Hershey Closes US plants

[Farmwithjunk]

I'm not making excuses for Hershey, or any other U.S. manufacturers who are leaving the country, but some consideration must be given to the fact that the Chinese market is opening up to our "creature comforts". There's gold in those Chinese pockets nowdays. I understand the fastest growing fast food business in China is currently Kentucky Fried Chicken. (Part of YUM BRANDS, based here in Kentucky) Like it or not, the rest of the planet is gradually catching up with us in wealth. That brings with it, a change in their lifestyles. Business goes where the money is at.

Look at it this way. Sooner or later, they'll have all the things that made us fat and lazy.

 

[pekabu]

Hate the idea of local industry packing up and leaving. I wonder though, is the market for candy going up or down in the US? It makes some sense to make things in the area the are going to be consumed. Hershey PA just wouldn't be the same without it.

 

[coffeeman]

Look at it this way. Sooner or later, they'll have all the things that made us fat and lazy.

Hey, I resent that remark. I'm just fat!

Cheers

 

[coffeeman]

Okay, now I gotta find a new USA made peanut butter cup.

Strange how all the big US companies think going to China and Mexico and India is the answer, MEANWHILE the Japanese companies are flocking to the USA and building factories in droves.

Why can they afford to pay the US worker but the US factory can not?

What do they know that the US factories do not?

Their wages are on a par with the same USA Union worker, their benefits are also comparable.

I think the joke is on the US companies moving because I don't know about you but as soon as I catch wind of something like this, If I can help it, I never buy their product again.

For me BUY AMERICAN means buy products that Americans built and Americans got paid to make.

Why do I care if the profit goes in Japanese pockets as opposed to American big US business pockets? Japan has shown they will reinvest in the US worker, what has GM or FORD or for that matter US Steel (now made in Mexico) shown us? For me, as long as the American worker keeps his job, I will support the product he makes regardless of where the profit margin goes.


This is coming from a Union man, raised Union my whole life by a blue-collar Union Mom and Dad. Face it people, Buy American does not mean the same thing today that it meant 30 years ago.
The best you can hope to do now is Buy US worker made items.

I remember guys working in steel plant saying their hardest job was finding a place to sleep for 8 hours. ****, there was one guy who owned a bar outside the gate. He would punch in and go back to his bar and serve drinks for a few hours. He used to joke at the bar, "I have to get back in to the plant. I don't want to be late for quitting time."

About buying American, one plant here didn't allow a foreign car in the company parking lot. I think it was a union rule. The folks with foreign car had to park outside the parking lot fence and walk into work. It wasn't a safe place for their cars.

I think, as the pendulum swings both ways, the American companies will bounce back. It's just that a company like GM is so big that it takes time to reverse a down turn.

Cheers

 

[Tom_H]

but I have a real tough time seeing work go overseas when a company CEO (and other higher ups) are pulling in multi-million dollar salaries.QUOTE]

You got that right. Couldn't agree more.

 

[Fug1000]

Like it or not, the rest of the planet is gradually catching up with us in wealth.

No, like it or not, the USA worker is gradually being BROUGHT DOWN to the level of the rest of the planet.

I honestly think that is the plan. After all, how can we have a, one-world global economy if the avg. American makes 10 times what his foreign counterpart makes?

 

[mjarrels]

Maybe it is a California thing... Hershey just built a new plant in Virginia.

mark

 

[RonMar]

When you have politicians and leaders who are thinking global/world government instead of what is in the best interest of our national economy, this is the result. We have done it to ourselves. There is an old adage. "If you make it cheaper, someone will buy it" or something to that effect. By allowing the less expensive made products into our country without tariffs to help level out the playing field, we have opened the door to businesses to fill their shelves with less expensive foreign made product over the more expensive domestic products. Consumers worried about rent, mortgage, retirement, taxes, fuel and food have beat a path to their door(Wallmart, Cocso ECT).

Tariffs make us look like the ugly American making it hard on the poor 3rd world country to sell their products in the US. It is and has always been about the bottom line. Now with NAFTA and other such agreements that don't penalize US producers from moving offshore where the labor is cheap, it makes good financial sense for them to do so. That is why there is no US made compact tractors under 40HP anymore. When I say US made, I mean all major assemblies, gears, castings and controls produced(not just assembled) in this country. Ours might have been of better quality, but not marketable at the price being asked due to the cost of their development and production. Since the products of other countries have taken over the market and are being sold regularly, they have capitol to do R&D and refine their products. They are getting quite sophisticated.

Even if US products shipped to China weren’t already more expensive than domestic products there, you could bet that there would be Tariffs attached to make them so that locals were directed in their purchase by their wallet to buy local products.

The world is running out of cheap labor markets. As mentioned, they will want the lifestyle we have worked for(made us fat and lazy in this country so their cost of labor will go up. Look at China’s demand for gasoline. Everyone there wants an automobile. I wonder what THEY are doing about emissions and global warming?

Unfortunately, by the US loosing this production domestically, I feel we will forever loose the ABILITY to produce even when the world markets equalize.

 

[Kendall69]

The day we American wake up, and send clear messages to these companies that go off shore that's the day they all come home.

We don't need no stinkin politicians to make me stop buying hershey choclate, I can do that on my own. Along with stuff from France, Hugo Chavez etc.etc.

Oh sure, you can say "then I won't be able to buy anything" - perhaps that day will come. But for now there are other fuel stations to buy fuel other than Citco, and I love Ghiradelli Chocolate or a nice Swiss chocolate, Don't need French wine or tires. That's about all that's gettin my dandruff up at the moment.

In my dream world for every dollar that comes in this country, then a dollar should go out to the importing country of tarrifs. Doesn't the Government realize how many tax dollars they do not get every time a company goes off shore?

Just think of the power "we the people" do have. I know it will never ever happen, but a guy can dream can't he.

 

[slowrev]

Wages in China and other countries and much less than here in the United States. American Corporations can no longer compete and are forced to go out of the country or be forced out of business.



murph

that is because we Americans just want to buy cheap stuff.
If we did not buy Chinese stuff the companies would not be able to sell it.
We consumers rule this kind of thing.
2/3 of our economy is based on what consumers spend.