Harbor Freight

DeeVeeEight

DeeVeeEight

Fast Pedalphile
Joined
Nov 3, 2008
Messages
2,287
Location
Southern New Jersey, USA
I have mixed feelings about shopping at Harbor Freight. I am guilty of having spent several hundred dollars there but all the stuff is made in China :crap: and distributed exclusively by Harbor Freight.
What does stuff like this do to our economy? When are we going to be more competitive with our products in the USA?
 
I feel the same way. I held out for American made goods as long as I could, still seek them out, but it's getting plain hard. I buy Craftsman, Stanley, and such when possible. But, like a blast cabinet, or an engine stand, it's almost all imported now.:bullshit:
 
It is almost impossible for us to compete with (what we used to call) 3rd world countries for products that require fabrication labor. A production welder in China is basically a slave. He lives at the company commune and if he is not productive, he loses his job and his bed.

The Chinese are capitalists but they are also communists. They are about where the US was in 1850.
 
You can't get a US employee to work for what a chino employee works for. There is no way the US fabricator could survi ve on their wages. When I was in China earlier this year, I saw most people living in conditions close to our homeless peolpe.
 
It's not just that. I for example have asked two shops for a quote for blasting my parts and pressing the spindles into the bearing carriers.

I bought a blast cabinet and a 12T shop press for roughly $220.

Now that I'm done rebuilding these trailing arms I could just take the cabinet and the press to the curb and I still saved a lot of money over having somebody do the job for me.

I'll just keep using this stuff until it breaks (which I don't think will take long) :bump:
 
js292 said:
When I was in China earlier this year, I saw most people living in conditions close to our homeless peolpe.
Click to expand...

Last time I was in China, the homeless guy in the US would look like the King of China to most workers:amazed:
 
BBShark said:
js292 said:
When I was in China earlier this year, I saw most people living in conditions close to our homeless peolpe.
Click to expand...

Last time I was in China, the homeless guy in the US would look like the King of China to most workers:amazed:
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same, our clients told us they thought everyone in the US was rich, and seeing how they live I see how they could think that. The owner of the Plant I do business with drove a 85 Jetta, where the owner of my Plant drives a Cheyanne.:beer:
 
Doubt if there is anything you can buy that doesn't have some of the components made in China that you aren't even aware of.

On the brighter side, they are buying American stuff too. That's why IBM sort of sold retail end to Lenovo, Too big a market to miss out on.

And our hero billionaire, Buffet, partnered with China Oil a few years ago made around 13 billion in 1 year. Wonder if any of that profit made it's way back to our shores. Worry is only for us meager folks.

At Harbor Freight, you just have to feel good about supporting the store employees with your purchases.
 
How is this a bad thing? It's been going on for decades and every time the same fears are discussed.

Where's Smith Corona, the typewriter manufacturer, or the people who fix them? The only one who owns a typewriter these days is Dan Rather.

Look, capitalism spurs innovation. Mircosoft, Intel, etc....

With that innovation new advances people need to sell, support, market this stuff. How many jobs has Microsoft created? Cisco?

Capitalism invented the transistor, the Japanese took advantage of it. Capitalism invented the IC, other countries took advantage of it. Capitalism invented software, other countries took advantage of it.

As it relates to tools, I'm not that old, but old enough to use my father's tools in the garage, I remember a day where a nice set of SK tools, or Snap on, were representative of the markings. A 1/2 inch box wrench was, actually, 1/2 inch. The cheap stuff was just estimations and I'd round out nuts every time.

Today, a 1/2 inch is a 1/2 inch. Manufacturing has improved greatly. Now, I'm not saying that this stuff is the quality of Snap On, not by any stretch, but it is useable if all you do is need a tool every once in the while, or want a disposable tool you'll use once.

My question is who do you want to be? These "other countries" who take our innovation and do something with it? Or the innovators?

I don't know, I don't want an economy based on screwing the heads on Barbie dolls. I like the idea of being the world's innovators, passing it on once ubiquitous, and moving on to the next thing, is not a bad thing.
 
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You mention SCM......man does that bring back mammories.....


My father bought the very first small automated billing machine, it was a great fore runner of today's computers stuff.....

it had a SCM vertion of the IBM electric typewriter on it, and a reader for paper tape with holes in it...about a inch wide....then a paper puncher that would MAKE the tape....

it was used for automated billing in Dad's office for the monthly statements for the Suburban Maryland Builders Association....

which had about 500 companies in it, and then each company had people employed, which would come and go from month to month....in order for the owners who were typically older, to get decent group hospitalization rates for themselves and the family, they were required to cover a lot of the costs of their usually younger employees, and the employees typically but not always had to pay their family coverage through payroll deductions....

Very standard coverage even today for most/many companies....

Well this machine was used in playback from previous month's billings, the manilla file pulled from the cabinet, tape played, while the 3 page tractor feed billing sheets went into the automated typewriter......Dorothy would set in that room with the door closed, but did not mind as she was hard of hearing anyway, so the machine read the tape, and typed the document at super high speed....about 150 WPM.....anyway, the carriage slammed back and forth with authority.....whole thing mounted on a desk with metal legs the whole desk swayed with the motion....so when it came time for changes, Dorothy would stop the billing skip the tape over deletes, and add in new information as required....this of course all stored on the 'new tape' which was then updated the next month as required.....coming of course from the above mentioned puncher.....

ONE of the builders is probably still around up there in Wash Dc...the Carl M. Freeman Co......they took all damn day to do just that one account....

:eek:

So Dorothy said one day that it was hard to follow the typewriter and get set to interrupt the thing while reading on account of the swaying table....so one of Dad's partners, Johnny, tied the table to the wall studs....

that carriage slammed back and forth about 6 times and continued on off the console, hit the wall, and punch a HOLE in the sheetrock......

the entire office had to immediately drop ALL activity and get working on that month's billing for the Builders Assn....took about 2.5 weeks to do a week's worth of work done typically by Dorothy alone.....

:lol::lol::lol:

Some years later, I heard from Dad's partners that the actual billing machine was donated to the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Science and Tech in Washington Dc, right there on the Mall Downtown, I saw it there in a display of very early office automation......this about '79 sometime.....

:smash::smash::eek::twitch:

Just a piece of odd Sunday morning recollections for the crew.....

:lol:
 
Jsup said:
...I don't want an economy based on screwing the heads on Barbie dolls. I like the idea of being the world's innovators, passing it on once ubiquitous, and moving on to the next thing, is not a bad thing.
Click to expand...
Ha, depends on who's helicopters you fly in...
helo.jpg
 
saudivette said:
Jsup said:
...I don't want an economy based on screwing the heads on Barbie dolls. I like the idea of being the world's innovators, passing it on once ubiquitous, and moving on to the next thing, is not a bad thing.
Click to expand...
Ha, depends on who's helicopters you fly in...
helo.jpg
Click to expand...

The concept today,""Use it and throw it away"" :kissass: Solving that problem ""don't buy their shit"" In ten yrs there won't be anyone who knows how to turn a screw drive!
Question: why should we buy that trash, we now know the chink's junk is junk!:banghead:
 
Helicopters don't really fly anyway-they just beat the air into submission. IF you want a throwaway, look at Airbus. The first A-319's and 320's bought by a major airline are setting in the desert. Bought them in the late 90's and there's so much corrosion that it's cheaper to park them than fix them.
 
TimAT said:
Helicopters don't really fly anyway-they just beat the air into submission. IF you want a throwaway, look at Airbus. The first A-319's and 320's bought by a major airline are setting in the desert. Bought them in the late 90's and there's so much corrosion that it's cheaper to park them than fix them.
Click to expand...

But yet our PENTAGON awarded some contract sections to that clown outfit, as against BOEING??? contract pulled and under review due to BOEING's complaints....last I heard....

wonder what happened?? they not coat the aluminum??

curious about that on the rest of the ABus fleet.....

:hissyfit:

as a matter of fact, since the planes are NWR.....why not just cut em up for the aluminum, and let BOEING make something better outta it????
 
i like harbor freight ,some stuff is better then other stuff and just ask the UPS guy if he gets paid for delivering the stuff.....its a global economy so get use to it. there is no going back.....
 
I have never been to a Harbor Freight,pretty sure there is one in KC somewhere but i have never shopped at it.
 
bobs77vet said:
i like harbor freight ,some stuff is better then other stuff and just ask the UPS guy if he gets paid for delivering the stuff.....its a global economy so get use to it. there is no going back.....
Click to expand...

I'm afraid I agree. There IS no going back. All you can do is buy the good stuff, and refuse to buy/return the crap. They'll get the message, and improve quality.
I resisted for years, but to no avail.
 
kwplot34 said:
I have never been to a Harbor Freight,pretty sure there is one in KC somewhere but i have never shopped at it.
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Go in one Kevin. There is alot of crap, but there is some good stuff too. They also take ANYTHING back, no questions asked. Just save your receipts.
 
big2bird said:
kwplot34 said:
I have never been to a Harbor Freight,pretty sure there is one in KC somewhere but i have never shopped at it.
Click to expand...

Go in one Kevin. There is alot of crap, but there is some good stuff too. They also take ANYTHING back, no questions asked. Just save your receipts.
Click to expand...

Got one up the street, smells like a Chinese cardboard factory....

:banghead::gurney:
 
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