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Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV
Unless we in the USA want protectionist laws, the changes in industries are almost always going to be due to consumer choices. How many of us really still buy most of our hardware, paint, and tools, for example, at a local hardware store rather than at Home Depot or Lowe's? The word most there was important, because if we make our big shopping trips to the "big-box" stores and just get the occasional screwdriver or couple of bolts at the neighborhood store, it is "our own fault" when the little store closes.
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You're absolutely right. The reason why there are no American companies left that make TVs (or any number of other products) is because we really can't compete on price. Go back to the late-70's to 1980 era (about the last years there were several TV manufacturers in the USA), and look how expensive TVs actually were compared with today. According to the 1978 Admiral dealer catalog, the *cheapest* 19" color TV (a basic table model) had a list price of $399.95 and dealer net of $314.55. That's roughly $1240 and $975 in today's money according to the CPI Inflation Calculator. The cheapest 25" color TV (a console in simulated walnut) had a list price of $609.95 and net price of $494.25. That's about $1890 and $1530 respectively in 2007 dollars.
Today, you can walk into any discount chain store and buy a new 19" color TV (such as those typically made by Funai in China) for under $100. I don't think you can still buy an NTSC-only 25" or larger TV any longer, but when they were last still offered, they could be bought for as low as around $150. Anyway, using the 19" set as an example, if you went to the store and saw a Chinese-made 19" color TV for $100, and a USA-made 19" color TV next to it for $1200, which do you think most people would choose? ...Especially if the $100 TV had a full-function remote control, cable-ready tuner, A/V input jacks, closed-caption decoder-- all of which were lacking in the $1200 TV. Granted, this is a gross exaggeration-- obviously, today an American company could build a modern 19" color TV to retail for a *lot* less than $1200, but think about it-- how can anybody make money selling a (relatively) large CRT color TV set for under a hundred bucks?? After all, the dealer and the manufacturer have to make something on the deal, and there are lots of overhead costs (including shipping/transportation) that are included in the price of the TV that have nothing to do with the manufacturing itself. Even with the slim margins on electronics that mass-retailers generally work with, and even with factory-direct shipping to the retailer, that $100 TV set must have had to cost less than $60 to produce at the factory, including all materials, labor, rent/property, machining/tooling, and taxes. Yow!
That's why we don't make stuff like that in the USA any longer.
In consumer electronics, this trend really started with transistor radios in the early 1960's. Within just a few years, there were hardly any small transistor radios made in the USA. Who was going to buy an American-made transistor radio when you could buy a Japanese-made one for half the money, and worked about as well? The American manufacturers didn't mind either, since little transistor radios had quickly become such a low-profit-margin commodity anyway-- it was easier to make money with high-ticket items like color TVs anyway, and it's not like the Japanese companies were going to actually be able to build a decent big-screen color TV anytime soon, right? Now even Japan has lost that market to China and other nations.
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Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV
Also, I do not understand the singling out of Wal-Mart for driving manufacturing out of the USA. Wal-Mart, as far as I know, has only truly been a huge force in U.S. retailing for maybe the past 15 or maybe 20 years (since it expanded from only rural areas into the cities and suburbs), but the shrinking of U.S. manufaturing has been constant and continuous for 40 years.
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Exactly. Also, my experience has been that Wal-Mart has generally been much better than other mass-retailers at trying to carry American-made products when possible. I also collect cameras, and the last two American companies that still made consumer-grade cameras in the USA (aside from some disposable cameras) were Polaroid and Keystone. Polaroid gradually shifted production away from the USA and the UK, with some models starting out as USA- or UK- made but then shifting elsewhere over time. A big example was the preennial OneStep 600 in its various guises. I think it was during its run as the "OneStep 600 Flash Close-Up" when I started seeing it shift production locations, but perhaps it was the earlier "OneStep 600 Flash" model. Anyway, it started out appearing to be entirely USA-made (at least those for the USA market), but then I started noticing in the stores ones that were instead made in Mexico or China (I'm thinking there may have also been some Brazilian ones or something too). I started watching this more closely and noticed that pretty soon Wal-Marts were the only store that still generally had USA-made OneSteps, while Target and K-Mart and such had only the Mexican and Chinese ones. I believe the last USA-made Polaroid camera was the Captiva (and as far as I know, all Captivas were made in the USA), and Wal-Mart was by far the last of the big mass-marketers that continued to carry the Captiva even after it had ceased being much of a big seller. Wal-Mart was also the last big chain store that I saw consistently carrying the Keystone line of point-and-shoot cameras when they were still made in the USA. Then there was the time 5 or 6 years ago when I went out to get a toaster. Nothing fancy, just a plain-ol' pop-up toaster. I planned to buy a Toastmaster pretty much for 'historical' reasons, but also because I figured it was still made in USA. Went to Target, and aaaaaah-- what's this..? They had Toastmasters, but they were made in Mexico..? They also looked more 'curvy' and bulkier than the last Toastmaster toasters I had seen in a store. When did that change, I wondered. I checked all the other toasters, and they were all made in Mexico or China. Went to K-Mart, same thing. Went to Wal-Mart, and what do you know-- they had USA-made Toastmaster toasters. They also had USA-made Proctor-Silex toasters. ...And they weren't any more expensive than the Mexican and Chinese made ones at the other stores (though they had the more squared-off lines of an earlier generation of toasters). In fact, they had a nice end-cap display of the USA-made Toastmaster toasters with a free box of Pop-Tarts packed right in the box. ...Not a coupon for free Pop-Tarts, mind you, but an actual box of Pop-Tarts packed right with the toaster. ...And all for about ten bucks.
[Would a tie-in like that even work out well if the toaster was built and packaged overseas..?] I checked Wal-Mart several months later, and sure enough, no more USA-made Toastmasters. I think they may have still had USA-made Proctor-Silex toasters, but nowadays I don't think any of them are made in USA, and the last time I noticed, Toastmaster toasters were all made in China. So apparently I now have one of the last USA-made Toastmaster toasters... Kinda sad, really.
Oh, and as far as I know, Wal-Mart was also one of the last mass-merchandisers that still consistently carried USA-made Westclox ("Big Ben") alarm clocks (which are now made in China), and Wahl electric shavers (I think they still make hair-cutting and other grooming equipment, but not shavers).
Anyway, this isn't supposed to really be a gripe/complaint about non-USA products or the sellers thereof-- it's all really a result of the world we live in today and the realities thereof...