Nate Silver, Winning Elections and Planned Obsolescence – Part 2/2

Yes, it is true that cheap products are produced in China but quality products come from China too, and the level of quality, low or high, usually has to do with an American company—not China. If you hire someone to dig a hole in a field and you tell them to dig it two-feet deep when it should have been ten, is it the fault of the worker or the employer?

In fact, Americans invented the idea of planned obsolescence. The Economist says, “Planned obsolescence is a business strategy in which the obsolescence (the process of becoming obsolete—that is, unfashionable or no longer usable) of a product is planned and built into it from its conception.”

To have a better understanding of product quality from China, you may want to read this from Dan Harris at the China Law Blog. At the end of his post, he offers six points of advice on doing business with China, and one of them says, “Keep monitoring production quality, make sure to get written and signed records, and do not lower your standards for any reason (if possible).” This advice is offered to American companies wanting do do business in China.

Then I decided to see if I could come up with some stats and facts to compare the quality of US products with goods made by foreign companies.

I Googled, “poor quality products made in the United States of America” and ran into a hoard of sites bashing China for making poor quality products.

I didn’t ask for China but that’s what I got. Any site that mentioned America only bragged about how great Made in the USA was—I suspect that reaction of the politically correct mob is just misguided patriotism on steroids.

It’s great to love your country, but what about honesty?

There had to be a way to compare products made by US companies with those made by foreign companies, so I decided to search for lists that compared the quality of products by brand name. For example: cars.

Why did I decide on cars? Easy. I owned a new Ford Taurus once and a part/bracket was installed backwards at the factory that caused the brakes and tires to wear out every three to five thousand miles. It took more than a year and many dealer visits to discover the problem and have it fixed. After that experience, I bought a Toyota and still drive one.

And mainstream Western brands (for example: GM and Ford) builds vehicles in China with Chinese partners, but only for sale to China’s emerging middle class, which has created the world’s largest auto market.

I guess what I did next makes me not only a statistcs junkie but a facts junkie. For example, the top 10 highest quality cars of 2011, according to Forbes using the Initial Quality Study from J. D. Power and Associates, were:

1. Lexus LS (Japanese)

2. Lexus ES 350 (Japanese)

3. Porsche 911(German)

4. Hyundai Equus (South Korea)

5. Mazda Miata (Japan)

6. Ford F-150 (America)

7. Acura TSX (Japan)

8. Lexus GS (Japan)

9. Honda Accord (Japan)

10. Lexus IS (Japan)

11. Porsche Panamera (German)

I’m old enough to remember when Americans complained about Japan stealing jobs from the US and producing poor quality products—that is until Japan started to beat America by building better cars.

Did you notice that only one on the best quality list was made by an American corporation? However, for J. D. Power’s list of worst quality cars, twenty-one American vehicles made those lists. Source: The Car Connection.com

Small Sedans and hatchbacks:

1. Chevrolet Aveo

2. Chevrolet Cruze

3. Dodge Caliber

4. Ford Fiesta

Crossovers and SUVs:

4. Cadillac SRX

5. Dodge Journey

6. Dodge Nitro

7. Ford Edge

8. Ford Escape

9. Ford Expedition

10, Ford Explorer

12. Jeep Liberty

16. Lincoln MKT

17. Lincoln MKX

Minivans and Pickup Trucks:

1. Chevrolet Silverado HD

2. Dodge Ram 1500/2500

3. GMC Canon

Sedans and Luxury Sedans:

5. Buick La Crosse

6. Buick Regal

7. Chrysler 200

8. Dodge Charger

I suggest that anyone with an opinion about anything, on China for example, do some homework before jumping on any politically correct bandwagon probably being pulled by an ignorant, illiterate or functionally illiterate and/or lazy mob manipulated by American companies shifting the blame for poor products to China

After all, “Bashing China is an easy card to play,” says Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune Magazine.

Don’t forget Nate Silver’s advice: “It’s about looking for the right data, not necessarily the most obvious or easiest,” and after we looked at the data, we discover that American companies are selling a lot of poor-quality American cars and trucks to the Chinese.

Did you know that GM now sells more new cars in China than it does in the U.S? In 2011, GM sold 2,547,171 million vehicles in China, and Ford sold 519,390 (an increase of 7% over 2010).

In addition Sema.org says, “Chinese consumers practically worship prestigious brand names, and Jeep still carries a certain swagger in the People’s Republic of China,” wrote Mike Dunne, president of the Dunne & Co. consultancy, in Automotive News.

Chrysler currently sells the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Wrangler, Compass and Patriot models in China. All are imported, which boosts the price considerably because of an import tax.

Return to Nate Silver, Winning Elections and Planned Obsolescence – Part 1

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

Nate Silver, Winning Elections and Planned Obsolescence – Part 1/2

I read a post at Inside Tim’s Head, a blog hosted by Tim Nekritz, a stats junkie. The topic starts out focusing on Nate Silver, now considered a pop-culture star, who has been incredibly accurate predicting the results of the 2008, 2010 and 2012 US elections by crunching the right numbers. Then Nekritz’s topic shifts to how stats may be used to help Bloggers write smarter and attract more visitors that stay longer.

Tim wrote, Nate Silver cautions, “it’s about looking for the right data, not necessarily the most obvious or easiest.”

I agree with Silver—the right data (stats and facts) is important!

In fact, when I form an opinion, for example, on topics such as public education, religion, same-sex marriage, smoking pot, abortion, etc, I often look for studies on the same topic that are not necessarily opinionated but are stat/fact oriented to see if my thinking is valid.

That may explain why many of my opinions come with loads of stats and facts linked to primary fact gathering organizations.

I think that most information on a topic found through an Internet search using Google, for example, mostly leads to ignorant, politically correct, unsupported opinions, and if we join any mob that is currently political correct, we may eventually find ourselves on the flat-earth side of history a few decades or centuries from now.

Consider that for several thousand years it was politically correct to believe the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. In the 8th century BCE, early Egyptians portrayed the earth as a flat disk floating in the ocean. The Hebrew Bible (you know the Old Testament) described a circular earth with a solid roof, surrounded by water above and below. In ancient China, the prevailing belief was that the Earth was flat and square.

In addition, the Catholic (Christian) Church persecuted scientists who formed theories the Church deemed heretical—two examples are Nicholas Copernicus (1473 – 1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642). It took the Church 350 years to express regret (October 31, 1992) for how the Church treated Galileo.

How long have we known the earth was not the center of the universe?

Copernicus waited until he was an old man to publicly announce his beliefs, because anyone who opposed the political correctness of Church doctrine was branded a heretic, and that would destroy your reputation, put you in prison, or even sentence you to death.

Then I read this from Shaila Dewan of The New York Times, Popular Wrench Fights a Chinese Rival .

When I read the comments following Dewan’s piece, I discovered the usual China bashing about how everything from China is cheap and doesn’t last long. As usual, this politically correct gut reaction is mostly based on ignorance.

Continued on November 11, 2012 in Nate Silver, Winning Elections and Planned Obsolescence – Part 2

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

Sick of motor-mouth Politicians? Me too! – Part 2/2

ABC News reported, “Some 98 percent of the clothing purchased in the United States is imported from abroad. Just two percent of clothing bought in this country is manufactured on U.S. soil.”

Plunkett Research.com says, “China’s textile and clothing exports soared from $16.89 billion in 1990 to $206.74 billion in 2010 (China doesn’t sell products only to the United States—it sells to the world). According to the World Trade Organization, India is a distant second in this category, at $24.12 billion in 2010 (up from $4.71 billion in 1990). Other nations in the top ten for global apparel and textiles exports in 2010 included Turkey ($21.72 billion), Bangladesh ($16.92 billion), the United States ($16.96 billion), Vietnam ($13.50 billion), the Republic of Korea ($12.58 billion), Pakistan ($11.78 billion) and Indonesia ($10.97 billion).

Note: In 2011, China exported to the world US$1.897 trillion and imported US$1.664 trillion in good from other countries. Twenty percent of those exported goods were sold to the US while only 7.66% of imported goods arrived in China from the US. Imported goods include: Electrical and other machinery, oil and mineral fuels, optical and medical equipment, metal ores, plastics, organic chemicals.

What does this mean? “To consumers in Europe and North America, this growing reliance on China as a low-cost producer has meant very low retail prices for goods of reasonable quality.”

There is a hunger in China for “Made in America”

One American company that makes its clothing in the US is “The North Face” in San Leandro, California. Another company is “Round House Workwear” in Oklahoma (108 years old) and it claims all of its material is made in America.

Here is a site that lists other American clothing companies that manufacture in the US.

Why did many American companies move manufacturing outside of the US?

“Clothes can be manufactured more cheaply in developing countries due to the low cost of labor. Imagine that you are a t-shirt manufacturer. You can have your t-shirts made in a developing country with abundant cheap labor—workers who you only have to pay the equivalent of pennies an hour. This allows you to maintain large profit margins (by not spending so much on paying workers), and to sell your product at a cheaper cost (making consumers happy as well).” Source: Globalization101.org

The Chinese did not put a gun to the heads of Americans and force them to move manufacturing out of the country. Besides, Americans have a choice and may buy clothing from American companies that still manufacture in the US such as “The North Face” and “Round House Workwear”—that is if those companies make what American consumers want to wear and at a reasonable price.

And don’t forget, the US exported almost US$17 billion worth of American made clothing to other countries in 2011 MADE in the UNITED STATES. How many jobs did that support?

Return to Sick of Motor-Mouth Politicians – Part 1

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

Sick of motor-mouth Politicians? Me too! – Part 1/2

Recently US politicians discovered that the uniforms of the U.S. Olympic team’s opening ceremony were made in China and protested publicly (after all, it is an election year and surveys show that 44% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of China). Source: Politico.com

“I think they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over again,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said when asked by ABC News today, “If they have to wear nothing but a symbol that says USA on it, painted by hand, that is what they should wear.” Source: ABC News

An American Company, Ralph Lauren Inc, provided those uniforms for the US Olympic team. USA Today, reported Ralph Lauren’s response to Motor-Mouth Harry Reid.

Ralph Lauren’s corporate headquarters is in New York City. However, its products are sold worldwide and they are made worldwide. Ralph Lauren has 19,000 employees.

Some work in the United States. Many don’t. I tried to discover how many worked in the US but could not find that answer.

As of 2010, Ralph Lauren Corporation operated a total of 631 locations worldwide. If you check out the Ralph Lauren website, you will discover it has stores in forty-two countries, and its products were sold at some 11,000 locations worldwide.

There is a hunger in China for “Made in America”

Imagine a citizen of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, China (yes, Ralph Lauren Inc. has stores in China), Ireland, Japan, Russia, Switzerland or Turkey throwing a tantrum because a shirt they bought was made in the US.

I suspect this sort of knee-jerk reaction is exclusive to Americans—mostly narcissistic that believes the world revolves around them [with some exceptions—if you are reading this, I hope you are one of those exceptions].

In addition, for 2011, Market Watch.com reported Ralph Lauren Inc paid US taxes on its net US profit at an effective tax rate of 32.9%. If you are an American citizen, what was your effective tax rate?

Ralph Lauren is an American company that has become wealthy and prosperous by selling its products to the world. It stands to reason that this company would also have manufacturing plants around the world.

This is why I cannot stand politicians and their BIG motor mouths that often spout nonsense in addition to lies. When Harry Reid opened his mouth, it sounded as if every penny was going to China but that is not true.

For example, for one Apple iPad manufactured in China, about $6 stays in China of the $499.00 spent for this popular device. I’ve read the profit for that one Apple iPad sale is more than $100 and that money stays in the US where Apple has its corporate headquarters and pays taxes.

What would happen to American companies such as Ralph Lauren and Apple if the only country they manufactured and sold products in was the United States?

Continued on July 17, 2012 in Sick of Motor-Mouth Politicians – Part 2

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

The Self-Annihilation of Credibility – Part 6/6

There is no way to know when Robert Hart learned the details of the Taiping Rebellion. In Tilly’s opinion, he should have known all the details before the summer of 1855.

However, I have had the privilage of reading Robert Hart’s journal entries for his first year in China and he never mentions the Taipings—not once, but he does write about pirates, lonliness and his struggles to learn Chinese while working long days at the British consulate in Ningpo.

In Entering China’s Service on page 156, it says, “Since 7 September 1853, the native city of Shanghai (not the foreign enclaves) had been in the hands of rebels from the Small Sword Society, an off-shoot of the Triads (note that it doesn’t say Taiping Rebels); Hart wrote of these circumstances when he was there (in Shanghai staying in the British sector) in route to Ningpo in early October 1854.”

On page 157, the editors said, “The local Triad Society rebellion at Shanghai was of course only a pale reflection of the great sweep of the Taiping Rebellion … In May 1855 … Hart heard that the rebels (the Taipings) had taken Yushan … between 300 and 400 miles from Ningpo. … Ningpo had more immediate concerns in the feud between the Portuguese lorchamen and Cantonese pirates. The prevalence of pirates … was a grave threat to the shipping of all nations (not the Taiping Rebellion).”

The Taipings did not control one port in China at this time.

Two months later, Robert would be spending the summer with his friend Captain Dan Patridge and there is no way to know what happened at Patridge’s house, because Hart burned the journals that covered the next 2.9 years—what did Robert want to hide?

In fact, Hart does not go into detail about who the Taipings were anywhere in his journals while he was still working in Ningpo, and that is understandable since he arrived in China not speaking or reading Chinese and was often isolated from other English speakers for days at a time in Ningpo as he worked long hours at the consulate dealing with merchants (both Chinese and Western) while struggling with the frustration of learning Chinese.

How could Hart discuss the details of a Chinese rebellion when he could not hold a conversatoin with the Chinese? It was also obvious from the entries in Hart’s journals that the few English speaking people he met in Ningpo, Shanghai or Hong Kong were not concerned about the Taiping Rebellion. It wasn’t a topic foreigners were interested in.

Knowing that there was a rebellion is one thing. Knowing the specific details and history behind the cause of the rebellion is another and that was what Robert learned from Captain Dan Patridge in July 1855.

Hart arrived in Hong Kong in July 1854 and in July of 1855 he spends the summer with Partridge where he was introduced intimately to the concubine culture and discovered the details of the Taiping rebellion.

By the way, Patridge was a real person and he was the principal agent in China of Jardine and Matheson, the largest opium merchant operating in China. In fact, the Taipings were against the opium trade and wanted to throw all foreigners out of China.

Hart’s first year in China was spent mostly in isolation from his own kind and he felt lonely because of this. Most of the people he met on a daily basis were Chinese and he didn’t speak their language and they did not speak his. It was a difficult and demanding situation at best without the benefit of cultural workshops, inservices and the Interent that we take for granted today. I’m sure that the Queen’s College in Belfast did not have history courses on China during the 19th century and probably most of the 20th too.

Hart says in a July 29, 1855 entry of his journal, “I fear when I go back to the Consulate for the winter, I shall feel the loneliness very much.”

On page 169 of Entering China’s service, it says, “Unlike the lawlessness at Ningpo, which was due to crime—large scale, to be sure, but not organized as rebellion—the disorder of the 1850s at Canton was connected directly or indirectly with the rebellion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.”

It would not be until 1858 that Hart was transferred to Canton. While Hart worked in Ningpo, as you may see, the concern of the Chinese and Westerners had little to do with the Taiping Rebellion and more with pirates and crime. Hart did not study Chinese history as it happened. He lived it and did not experience the Taiping Rebellion during his first year in China.

In addition, it wouldn’t be until Ayaou was his concubine, that he would start making progress learning Chinese and by then he knew all about the Taipings thanks to Captain Patridge, the opium merchant.

Tilly at the Readers Cafe has a right to her opinion about the novel but does not have a right to defame me or my work with a sloppy review filled with false claims of historical inaccuracy.

Return to The Self-Annihilation of Credibility – Part 5 or start with Part 1

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

The Self-Annihilation of Credibility – Part 4/6

In Tilly’s fourth claim, she calls Ayaou a Harlot, which may reveal Tilly’s personal biases and moral beliefs without a clear understanding of cultural difference between the West and China.

There is a HUGE difference between a harlot and a concubine, because a harlot by definition is a woman prostitute.

However, the definition of a concubine says, “1. (in polygamous societies) A woman who lives with a man but has lower status than his wife or wives. 2. A mistress 3. In certain societies, such as imperial China, a woman contracted to a man as a secondary wife, often having few legal rights and low social status.” (I found all three of these definitions by Googling “Concubine definition”)

Then Tilly, a self proclaimed historian using Google as her main source, no doubt, disagrees with the fact that the eunuch that becomes Hart’s servant tells Hart that he was castrated at a young age so he would qualify to apply for a job in the Forbidden city.

In Tilly’s opinion, castrations only took place after a man was hired to work in the Forbidden City, but that is not what my sources say or should I say my wife’s research material which included the autobiographies of eunuchs that were forced to leave the Forbidden City in 1911 and other source material in original Mandarin—not to be discovered through Google searches.

In addition, Sterling Seagrave in his nonfiction historical book Dragon Lady mentioned on page 121 (paperback edition) that “Most eunuchs in Tung Chih’s day were volunteers, men who sought employment by these desperate means. … Complete healing took three months, after which the eunuch was ready to seek work.”

What does the word “seek” mean? Hint, it does not mean “start” work.

A comment at Historum.com says, “Eunuchs were usually chosen when they were very young, as castrating a sexually immature boy had less effect on the body. However, sometimes adults eager for money or power might undergo castration in order to enter the court.”

“Many eunuchs chose their way of life. One eunuch told British Sinologist John Blofeld in City of lingering Splendour: ‘It seemed a little thing to give up one pleasure for so many. My parents were poor, yet suffering that small change, I could be sure of an easy life in surroundings of great beauty and magnificence, I could aspire to intimate companionship with lovely women unmarred by their fear or distrust of me. I could even hope for power and wealth of my own.’ … Familes often encouraged their sons to become eunuchs as a means of pulling the family out of poverty and gaining admittance into the imperial court. Many parents even organized their sons’ castration at an early age in hopes that they would become imperial eunuchs.” Source: Facts and Details.com

Do all of these sources say the eunuchs got the job first then was castrated as Tilly claims?

Continued on July 12, 2012 in The Self-Annihilation of Credibility – Part 5 or return to Part 3

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

The Self-Annihilation of Credibility – Part 3/6

Tilly’s second incorrect opinion—while it is true that Victorian women had very little in the way of rights, that does not mean Robert Hart was not raised by his parents to treat women as equals. In fact, Robert Hart was raised as a Wesleyan by his father, a Wesleyan pastor, and the Wesleyan Church believed that women were equal to men.

Now, granted, the belief that women were equal to men might not be exactly the same as in 21st century America, but that does not mean Hart was not raised to respect women as equals.

In fact, the Wesleyan Church has a long history of supporting women’s rights. “Citing Galatians 3:28, Luther Lee gave the sermon “Woman’s Right to Preach the Gospel“ when Antoinette L. Brown became the first woman ordained to the clergy in 1853.” Source: Wesleyan Church History

In addition, The Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York hosted the first Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, also known as the Seneca Falls Convention—the beginning of the women’s rights movement in the United States.

Third incorrect opinion—Tilly claims that Robert Hart could not have believed that paying 33 pounds for a concubine was cheap. However, on page 150 of Sterling Seagrave’s Dragon Lady (paperback edition), Robert Hart is quoted as saying, “Now, some of the China women are very good looking. You can make one your absolute possession for from 50 to 100 dollars and support her at a cost of 2 or 3 dollars per month. … Shall I hold out—or shall I give way?”

Then on Thursday, August 31, 1854, Hart wrote in his journal, “Cheepqua told us…that from 200 to 1000 dollars are given for a wife of respectable Chinese. They marry between the ages of 16 and 30.” Source: Entering China’s Service

Then Seagrave says, “By early May he had a sleep-in dictionary, his concubine, Ayaou. He had just turned twenty; Ayaou was barely past puberty but was wise beyond her years.”

Since both Seagrave’s book and Entering China’s Service was published in America, we may safely assume that Seagrave was referring to dollars and not pounds or Chinese yuan. No one knows what Hart actually paid for Ayaou or Shao-mei because Hart did not mention the price paid anywhere in his surviving journals, so I went with British pounds. However, Robert may have paid as little as £10 British pounds, which at the time was about $50 American dollars.

For a comparison to discover if that was as costly as Tilly believes, we cannot rely on the British Empire—slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire in 1833, two years before Robert’s birth

The only comparison between cheap and expensive slaves (or the cost of buying a concubine) may be found in the United States where slavery existed until the end of the American Civil War in 1864.

According to Plantation agriculture in Southeast USA, the average price of a slave between 1851-1855 was $1,240 . When we convert that to British pounds, the cost of a slave was £253.83 British Pounds.

Another source says the average price of a slave girl in the United States in 1860 was $400US, which would be about £80 British pounds. Source: Slave Rebellion.org

A third source said that in 1854 (when Hart arrived in China) the average value of slaves in the United States was $500.00 (or £100 British pounds) and by 1861, that price would be $800US (£160 British pounds). Source: Measuring Worth.com

Therefore, if Robert Hart paid between ten to thirty-three British pounds for Ayaou, that was a bargain he could afford. Anyone that read The Concubine Saga carefully would know that Robert arrived in China with £50 pounds (a gift from his father—it says so in Hart’s journals) and started out earning an annual income from the British consulate of about £200 (again, it says so in Hart’s journals), and his room, board and servant came with the job. However, he had to pay for a teacher to teach him Chinese—the consulate did not cover that expense as part of his salary.

Furthermore, what Hart was paid when he arrived in China was not what he was earning when he met Ayaou. In Hart’s journal entry for July 4, 1855, he says he was nominated to a provisional assistancy in the Consulate with an annual salary of £270 British pounds.

Continued on July 12, 2012 in The Self-Annihilation of Credibility – Part 4 or return to Part 2

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”