Re: silca and Tariffs

On 4/27/2025 12:19 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 4/27/2025 11:20 AM, AMuzi wrote:

On 4/27/2025 3:47 AM, Catrike Ryder wrote:

On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 07:40:05 +0700, John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com>
wrote:
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On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 14:33:53 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
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On 4/26/2025 1:15 PM, cyclintom wrote:

On Sat Apr 26 13:41:16 2025 Catrike Ryder  wrote:

On 26 Apr 2025 09:14:12 GMT, Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com> wrote:
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<https://youtu.be/VKz5J5PPt-Q?si=ntPrbZPhCguTIuQM>
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Josh of Silca does a good job of explaining how the tariffs are effecting
US companies certainly small ones, as ever it?s a moving target so may well
change.
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Roger Merriman

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Many countries have tariffs on products from the USA. I see no reason
why the USA shouldn't have tariffs on their products. Maybe it will
bring manufacturing back, maybe not. The USA used to be a
manufacturing powerhouse and the bureaucratic jackasses let it slip
away. I don't know if Trump's plans can save the country, but it was
definatly going to hell with the same old, same old plans. At least
he's trying something new.

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According to the Democrats tarriffws are good for other countries but not for Ameriucs. It was perfectly OK for Clinton to apply larger tarrifs to foreign goods than TGrump is doing but perfectly awful for Trump to do titfor tat..
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Time to put these people away.

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You do not understand the problem.  Duty disparities are
broad, deep, convoluted and often at multiple cross
purposes. Oh, and they span every administration since
nearly forever.
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All that applies in spades to domestic micromanagement in
targeted areas in this and every country, what with
incentives (bribes) and disincentives (punishment) of a
hundred flavors in thousand of iterations.
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Small example-
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United States of America is written in Japanese as Beikoku:
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https://www.pngegg.com/en/png-fnrij
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or "rice" + "country", as the reformation of language in the
1860s was contemporaneous with plentiful and inexpensive
American rice imports.
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That was long, long ago, before nearly all Japanese
administrations encouraged (subsidized)  extremely small
inefficient farms. Along with the votes of farmers, whose
numbers would decrease if farms were combined into larger
fields. (this is happening in USA now, a continuance of a
long trend, with more food production from less labor, but a
side effect is decreased farmer votes. In some counties this
has had major political effect.)
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https://ap.fftc.org.tw/article/1327
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And don't think we're better. Review USA sugar subsidies,
price supports and duties which are no better than policies
for rice in Japan.
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Or the Harley Tax. Or the Chicken Tax.
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I have been an importer of tubular bicycle tires across a
half dozen entities, including Yellow Jersey, for over 50
years. That's a product we have not made here in USA since
before The Great Pacific War.  I pay import duty on each and
every tire and the rate hasn't changed, up or down, in a
half century.

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Ah but... what would be the cost of setting up a factory and
manufacturing bike tires in the  U.S.? Is it possible for the U.S. to
compete with foreign bicycle tire makers?

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I suspect that building a bicycle tire factory costs less then the
building an automobile factory and auto manufacturers have been moving
their factories around for years.
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-- C'est bon
Soloman

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Different problem.
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Auto assembly plants require huge supporting infrastructure and applied engineering (large plants particularly rely on process timing coordination which is complex and difficult).
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Successful examples have many supplier plants nearby, often with hourly deliveries.  Less efficient examples ameliorate supply logistics issues with huge warehouses (inefficient application of capital).
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I've noted here before that Ray Gasiorowski (for whom I worked in Houston) had been an engineer at Huffman (Huffy) before taking a position in Russia along with a dozen other US engineers to design a bicycle plant. The Commisars wanted raw steel, rubber, tire fabric, brass, paint and cardboard sheet in one end and boxed finished bicycles out the other end.  He quit after a few years and the plant was never built.  There's no efficient way to make 72 plated brass nipples in the same time as one bicycle fork, and so on. It's almost a parody of efficiency to consider it.
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I also was very familiar with SR-Sakae's plant in Tokyo which was largely a thixoform aluminum facility (although they did do cold forgings and chainring stampings, automated multi-process machining, anodizing, polishing etc as well). For each of the four thixoform stations (some running and some not depending on time of year and the order book) the molten aluminum vat ran through heated insulated lines into the ram and on to multiple tool outlets.  Those might typically be two left crank arms, two rights, a stem, a seatpost top and two pedal bodies.  At regular intervals the process stops, the operator removes one or more injection tool(s) and replaces with different tool(s) then starts again.
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Building a facility is one thing, and relatively simple. Efficient tooling (and tooling QC maintenance), process design, training and logistics are where the demons lie.

 I used to have a little poster on my office wall: "Everything is simple for the person who doesn't have to do it."
 Or, we might add, for the person who knows nothing about the relevant details.
 

Yes, that's a famous quotation and holds much wisdom.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971