Working for a University here in Utah, online is not the way to go. Word from big business is coming back saying "Tech" or Electrical Engineering they want Real college or University Degrees, they think online doesn't work well because the kids can avoid people and have zero social skills. Working for a large company means group projects and they will add what other experience or additional Certifications specifically pertaining to their products.

kv

I have bad news for them. But I feel their pain.

 

If all you want to do is be a salaryman then you can expect a result similar to mine. Your compensation will be flat to down even with a Master's Degree over the next 40 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman

 

If all you want to do is be a salaryman then you can expect a result similar to mine. Your compensation will be flat to down even with a Master's Degree over the next 40 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman

You started too high!

 

You started too high!

10K is high!??!

 

10K is high!??!

I got my very first five figure salary in 1974; I was hired by a major corporation for $200 per week plus really good benefits. I thought I was rich.

 

Went to an Olive Garden for dinner last night. They have a cute little gadget that I could have ordered from. About a 5" X 7" touch screen with menu pictures. pricing, etc.
A place to swipe your credit card to pay and get a receipt.
The suggested tip was 20%. I'm not sure who got it the waitress that brings the food or the IT guy.
The point is even those jobs are at risk.

 

The point is even those jobs are at risk.

It will all get better after Jan 20, 2017. It will be amazing, huge and great(again).

 

I got my very first five figure salary in 1974; I was hired by a major corporation for $200 per week plus really good benefits. I thought I was rich.

1971 for me and I never made it to six figures. I retired in 2014. I was extremely grateful for Obama's 65% COBRA match when I got laid of in 2009. Besides unemployment, which is administered by the state, it was the first and only federal program I was ever able to benefit from.

 

On trade again.
Are we better off buying Chinese shoes for $35 or American at $350 or whatever?

American made shoes still exist.

You are right about $250 to $400 for high end mens dress shoes or RedWing "Heritage" work boots. But New Balance makes some of their higher end shoes here for $99 to $200 - New Balance even exports about 25% of what they make here. They also make custom shoes in the US for people with various deformities or sizes above 14.

 

American made shoes still exist.

You are right about $250 to $400 for high end mens dress shoes or RedWing "Heritage" work boots. But New Balance makes some of their higher end shoes here for $99 to $200 - New Balance even exports about 25% of what they make here. They also make custom shoes in the US for people with various deformities or sizes above 14.

So keep me honest.
If I look at the import number we import 14 billion in shoes from China. Lot of shoes.
Best I can tell there is $25 in materials and 5 hours of labor. So at $0.50 an hour that's $27.50 a pair, or 500 million pairs of shoes? Maybe.
So if we move them back to the US say by tariff and we pay $10 an hour to make shoes the same pair would cost $75 wholesale and we would need 1 million people to make them. Can this be right?
I guess it would also say instead of paying about 28 billion (retail) for shoes we would now pay 75 billion.
Do you think the mark-up would stay the same?

 

So keep me honest.
If I look at the import number we import 14 billion in shoes from China. Lot of shoes.
Best I can tell there is $25 in materials and 5 hours of labor. So at $0.50 an hour that's $27.50 a pair, or 500 million pairs of shoes? Maybe.
So if we move them back to the US say by tariff and we pay $10 an hour to make shoes the same pair would cost $75 wholesale and we would need 1 million people to make them. Can this be right?
I guess it would also say instead of paying about 28 billion (retail) for shoes we would now pay 75 billion.
Do you think the mark-up would stay the same?

The shoe industry is more of an evolution and mostly moved to various parts of Asia in the 1960s to 1980s. Since then, it has moved from Taiwan, Korea, Philippines and British Hong Kong to China, Thailand and, more recently, Vietnam - all in the name of cheaper labor.

However, the amount of sewing (machine sewing and especially hand sewing) has been reduced in recent years as additional cost-saving efforts from Nike, Rebock, Adidas and the like. Sewing is the labor-filled part of shoe-making - especially form-sewing. Newer technology is to mold/(compression mold, injection mold or cast) the various parts and bond them with adhesives. There are some decorative (false) stitching on the edges of stripes and swooshes but the swoosh may be glued after someone (or some machine) does the false stitching when the swoosh is flat (unattached).

All this to say, you'll be lucky to see two hours into a pair of shoes. Most will be less than 20 minutes.

A shoe takes 24 to 48 hours if made end-to-end in the same building. Most of the time is sitting moving racks (like a bakery rack on wheels) waiting for the glue from a previous step to cure.

The materials in shoes are in the range of $2 per pound and so (polyurethane, vinyl acetate, nylon, polypropylene, etc). The adhesives range from 4 to $12/ pound but the amount of adhesive needed is minimal.

The hidden cost is the equipment needed (compression molding and polymer casting and injection molding equipment. But, most expensive is the tooling (the molds) that form these parts. They can become a significant pat of the shoe for a 50k pair run (you need one mold for each size for each model for each side). Many times the molds are reused between models but custom parts get quite expensive. $1 per unique part.

Tool making (mold making) is expensive and is cheapest in Asia (China). I think this is actually the biggest factor of why shoes are still made in China because the amount of labor needed to actually assemble the shoe has been greatly reduced.

Finally, the biggest expense for a name-brand shoe manufacturers is, are you ready? Advertising. And, when you buy the shoe, the retailer gets a pretty big chunk of the value chain. But they have their own costs.

Anyhow, there are no mystery parts in a Nike shoe vs a shoe sold my Meldisco (Kmart footwear department). The raw materials might be 2x ($5 vs $2.50) but Kmart sells them for $15 to 20 and Nikes sell for...? Much more.

Both companies make about the same per pair after advertising expenses. Nike just sells many more in recent years.

 

The shoe industry is more of an evolution and mostly moved to various parts of Asia in the 1960s to 1980s. Since then, it has moved from Taiwan, Korea, Philippines and British Hong Kong to China, Thailand and, more recently, Vietnam - all in the name of cheaper labor.

However, the amount of sewing (machine sewing and especially hand sewing) has been reduced in recent years as additional cost-saving efforts from Nike, Rebock, Adidas and the like. Sewing is the labor-filled part of shoe-making - especially form-sewing. Newer technology is to mold/(compression mold, injection mold or cast) the various parts and bond them with adhesives. There are some decorative (false) stitching on the edges of stripes and swooshes but the swoosh may be glued after someone (or some machine) does the false stitching when the swoosh is flat (unattached).

All this to say, you'll be lucky to see two hours into a pair of shoes. Most will be less than 20 minutes.

A shoe takes 24 to 48 hours if made end-to-end in the same building. Most of the time is sitting moving racks (like a bakery rack on wheels) waiting for the glue from a previous step to cure.

The materials in shoes are in the range of $2 per pound and so (polyurethane, vinyl acetate, nylon, polypropylene, etc). The adhesives range from 4 to $12/ pound but the amount of adhesive needed is minimal.

The hidden cost is the equipment needed (compression molding and polymer casting and injection molding equipment. But, most expensive is the tooling (the molds) that form these parts. They can become a significant pat of the shoe for a 50k pair run (you need one mold for each size for each model for each side). Many times the molds are reused between models but custom parts get quite expensive. $1 per unique part.

Tool making (mold making) is expensive and is cheapest in Asia (China). I think this is actually the biggest factor of why shoes are still made in China because the amount of labor needed to actually assemble the shoe has been greatly reduced.

Finally, the biggest expense for a name-brand shoe manufacturers is, are you ready? Advertising. And, when you buy the shoe, the retailer gets a pretty big chunk of the value chain. But they have their own costs.

Anyhow, there are no mystery parts in a Nike shoe vs a shoe sold my Meldisco (Kmart footwear department). The raw materials might be 2x ($5 vs $2.50) but Kmart sells them for $15 to 20 and Nikes sell for...? Much more.

Both companies make about the same per pair after advertising expenses. Nike just sells many more in recent years.

So I guess what you are saying is that bringing shoe manufacturing back to America won't make it great again?
And that it is really technology not trade now, but maybe trade years ago.

 

So I guess what you are saying is that bringing shoe manufacturing back to America won't make it great again?
And that it is really technology not trade now, but maybe trade years ago.

Don't mean to stray from the subject, but I think America is already great. It's its own citizens that I think need to learn to appreciate it more.

 

So I guess what you are saying is that bringing shoe manufacturing back to America won't make it great again?
And that it is really technology not trade now, but maybe trade years ago.

The tooling will still be made in China, then the price per pair of shoes will not be impacted so much. Even less if manufacturers find more shoe styles that become timeless (e.g. boat shoes and loafers). It will still take 10s of thousands of people to make the billion pair that are bought today (in US only). But few of those billion are ever worn to the end of their useful life) so a consumer may make more "sustainable" buying decisions if they pay one to $10 per pair more.

Great again? When was it better? For you? For your kids? For your anger level? Turn off the TV, Radio and Internet and watch how happy you get. People are mostly outraged and anxious because the media tells them they should be - "tune in fir Rush, for Rachael, for whomever to learn why"

A certain candidate was in Pittsburgh last week making promises to Pittsburgh that the steel industry will be back here as soon as he slaps tariffs on China. It is not China that took the steel industry away from my area - it was logistics. The regulated railroad rates from Erie to Pittsburgh were lifted in the 1980s so the railroads could make more money. The steel industry simply moved their operations to locations better suited for steel - look where Gary, Indiana is located. Less dependence on railroads. Pittsburgh was close to the low-sulfur coal of West Virginia but on e the coal is on the barge to Pittsburgh, those barges can go up or down the river just as easily. Nobody is going to build a new steel mill in Pittsburgh, it doesn't make sense to bring shiploads of taconite here. The city of Pittsburgh is having trouble keeping US steel's headquarters here.

Someone is making promises that have no chance of becoming reality.

 

Someone is making promises that have no chance of becoming reality.

That would be everyone running for anything.

 

People in the lower portion of the wage scale have not seen an increase in real wages for a long time even though unemployment is fairly low now. You hear a lot about bad trade deals, yet corporate profits keep going up along with the stock market. So what causes this?

You might find this illuminating:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-war-on-stupid-people/485618/

 

You might find this illuminating:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-war-on-stupid-people/485618/

We must stop glorifying intelligence and treating our society as a playground for the smart minority.

We've not only lost our sense of compassion, but we've learned to mock those who try to practice it.

Excellent article wayneh, thanks.

 

It builds on studies I first became aware of when I read The Bell Curve, and found fascinating. Many of the predictions in that book have played out and there is no end in sight. The trends are relatively easy to see, but I don't see that anyone knows what to do about them.

https://www.aei.org/publication/bell-curve-20-years-later-qa-charles-murray/
http://takimag.com/article/a_new_caste_society_steve_sailer/print#ixzz3FX5fzlhi

 

@MaxHeadRoom had a post with this tidbit.
All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes.
Wonder if this scares the Chinese.

 

@MaxHeadRoom had a post with this tidbit.
All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes.
Wonder if this scares the Chinese.

I doubt 3d printing technology will ever be able to compete with actual means of mass production.

3d printing's main (but not only) niche is in prototyping.

Besides, the Chinese are as capable of manufacturing with 3d technology as anyone else.