China-made equipment...

[deniscimafinc]

I've just received an email newsletter from EquipmentWorld that announce CAT will start making compact excavators in China. Although we might get used to see manufacturers sending production overseas, I can't help but feel uneasy about that, even as a manufacturer. That only ads to the army of jobs lost in North America. On the other hands, most business schools would probably teach you that the important thing is to keep the company financially healthy, and that if you don't lower your costs going that way, your competitors will, with your market shares probably going down then...



How do you feel about that?

Does the country where a machine is made has any effect on your purchase decision? Or you don't care at all, as long as you can get the lowest price possible?

 

[JESSE1]

Personally, I go out of my way to buy products made in the USA. Even if it is an American company selling one of their products made in China, I won't buy it if there's an alternative. An example is Red Wing Shoes. They used to have a line of boots and shoes called Worx made in China. Now some of the actual Red Wing boots that always were made in the USA are made in China. I won't buy them. If people would avoid products made in China whenever possible maybe we could bring back some of our lost manufacturing.

 

[ddivinia]

I try to buy all the American made stuff I can even if it costs me more money.

D.

 

[Rhino59]

Unless I"m way off base, CAT excavators are not made in the USA right now......in fact, I think Mitsubishi makes them in Japan for CAT. Look on a CAT mini-ex now and they have the neon blue "Japan export" sticker on them....

 

[ddivinia]

We live in a global economy, but we can all make some choices. Some are really tough. My Dodge 3500 - made in Mexico. Oh well, better there than China.

D.

 

[yellowdogsvc]

We live in a global economy, but we can all make some choices. Some are really tough. My Dodge 3500 - made in Mexico. Oh well, better there than China.

D.

Ah, so it's from Texas? Half of Mexico is up here seasonally. The border is porous. while the workers come over here, the jobs go over there! Go figure!

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Frederic,

Some products I simply refuse to purchase because of country of origin. We were in Wal-Mart some time ago and my wife was looking at towels. I looked at the label and saw that they were made in Pakistan. I told her I don't care if they're free, we are not bringing them home. China is not much above Pakistan on my list.

As far as living in a global economy, we have done so for over a thousand years. It is only in recent history that manufacturing has been sent overseas. And that will thrust this country down to the level of those we sent the manufacturing to.

I have seen the threads in this section about your mulching heads. You have shown that by manufacturing a superior product and providing the support behind it, that you need not send your manufacturing to a third world country to be competitive. Keep up the good work. And, go GSP!

 

[roccon31]

i, for one, would (and have) bought equipment made in JAPAN- hitachi excavators (with and without "deere" stickers) and my john deere tractor is made in japan by yanmar. HOWEVER, if you were trying to sell me an excavator, that i had to depend on every day, in and out, and quickly repair it when it breaks, there is NO WAY i would buy one made in china. especially if i had to pay the premium price to have "CAT" written on the side of it!!!!!

japan and china are totally different, and the chinese DO NOT have the resources to stock parts houses here in the states with the necessary replacement parts to keep the equipment on the job and running, like the japanese do. if i need a part for a hitachi excavator, i can have it in less than 2-3 days. with china, its a long shot to get parts within 2-3 months!!

in my personal opinion, cat needs some corporate restructuring, not chinese made junk. and since i prefer deere equipment anyway, this makes my buying decisions that much easier!

 

[Taylortractornut]

If Im not mistaken the China made excavators are for the asian market. I have a friend that is also an operator that his bosses purchase agent bought a Sany excavator, a grader and a roller. It has cost them dearly in down time. THe hydraulics and the engine are Sun Strand and Cummins but the other things tha break on the hoe is. The bucket pins, crowd arm and stick pin, slew ring and bearing, boom pivot housing cracked. The grader is the same way drawbar fatigue cracked, axle houseings on the walking beam leaking and grinding, linkages on the blade insufficient and a severely mis aligned wheel lean. The roler has no bushings in the articulation joint, bad bearings in the vibrator and poor castings,and also poor vibration dampers. Ive tried to help them after the dealer wont. This winter I ll have the hoe in for a rebuild of the joints with plate reinforcing and send them to the rock pit for hammer work.

 

[roccon31]

i had the perfect example happen to me at the end of last week....(kinda long)

wednesday night, doing a small favor job (spread 10 tons of stone in a driveway) for a friend of mine, because i had no other time to do it and i had a 2.5 day job to be at thursday morning and a half day job somewhere else on saturday afternoon.

9pm wednesay , i was just about done, and my tractor just stopped running, smelled hot like electrical burning and would not restart. tried jumper cables, got it to crank, but no start. finally got it to run, but only for 5 minutes then it died completely. i thought maybe it was the battery was toast so i went to walmart for a new one so i was ready to go thursday AM. thursday came, stuck the battery in, no start. cranked fine, just no start. i yanked the fuel shutoff solenoid, saw it wasnt working and i have burnt fusible links, so off to the dealer i went. my local dealer did not have the link, but the other dealer 15 miles away had it. drove over, got the link, came back and installed it and it popped again. bypassed the fuse link all together and started hunting to root cause. since the fuel solenoid wasnt working, i went and got one (i cant beleive they stocked it) and threw it on. 30 seconds later it blew up!!! seriously frustrated, i went back to the dealer and ordered another, and talked to the service manager. he gave me the pages from the manual to test my fuel control module. i ordered one just incase before i left. went home, checked the module, and yep it was toast. saturday at 815 am, my parts were in. they were ordered 430pm on thursday. by 2 pm saturday afternoon, i had the parts in and she is running fine. i can now get back to work and hopefully get caught up to keep my customers happy. one customer told me if i wasnt there by this week she was going to get someone else, so i said i will be there even if i have to rent a machine.

due to a good dealer and the MASSIVE distribution of JD's parts warehouses, i was only down for 2 days. try that on a chinese machine.

and yes, it sucks that it cost me 800 in parts, but it could have cost me 3000 in lost jobs, and alot more in lost customers and bad word of mouth recommendations!

and a big thumbs up to Detlan Equipment in Silverdale PA for having experienced staff and being willing to help a brother out. lord knows how hard finding this electrical problem would have been without their help!!

 

[mouse]

kinda 2 separate issues here -

the stuff made by the chinese like what we call a 'chonda' (the chinese knock off of a honda stationary engine). in these sort of examples the chinese can make damned good copies except for the metallurgy, this sort of stuff becomes a real threat as they work out their materials.

the other side of the coin is the likes of cat, bmw etc manufacturing out of china - afaik this is pretty much a transplant of the company and company technology into a place of cheap labour and lax ecological management. this sort of movement is not so troubling as it'll move again as some new place becomes the 'cheapest'

the other slight problem is that the second action then bolsters the first, they'll learn their metallurgy from the market leaders.

of course if you are not in china then chances are your product already is, you may as well make it yourself than have a dodgy copy punted out the door. i guess part of this is about brand protection, again something china's not reknowned for practising.

 

[Renze]

due to a good dealer and the MASSIVE distribution of JD's parts warehouses, i was only down for 2 days. try that on a chinese machine.

You Americans are encouraging each other in the nationalist bias here

lets say this: If you had a Zetor like me, and even a brand new one, it would have an all mechanical fuel pump that wouldnt get electrical failures

Anyways, i dont think you can avoid it. Most of Deeres tractors have parts from their French engine plant in Saran, or the lighter transmissions from the former Heinrich Lanz plant in Mannheim. Their disk mowers use gearcases from Kuhn france, French Renault tractors were marketed as Deere 3000 series, Italian Agritalia/Carraro tractors were marketed as Deere 5000 series, Zetor UR1 and UR3 range series were marketed as Deere 2000 series.

Then not to mention their riding mowers, garden equipment etcetera, of which most is built in Japan.

For Case New Holland, the same counts: Cummins engines arent really Cummins but are a joint development with Iveco, a daughter company of Fiat group. Anything built under 70 hp are old Fiat models from italy.
The TM series: based on Fiat Winner series.
TSA series: based on Basildon built Ford 40 series
Only the Magnum and TG are true american.

About truck engines, in another thread about CAT pulling back from onroad engine business, i wrote a long story about how American truck engines are gradually replaced by Euro tech: Detroit 60 series gets replaced by German Mercedes-Benz engines, Navistar is getting help from MAN, Cummins engines are half Iveco, small CAT engines are built in Petersborough, england, in the former Perkins plant, etcetera, etcetera.


For your own peace of mind, just let go of the idea that the worlds industry depends on America:
All right, You guys helped us a great deal by supplying army trucks to the Russians during WW2, and combines and tractors in the "Marshall plan" to rebuild Europe after WW2.

Why do many Americans still think they're so important ? This idea that the world depends on American industry, is 50 years old, and totally outdated these days !!!


WE (i say WE, Europeans as well as Americans) cant ignore the Chinese and Indians anymore !! THEY are driving the prices of steel and allmost any other building material up in the last decade. Their economy is growing, whilst the American economy is fading !!
They are gaining economical power, and with that, they will have their voice be heard in the world !!!
The Chinese have good political ties with many African countries, which have more unexploited mines than anywhere else in the world ! As soon as the Africans can get political stability, they can start exploiting, ores, industrial diamonds, lots of it !

Russia is out of the race, since the end of the cold war.
New political and financial cold wars, will be against the new industrial world: China and India.

You better take them serious and prepare, or these new guys will outrun you

 

[Builder]

You Americans are encouraging each other in the nationalist bias here

lets say this: If you had a Zetor like me, and even a brand new one, it would have an all mechanical fuel pump that wouldnt get electrical failures

Anyways, i dont think you can avoid it. Most of Deeres tractors have parts from their French engine plant in Saran, or the lighter transmissions from the former Heinrich Lanz plant in Mannheim. Their disk mowers use gearcases from Kuhn france, French Renault tractors were marketed as Deere 3000 series, Italian Agritalia/Carraro tractors were marketed as Deere 5000 series, Zetor UR1 and UR3 range series were marketed as Deere 2000 series.

Then not to mention their riding mowers, garden equipment etcetera, of which most is built in Japan.

For Case New Holland, the same counts: Cummins engines arent really Cummins but are a joint development with Iveco, a daughter company of Fiat group. Anything built under 70 hp are old Fiat models from italy.
The TM series: based on Fiat Winner series.
TSA series: based on Basildon built Ford 40 series
Only the Magnum and TG are true american.

About truck engines, in another thread about CAT pulling back from onroad engine business, i wrote a long story about how American truck engines are gradually replaced by Euro tech: Detroit 60 series gets replaced by German Mercedes-Benz engines, Navistar is getting help from MAN, Cummins engines are half Iveco, small CAT engines are built in Petersborough, england, in the former Perkins plant, etcetera, etcetera.


For your own peace of mind, just let go of the idea that the worlds industry depends on America:
All right, You guys helped us a great deal by supplying army trucks to the Russians during WW2, and combines and tractors in the "Marshall plan" to rebuild Europe after WW2.

Why do many Americans still think they're so important ? This idea that the world depends on American industry, is 50 years old, and totally outdated these days !!!


WE (i say WE, Europeans as well as Americans) cant ignore the Chinese and Indians anymore !! THEY are driving the prices of steel and allmost any other building material up in the last decade. Their economy is growing, whilst the American economy is fading !!
They are gaining economical power, and with that, they will have their voice be heard in the world !!!
The Chinese have good political ties with many African countries, which have more unexploited mines than anywhere else in the world ! As soon as the Africans can get political stability, they can start exploiting, ores, industrial diamonds, lots of it !

Russia is out of the race, since the end of the cold war.
New political and financial cold wars, will be against the new industrial world: China and India.

You better take them serious and prepare, or these new guys will outrun you

I find this sort of arrogance by a lot of Europeans quite nauseating. Maybe you need to understand the concept of waking up in the morning saluting Adolph ****** or Ahmidinijad and the American lives lost freeing Europe amnd yes, CHINA from opression once in a while instead of broad brushing us all as "thinking we're so important".

Maybe if you actually LIVED here in the US, you'd realize that we don't think the world depends on American industry. However, the world does depend a lot on American innovation. Most of the world's innovative products are American ideas & designs which are often copied & cheapened by other industrialized nations.

Most Americans are humble, hard working, helpful people. I find a lot of your posts contain a smug condescending attitude that we're a bunch of has-been idiots that can't do anything right and we're to blame for all the world's problems. Quite the contrary.

Stop watching so much NBC & CNN news.

Eurpoean products like Airbus and Chinese companies have plenty of gov't backed subsidized companies, too, so you can give the "European Superiority" attitude a break, becuase I ain't buying what you're peddling.

'nuff said.

 

[Builder]

kinda 2 separate issues here -

the stuff made by the chinese like what we call a 'chonda' (the chinese knock off of a honda stationary engine). in these sort of examples the chinese can make damned good copies except for the metallurgy, this sort of stuff becomes a real threat as they work out their materials.

the other side of the coin is the likes of cat, bmw etc manufacturing out of china - afaik this is pretty much a transplant of the company and company technology into a place of cheap labour and lax ecological management. this sort of movement is not so troubling as it'll move again as some new place becomes the 'cheapest'

the other slight problem is that the second action then bolsters the first, they'll learn their metallurgy from the market leaders.

of course if you are not in china then chances are your product already is, you may as well make it yourself than have a dodgy copy punted out the door. i guess part of this is about brand protection, again something china's not reknowned for practising.

We just installed plumbing shut-offs in a customer's house as we always do in the plumbing phase. They were American made and never gave us any trouble in the past 15 years. Now all the sudden, we had 2 let go in the same house, causing costly floods......

.......oh gee what have we here? After closer examination, we find the valves are now made in China......hmmmmm more crappy chinese metalurgy.

 

[roccon31]

thanks builder, as i was reading his post i started to get angry, then realized i would be wasting my time by responding to him. he obviously didnt read the part about where my tractor is JAPANESE made by YANMAR and the fact that if it werent for JOHN DEERE (which last time i checked was a GLOBAL!!!!!!! company) i would have been screwed.

I said NOTHING about being important, or american.

and also, my tractor does have a mechanical fuel pump, however the shutoff is electronically controlled via a solenoid to shutoff the fuel as part of the safety system (which i DEFINATELY blame american lawyers for!). probably has something to do with us fat lazy arrogant americans cant pull a shutoff cable to turn off the engine, right?

for the record, the new MB truck engines are SERIOUSLY lacking in alot of areas, where the old cat's would shine. i our gvt has ruined the diesel engine as we know (and love) it. i dont blame cat for leaving the truck market as their market share was dwindling anyway. why would you pay an extra 25k for a 600 hp cat, when you could pay 10k extra for a 600 hp cummins? sure, i like the cat's torque as much as the next guy, but the cummins is quiet, more fuel efficient, and more driver friendly for an on road application. for a triaxle off/on road guy like myself, a cat is where it's at for torque offroad on a jobsite, but its not worth the added cost. there's no arguing that point. and i have a half million off/on road miles under my belt, so yes, i have dealt with it first hand.

 

[JoeinTX]

"the other side of the coin is the likes of cat, bmw etc manufacturing out of china - afaik this is pretty much a transplant of the company and company technology into a place of cheap labour and lax ecological management. this sort of movement is not so troubling as it'll move again as some new place becomes the 'cheapest'..."


I agree. When a Western concern moves in....enforces it standards of quality....installs it's production and quality guidlines....then the product should not be substantially different from that produced in Japan or Brazil or Canada or wherever. The BMWs, Buicks, Cats, and VWs of the world would not plaster their name all over them if they were seriously flawed.

Now, when I see a funny looking little tractor from "Shangdong Agricultural Plant No. 5" for sale in a catalog somewhere..........run! These are obviously the product of some Chinese state factory with the according levels of quality control and integrity.


"I find this sort of arrogance by a lot of Europeans quite nauseating...."

And I find your ability to ignore economic and historic reality nauseating.

Mercedes was building very fine, advanced autos before WW2 that would put a Cadillac to shame. Fokker and Messerschmitt were producing aircraft a decade ahead of their time and their American counterparts. The Germans were flying the first pre-peoduction jet engines while Packard was still digesting the blueprints for the RR Merlin. The Germans built Tiger and Panther tanks in 1943 that could still to this day be viable battlefield weapons in some parts of the world.


"Maybe you need to understand the concept of waking up in the morning saluting Adolph ****** or Ahmidinijad and the American lives lost freeing Europe amnd yes, CHINA from opression once in a while instead of broad brushing us all as "thinking we're so important"....."

Your overweighing xenophobic narcisism is evident. We're not talking politics here..........just plain, cold, economic reality. Very few Europeans living today ever saluted ******. Ahmadenijad has no part in this. And, the easiest way for Euros like Renze to "broadbrush" us Americans is with the words of people........like you, Builder.

In the days after WW2 there wasn't much of the world's economic and industrial base left untouched by the ravages of war. Germany, Italy, France, Japan, large swathes of Russia, and varying parts of Great Britain lay in smoldering ruin. Nations like Australia, Brazil, South Africa, or Sweden were largely okay but not real industrial powers. We here in North America were fortunate in having a huge industrial complex, population, and financial sector that were relatively unaffected. In the aftermath of the war the U.S. and Canada were largely the world's production apex and it lasted that way for about 20 years.


Not sure about your IH dumptruck, though I suspect it will have some notable foreign content in minor assemblies and electronics, but your GMC and Case backhoe are far from "all American." I'm sure you're already aware of this, but anyway.

The GMC has an Isuzu designed/built engine, GM often sources it harnesses and tires from overseas, and various minor components directly from China or Thailand or Australia or Brazil. Your Case backhoe is produced by a directly foreign owned concern (Fiat SPA) that as well used a good degree of imported parts for cost reasons. The same Fiat controlled CNH that owns your backhoe is also breaking ties with Cummins and going in-house with Iveco for most products going forward. For years, not sure now, but Fiat-Allis did a lot of work with Hitachi in excavators and loaders.

Can't be certain, but I'm betting you post here on a computer made in Taiwan or Thailand or South Korea or China, using a modem made in one of those same places, interfacing via a system all or partially created by Indians or Pakistanis or Indonesians, and when you have problems you contact a call center in Canada or Mexico or Bangladesh or Uruguay to correct. If you've bought anything from Wal-Mart or Target or Dollar General or Kroeger or Northern Tool or TSC......then you've sent money to a non-U.S. owned entity.



Yes, builder, you go on with "I ain't buyin' no ferrin' stuff" and make yourself feel better. If that's what does it for you, okay. Don't expect the rest of us to buy it with you. This is coming from a pretty conservative, America-loving individual who doesn't indulge in self-delusion and sees the realities around him.

Oh, and, don't complain about high fuel prices if you believe in true American production. The higher the price of fuel, the more sensible it is to produce on American soil when you consider transportation and excise costs. So, Builder, if you are a "good" American you need to cheer higher transportation costs so that more companies will choose to locate their manufacturing and finishing operations here.......like Hyundai, Kia, Hino, LG, Kubota, and so on.

 

[JSharp]

japan and china are totally different, and the chinese DO NOT have the resources to stock parts houses here in the states with the necessary replacement parts to keep the equipment on the job and running, like the japanese do. if i need a part for a hitachi excavator, i can have it in less than 2-3 days. with china, its a long shot to get parts within 2-3 months!!

People seem to completely miss this. China is nothing like Japan in either culture or experience.

The Japanese have a long industrial history and a good one. China is to this day mostly a 3rd world hole. Without the west it would still be as backward as most of Africa...

 

[Builder]

"the other side of the coin is the likes of cat, bmw etc manufacturing out of china - afaik this is pretty much a transplant of the company and company technology into a place of cheap labour and lax ecological management. this sort of movement is not so troubling as it'll move again as some new place becomes the 'cheapest'..."


I agree. When a Western concern moves in....enforces it standards of quality....installs it's production and quality guidlines....then the product should not be substantially different from that produced in Japan or Brazil or Canada or wherever. The BMWs, Buicks, Cats, and VWs of the world would not plaster their name all over them if they were seriously flawed.

Now, when I see a funny looking little tractor from "Shangdong Agricultural Plant No. 5" for sale in a catalog somewhere..........run! These are obviously the product of some Chinese state factory with the according levels of quality control and integrity.


"I find this sort of arrogance by a lot of Europeans quite nauseating...."

And I find your ability to ignore economic and historic reality nauseating.

Mercedes was building very fine, advanced autos before WW2 that would put a Cadillac to shame. Fokker and Messerschmitt were producing aircraft a decade ahead of their time and their American counterparts. The Germans were flying the first pre-peoduction jet engines while Packard was still digesting the blueprints for the RR Merlin. The Germans built Tiger and Panther tanks in 1943 that could still to this day be viable battlefield weapons in some parts of the world.


"Maybe you need to understand the concept of waking up in the morning saluting Adolph ****** or Ahmidinijad and the American lives lost freeing Europe amnd yes, CHINA from opression once in a while instead of broad brushing us all as "thinking we're so important"....."

Your overweighing xenophobic narcisism is evident. We're not talking politics here..........just plain, cold, economic reality. Very few Europeans living today ever saluted ******. Ahmadenijad has no part in this. And, the easiest way for Euros like Renze to "broadbrush" us Americans is with the words of people........like you, Builder.

In the days after WW2 there wasn't much of the world's economic and industrial base left untouched by the ravages of war. Germany, Italy, France, Japan, large swathes of Russia, and varying parts of Great Britain lay in smoldering ruin. Nations like Australia, Brazil, South Africa, or Sweden were largely okay but not real industrial powers. We here in North America were fortunate in having a huge industrial complex, population, and financial sector that were relatively unaffected. In the aftermath of the war the U.S. and Canada were largely the world's production apex and it lasted that way for about 20 years.


Not sure about your IH dumptruck, though I suspect it will have some notable foreign content in minor assemblies and electronics, but your GMC and Case backhoe are far from "all American." I'm sure you're already aware of this, but anyway.

The GMC has an Isuzu designed/built engine, GM often sources it harnesses and tires from overseas, and various minor components directly from China or Thailand or Australia or Brazil. Your Case backhoe is produced by a directly foreign owned concern (Fiat SPA) that as well used a good degree of imported parts for cost reasons. The same Fiat controlled CNH that owns your backhoe is also breaking ties with Cummins and going in-house with Iveco for most products going forward. For years, not sure now, but Fiat-Allis did a lot of work with Hitachi in excavators and loaders.

Can't be certain, but I'm betting you post here on a computer made in Taiwan or Thailand or South Korea or China, using a modem made in one of those same places, interfacing via a system all or partially created by Indians or Pakistanis or Indonesians, and when you have problems you contact a call center in Canada or Mexico or Bangladesh or Uruguay to correct. If you've bought anything from Wal-Mart or Target or Dollar General or Kroeger or Northern Tool or TSC......then you've sent money to a non-U.S. owned entity.



Yes, builder, you go on with "I ain't buyin' no ferrin' stuff" and make yourself feel better. If that's what does it for you, okay. Don't expect the rest of us to buy it with you. This is coming from a pretty conservative, America-loving individual who doesn't indulge in self-delusion and sees the realities around him.

Oh, and, don't complain about high fuel prices if you believe in true American production. The higher the price of fuel, the more sensible it is to produce on American soil when you consider transportation and excise costs. So, Builder, if you are a "good" American you need to cheer higher transportation costs so that more companies will choose to locate their manufacturing and finishing operations here.......like Hyundai, Kia, Hino, LG, Kubota, and so on.

Oh wow, aren't you just a belly full. Thanks for writing the book up above. Quite a snooze-fest.
I never said anything about having to buy everything American. I'm fully aware a lot of my possessions are partly foreign made. That's not the point. The point flew right over your head, professor.

I get unnerved with the arrogance of people from other countries and Americans like yourself blaming America for everything that's wrong with the world. They think that we can't be proud of our accomplishments. They think we have nothing left that's America. If we talk about our accomplishments, they think we believe we're better than everyone else. I'm not saying I'm better or we as Americans are better, but I'm tired of the anti-American rhetoric.

I'm quite aware of economic reality. I deal with it every day. Thanks for the monologue, but you & your buddy can go on America bashing. I'll keep on defending my country, be proud of its' accomplishemnts and buy whatever the heck I please from whatever country I want.

Don't be so scared to be proud. Don't feel so obligated to agree with everyone who thinks America is so bad.

 

[JoeinTX]

"for the record, the new MB truck engines are SERIOUSLY lacking in alot of areas, where the old cat's would shine. i our gvt has ruined the diesel engine as we know (and love) it. i dont blame cat for leaving the truck market as their market share was dwindling anyway. why would you pay an extra 25k for a 600 hp cat, when you could pay 10k extra for a 600 hp cummins? sure, i like the cat's torque as much as the next guy, but the cummins is quiet, more fuel efficient, and more driver friendly for an on road application. for a triaxle off/on road guy like myself, a cat is where it's at for torque offroad on a jobsite, but its not worth the added cost...."


Roc, you've apparently spent some time running the road.


Why have MB and Cummins survived where Cat has not? Sure, gubbermint regs and all, I understand.........why have they been able to tackle them to some degree while Cat has not? These are economic realities. Can Cat not understand them while MB and Cummins can?

If so, then we have a problem at Caterpiller.........not the other way around. Cat, with all of its engineering prowess and research, should by all rights be able to beat its rivals in this game if it is an economically feasible arena to be in. Apparently to Caterpillar, it's not. Is Cat shortsighted? Lacking engineering?

Are the likes of MB and Cummins and International and Mack (Renault via Volvo) and PACCAR (DAF via Peterbilt and Kenworth) and such able to handle these changes in engineering and policy better? Apparently so. Well, if they can, why can't Caterpillar?


Economics. Others are better placed to handle such changes while others are not. Pure and simple. No nationalistic approach. No politcal intentions. Just business. The way it should be.

If Isuzu builds the best and most economical motor for my needs........I'm buying it. If Firestone (uh, Japanese owned) makes the best tire for my needs....I'm buying it. If Philips (Dutch) makes the best monitor for my GPS....I'm buying it. If Samsung makes the most reliable mobile phone for me (yeah, Korean) then I'm buying it. Nonwithstanding the idea that that tire or LCD or handset or engine may be built in the U.S. or Mexico or Canada or maybe in Japan or France.

As the ultimate end-user, it makes little difference.

 

[JSharp]

For your own peace of mind, just let go of the idea that the worlds industry depends on America:
All right, You guys helped us a great deal by supplying army trucks to the Russians during WW2, and combines and tractors in the "Marshall plan" to rebuild Europe after WW2.

Why do many Americans still think they're so important ? This idea that the world depends on American industry, is 50 years old, and totally outdated these days !!!

Maybe it's you who needs let go of the importance of Europe. The countries there as individuals are mostly tiny and insignificant.

Look at the size of the US economy before you dismiss it as so irrelevant. We have states with economies as large as France. Our overall economy is roughly the size of the four next largest world economies combined. IOW, 30% of the world economy is the USA.

You might also look at where the Euros sell their products. There are European companies where roughly 50% of their production goes to US market. German automakers for instance.

I doubt they'd think that the US is so unimportant. Neither would anyone else who looked at the real numbers without some form of misguided nationalism skewing their view...