out of industries such as this.

Being in the millwork business, I understand entirely.

Fortunately, my career is actually in the computer biz....I am just a computer guy in the millwork biz, so if the entire millwork biz were to go to Hell, I could slide into another industry like that.

The rich (the government) do not give a rat's ass.

It is up to the individual to try to find a career that is impervious to outsourcing.

Not easy to do, but it is possible.

We are now in the 21st Century.

Say goodbye to the American Way Of Life.

[Nitro Express]

I do business with a local Drexel Herritage dealer. He's been in the furniture business for years. He can also custom build furniture and runs a top notch upoulstry opperation.

This guy flat out addmitted the new furniture comming out of Asia is shit. USA made furniture had eastern hardrock maple or oak frames. The Chink furniture is made from shitty mystry wood that is inferior and they are probably gutting some SE Asia rainforest to get the junk. Elmers and other glue companies had to reformulate their wood glue because the regular stuff doesn't adhier to the greasy gook wood from Asia.

I've looked at some of this wood. Instead of being dense like oak, it's soft and stringy. It's like the palm tree wood some dude in the Samoa carved a mask out of for me.

The problem is over time these shitty wood frames fail and then your sofa or chair goes loosey goosey. Don't even get me started on solid wood furniture made of this shit. I've seen an expensive butcher block island self destruct because the wood turnings in the legs started to compress from the wieght and the Cambodian mystry wood in the top delaminated.

If we are going to buy furniture from Asia, I want mine made from lashed bamboo. That shit is strong enough but I want a MADE IN VIETNAM price to go with it.

[Ellyllions]

My parents have no hope of a "future career"...not many of their friends do either. It's just on to the Welfare office just like everyone else in that city.

Nitro, this owner actually bought a piece of the Chinese furniture that was supposed to be comparable. They disassembled it in front of everyone exposing it's weaknesses and poor craftsmanship. But once again we're losing to a country who has done this for centuries. Take what is made elsewhere, and through engineering made the manufacture faster and cheaper. Only this time, our own government has allowed them to do it freely by shipping through Mexico.

I will only buy American made furniture.
Got a piece of the Elvis Presley collection in my bedroom just because my parent's factory made it.

[Nitro Express]

I don't think the average US citizen is bennefiting at all from all this outsourcing. I find all this imported junk very poor quality for what you pay for it. I can't remember when the failure rate in consumer electronics has been higher. How many DVD players and burners have we all bought because they just stop working after a few months? Cell phones are shit now.

I don't care who's shirt you buy. The buttons fall off of all of them.

Now furniture is going the same way and you can bet it still will be expensive.

Why we don't just stop buying this shit as American consumers is beyond me. We don't need most of it and most Americans need to cut their spending habbits anyways. Instead of buying more shit pay the credit card debt off instead.

Outsourcing won't work if we refuse to buy the junk. We can go on strike as consumers. If we continue business as usual. The few people who import and distribute this shit will become filthy rich and the quality on consumer products will fall to a new all time low.

The rich people selling this shit won't use what they sell. They will buy very expensive custom furniture from a small shop in New Hampshire that makes their furniture out of the wood the average American used to enjoy.

When your made in China Wal-mart TV conks out just over the warranty period and you fall through your cardboard, palm wood and paper couch purchased at the big furniture warehouse store and wonder what brought you to such a state of shit, just remember we did it to ourselves by not telling the US retailers to fuck themselves.

[Ellyllions]

Preach it brotha!

If we can't afford it, we shouldn't be buying it. Cheaper doesn't mean good just like expensive doesn't mean quality. Wood is easy to know about. Hard/soft, and what we call chip/board (pressed or processed wood fibers).

And US retailers say that they <I>were forced</I> to outsource because of the cost of libility insurance skyrocketing. Where has congress been on the cost of doing business in the United States? They've been more interested in the Wal-mart way of things. Just like they accuse Wal-mart of doing.

it's just strange how the poor and uneducated in our own country are being so left behind in this 21st century. It almost feels like if that little City were to just vanish, there wouldn't even be a blip on the news about it. And yet we like to think that we're so charitable to other country's poor and uneducated...

[Nitro Express]

I remember the selling gimmick of NAFTA was to compete against Asia and the European Union by combining the raw resources of Canada, the US, and Mexico and using Mexican cheap labor and US/Canadian technology to make the most successful trade zone in the world.

The products were suppossed to be made here in the NAFTA zone and everyone would win.

I never bought that bullshit.

NAFTA has just created an illegal allien problem and some shitty Mexican made Suberbans (I know, I had one that self-destructed)

NAFTA hasn't amounted to shit and now Bushco wants to import Chinese goods through Mexico up into the US and Canada. Gee, NAFTA just means more duty free ports for offshore goods.

[Nitro Express]

I make my money in real estate but I am also going into a custom machining business. There still is a huge demand for machinists that can do .001 tollerance work in the US.

The outsourcing is creating a quality problem. My dentist is complaining about the quality of the dental bits even. The only good ones are Made in Germany because the US manufactures outsourced them.

I think we have opportunities in the US but we have to make them happen. The weak dollar opens the door to a manufacture here. I know one that is doing a lot of custom manufacturing for Hella in Germany.

Economies are dynamic and change. I think many of the old industries in the US are going to fold but we are going to have new startups ran by entreprenuers that make high quality products again and people will buy them.

Theres two kinds of people in the US. Dumb as shit ones and very smart one. We still have some very smart and capable people but unfortunately the dumb as shit ones seem to be in higher number. Oh well, I believe in social Darwinism.

Sure some are getting filthing rich selling us out but they can't do that forever and some sort of Pheonix will rise from the ashes. If that Pheonix happens to be me, I will remember all the assholes who sold us out and take revenge! LOL! Let them eat cakes Whack! It's Les Miserab time! LOL!

[Ellyllions]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
NAFTA just means more duty free ports for offshore goods.

Bingo! Looks like that was the master plan all along, doesn't it?

[blueturk]

North Carolina has been devastated by NAFTA. I'm in the Hickory area, which used to be synonymous with furniture. Now we're known for our unemployment rate. Broyhill just shut down in Lenoir, leaving 390 people without jobs. And yet that bastard Robin Hayes cast the deciding vote to put CAFTA through....

[Ellyllions]

Yeah and don'tcha just love the idea of moving the furniture show to Vegas? Isn't that a damn shame!

But hey, as long as the big cities are doing ok, the country must be fine, eh?

[Hardrock69]

Shit....it is just fucked.

So your parents are gonna be out of work Elly?

It is a fucked up world, but it is the only one we have...

[Nitro Express]

Americans have been asleep on what's been going on for the last 25 years. It's going to hit most of us hard when it's time to pay the piper.

We've ruined the middle class. That's gone but we don't really see it because the middle class is living on borrowed money right now.

The Economist magazine put it this way in one article. Our generation and the generation behind us are going to live more like our great grandparents did with little healthcare coverage and no retirement. Everyone has the illusion that you make a lot of money and retire. Fewer and fewer will be able to do that now.

More people will have to start a business out of neccessity. I think we will see a new wave of small business in the next 25 years. You won't get quality at Wal-Mart but a small domestic supplier will provide it. One problem though is the younger people in the US have a poor work ethic.

Everyone is going into debt to get a college degree but most won't find jobs. College is great if it gets you somewhere but I think we are going to see the end of the college experience and it's going to be replaced by internships, correspondence courses, and vocational schools. Getting hired by a company because you have a 3.9 GPA in Russian Liturature is about over. Technical majors will still go to the university.

As far as being too old. Colnel Sanders failed at everything he ever did until he started the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise at age 60! He had to because the guy was broke from previouse business failures. So I guess it ain't over until it's over. The old Kentucky Colnel was a real horndog too. He made enough money to lick some good pussy in his old age.

[Nitro Express]

When I was finishing business school at the University of Washington. NAFTA was touted and sold as a good thing. I never bought into the concept because it just didn't make sense. The dean and proffessors were very into Tottal Quality Management and the world economy. Lot's of US bashing in the lectures making it sound like Americans were dumb and we needed to catch up to the rest of the world.

When I look at China, they are basing their economic model on us and using our technology for the most part.

America's big downfall was thinking high tech and services were going to make up for manufacturing. Every industrialized country needs a manufacturing base. When you use offshore slave labor, a few distributors get filthy rich and the majority live a lesser standard. Manufacturing is the backbone of middle class jobs.

As far as Tottal Quality Management goes. Show me one brandname that improved by moving opperations to China.

[Ellyllions]

Originally posted by Hardrock69
Shit....it is just fucked.

So your parents are gonna be out of work Elly?

It is a fucked up world, but it is the only one we have...

Dad is 65 and mom just turned 63. Dad's been at that plant for 45 years, mom for 30. I'm trying to talk Dad into going ahead and turning his retirement paperwork in so he can get out with his profit sharing benefits before it gets eaten up in bankrupcy. Mom could retire early but it will cut her SS benefits by more than $200 which might not be a problem today, but when later when her health starts failing...

It's a game of chase at this point. I believe the plant will hold on to it's old-timers longer just because they've been so loyal. So I'm hoping dad will make the right decision and maybe mom will get at least another 6 months.

It is a fucked up world. And if we don't learn something from all of this fast, we're going to be in big trouble.

I don't know what NC is going to do. Research Triangle Park, Banking in Charlotte, and the soon-to-be Dell plant in Winston-Salem isn't going to pull everything together. Too many tobacco farmers, textile workers, and furniture manufacturing folks have no source of income.