[TheForge] new book review

[Ries Niemi]

I recently read an article about a chinese blacksmith- and it said a 
lot about where china is, versus the US.

The chinese businessman in the article started out as a blacksmith, in 
the 1960's. Like all blacksmiths, he took whatever work came in his 
door, and he bought an arc welder. Soon he found himself spending a lot 
of time repairing bicycles. He, and his wife, lived in his shop, and 
made very little money, but he invested in more tools, and began making 
his own bicycle parts, improving on the crummy stuff that comes out of 
chinese factories. He kept growing, still working 7 days a week, his 
wife welding bike frames all day long- and this, in communist china, in 
the 70's. Obviously these people had a lot of self motivation, and 
drive. Eventually he starts to get contracts to produce parts for 
others- first bike parts, and then car parts. By the early 90's, he has 
built the largest U-joint manufacturer in Asia, and as the western car 
companies come in, and start doing joint ventures with the big state 
owned chinese car companies, they look for local sourcing for parts- he 
steps right in. He now does over 3 billion dollars of business a year, 
with a whole web of interrelated companies and products, mostly auto 
drive shaft related. So guess what he is doing with his money- 
investing in america- he has recently bought several american 
driveshaft related manufacturers, in Minn, Wisc, and Illinois. Yes, he 
still imports most of his product from china, but like Honda, or 
Toyota, he is making some of his short lead time, high value product 
here, and he probably will make more.
Contrast this to Stanley tools, which is moving production and 
management offshore. Or Dewalt, made in asia. Ford, which makes most of 
its larger trucks in Mexico, with another 115,000 or so F150's coming 
from Canada. All PT Cruisers are from Mexico. Escorts are rebadged 
Mazda's, made in Hermosillo.
So we have American companies, moving jobs, money, and production to 
other countries, but paying the execs hundreds of millions of dollars a 
year. And we have chinese companies, moving production here.
Now which one were you more afraid of, again?

ries