My favorite James McMurtry song is called Vague Directions, but he has an even better one (speaking unbiased) that is more than capable of making me cry for a lot of reasons.
The title, which can be read two or three or four ways, is part of what makes it great. I’m thinking tonight of the meaning roughly equivalent to, Hey, there’s just no way anymore, for us to Make Things, in the way we used to be really great at.
The common wisdom is that manufacturing ‘went to China’. Which is true, and oversimplified. When I was looking for a welder, I came across a post from a guy who knew the real inside truth.
You can go read it in context of course. But I’m going to paraphrase most of it here anyway.
***
I used to make guns. Once upon a time I made a prototype shotgun, and I wanted to make more of them and sell ’em.
My partner and I couldn’t figure out a way to make it here in the US and sell it for less than $1500. So we went and talked to a Chinese government official in China, and he explained how things worked there.
You wanna built the crap version of your gun? We can do that and you can still make a profit selling them for $149.
But we got tiers. There’s a way to make a better gun that you sell at $249 and still profit.
Or, you take it to our platinum-level factories in a big city with a highly skilled workforce, and you pay them proper, and you get a top-notch product that you sell for $550.
Whatever way you choose, you make decent money and you thrash your American-built competition by a thousand bucks at least. And maybe if you’re smart, you’ll do all three at once. Price points, see?
“this is something Sam Walton figured out and how he was able to acquire say HP notebook computers that he could sell at half what Circuit city hadda charge for a similar HP computer.. but if ya put em side by side the wally world one will be lighter generally as it will use cheaper plastic chassis instead of sheet metal as a result it won’t be as well shielded as the CC computer etc.. it also might run hotter etc.. he would go to Sony, HP, IBM etc.. and put in a bid for what he was willing to pay for each device and to meet his price the manufacture has the device made at factory 1B instead of factory 3C etc…
the tools ya buy be it welders or vice grips might all be made in china BUT at what factory in china is the important detail… Lincoln welders might be made in Sheinghi while the Yeswelder is made in a very remote rural backwater”
***
So, the thing is, it’s not just guns and it’s not just tools either. From nails to freezers to auto parts to steel, that sound you hear is the globalized sound of two generations of American workers being flushed straight down the supply chain.
And, by the way, the sound of the Chinese beating the Empire senseless at their very own game, one steelworker, one furniture factory employee at a time.
The capitalists of any nationality do better than ever.
The workers, especially the ones who for whatever reason didn’t go to college and thus couldn’t end up in a paper-pushing white-collar and maybe even living-wage job–just fucking forget it. Maybe we can make you a barista while you’re young and pretty and perky enough. After that it’s the carwash, or the Taco Bell, or dealing Oxy and hijacked televisions out of the back of your rusty Corolla. And the finger of Bill Cosby wagging Shame at you, if you’re black. The whites are plenty capable of shaming their own, with discretion, with civility, with a precisely raised eyebrow.
This is a world without hope of a better life for the average person.
Why on earth would they not vote for Trump by the millions, when that cackling shitbag is married to the man who brought them NAFTA, and openly calls them deplorable for their failings?
Good old Joe promised enough to barely beat off a second term of Trumpism.
And then promptly reneged on every goddamn promise. Maybe his shiny new war will save him, maybe not.
But I’m drifting into politics. So let’s cut it off there for now. This is a story about buying a welder, when it’s way too late to just say no.
Just gang graffiti on a boxcar door, honey, never you mind.