I also had a good Fairmont.
Chris…what a sad bitter life he must lead. How do people like that look at themselves in the mirror every morning?
If you take a few steps back and look at the whole picture, then you’ll notice that a lot of US companies do overseas the same as what the chinese do in the US. French people, for exemple, complain about agricultural imports from the US for the same reasons as you do for Chinese surfboards. French farmers are small family businesses with small production volumes. They focus on quality traditional farming technics and complain about US multinationals who “steal” their market with industrial, often genetically modified, but much cheaper, products … But, same as with your surfboards, still a large part of consumers will go for the cheaper products … What can be done ? Nothing, apart from protectionist actions (import tax, quotas …), which I don’t think would benefit in the long run … When you don’t have the money, then you just go for the cheap stuff, even if you know it’s poorer quality and that it hurts local producers … I needed a planer : I could afford the 15$ Chinese model or just forget about a planer. I of course bought the 15$ planer… Pierre
CHRIS WHAT ARE YOU SOME KIND OF 20 YEAR OLD NAZI-GROW UP. I BET YOUR FUN TO SURF WITH!
So, given this situation we are now presented with this theoretical question: Which is better, the machine shaped “pop out” scanned at close tolerances to a master plug from an acknowleged shaper, or a “hand shape” from someone who most likely has never surfed? I know that most of you will say neither, but again given the demand for boards which need to be made vs. the capacity of shapers to do production “hand shaping”, these boards are going to be sold by one of these sources. Besides if they don’t sell, folks can just pick up a foreign made 6’2" thruster for $50 on your next trip to 7-11 for a Big Gulp. Maybe they will even airbrush them with pictures of famous NASCAR Drivers or Pro Wrestlers. I can see it now -get a free “Blue Crush” surfboard with the purchase of 200 “Blueberry Crush Slurpees” In light of this, how many of you now think that Miki Dora’s assessment of the overall state of surfing was wrong?
Miki was more right than wrong. Kill the machine.
What’s the differance in Min Fang and Harbour Freight? I’ll bet there are many folks who bitch about Chineese surfboards flooding the market that sand their soul-stick with a Makita or Milwaukee knock-off. I’m not spouting the I’m American/buy American line. I’m spouting the I wan’t to be a craftsman so I’ll respect other craftsmen-view. Imagine how it feels to do the research and design, engineering and production set-up investment on a quality product, only to have it knocked-off by thieves (sometimes actually using original components for casting plugs). Hell, at least Surf-tech pays a royalty to the shaper for his model. I’m not talking about a nationalism thing here, I’ll buy products from America, China, Brazil or Timbuktu as long as they are genuine quality bona-fide goods produced by operations or craftsmen that care about their product. If we’re not careful, the knock-off artists will put the genuine operations out of buisness and you’ll never be able to find a good set of tools. Go to the superstore and watch all the morons load-up on cheap goods and hardware only to blow the savings on some battery-operated jitterbug dancing Santa doll! Meanwhile, the real hardware store or tackle shop down the road (where you can actually buy quality products and get good advice) is going out of buisness. Surfboards, power-grinders, work-boots, toasters … I’m talkin about BROTHERHOOD OF CRAFTSMEN!!! Thanks for letting me vent, Lance
Many surfboard manufacturers main focus is production i.e. making as many surfboards as possible in a given time. At the same time most dont want to change. Whether it is better production techniques or better materials. I believe we are approachig the crossroads in the surfing industry. Surftech, boardworks, the Chinese have a solid foothold in the industry, they arent going anywhere. The question is what do we do? It hink ill start a new thread where we can discuss this issue. We cannot continue to ignore this and hope that it goes away, they wont, and if anything will continue to get stronger.
The art of making a surfboard has been reduced to another sporting product that is dictated by the media. Here in OZ all the so called big manufactures are hiring young guys that have just started to shape so that they dont have to pay them much to pop out their labels,if you see some of these boards take a look down the rail line and prepare to see some major bumps. Now these guys are the first to put down the backyard board builder because of inexperience yet they are hiring them to do their boards. A bit ironic dont you think,if the same young guy did’nt work for them, they would bag the hell out of them, but they are great shapers if they work for them at a cheap price. There is no stoping these guys now because there is to much money involved, they pay the media big amounts and the media tells the public how good these guys are, simple as that. The smaller company will always get orders but it is getting harder to make enough money out of the work that you do. l have been a small company for 27 years and the time has come to shut up shop and try to get another job to pay the bills. All l can say is thankyou to all the greedy pricks out there for f#*+$%g up what was once a great lifestyle. KR
The current global trade policy in America is now being categorized as a failure,even by top Washington insiders.Free trade has meant that we import(buy) almost everything and export(sell) hardly anything.Steel,clothing,furniture factories,whatever are shutting down everyday;companies just can’t afford to make things with American labor costs as high as they are.Even white collar computer “systems programmer” jobs are going to places like India;the yearly salary there being $6000 vs.$60,000 here. As long as there are struggling masses in 3rd world countries willing to bust their asses to provide plain 'ole shelter for themselves,America is in trouble under the current policy.Blame it on the Unions,lawsuit-happy get-rich-quick trial lawyers,out-of-control governmental organizations like the EPA & OSHA,or the stereo-typical spoiled"what’s in it for me?"more,more,more anglo-ugly American worker mind-set.Wow,that’s a lot of hyphens.Anyway, I know not the answer to the problem.Maybe tarriffs on imports(if the foreign truck market didn’t have them Chevy,Dodge,&Ford would already be history.)I just can’t see us all making a living doing white collar stuff like managing & pushing paper,while we farm out the hard labor-intensive stuff overseas.A Cobra factory rep tried to convince me I was better off having my brand built over in China"Let us do all the nasty work,you can concentrate on sales & marketing!"Basically he was saying let the poor little grunt chinaman breathe the fumes & dust,you American businessman shouldn’t be stooping to that level. If I wanted to drive around in a van peddling surfboards in a suit & tie I would have been a damn sales rep.Maybe we should start building a “great wall of America” around the borders & become isolationists,I don’t know.Just kidding. OK, I’ve vented now swaylockies,hope I hav’nt offended.
Well put Otto.
I too hear from Veronica every 6 months, and I don’t even make boards professionally. Anybody have a picture of her? I had two similar and very interesting conversations this summer with a doctor and an aerospace processing house manager, both with decades of experience and both excellent observers of business, society, and the human ape. Both in their own ways singled out the early 1980’s emergence of (Harvard especially) MBA’s as having been a turning point in American business. The MBA grad was focused primarily on his or her own self-aggrandizement and profit and advancement at the expense of the company and co-worker. They are the reason why there are few retirement pensions, why healthcare benefits are vanishing in the U.S., and why contemporary U.S. working conditions suck so bad. It’s near-term management; get through this quarter, this year, make it three years and bail with bonus, leaving destruction in the wake. “Outsource” job functions - that’s the sign of Good Management among these peckerwoods. That whole way of thinking has by force of size trickled down through most U.S. businesses. It creates a climate of employee/management mutual hatred and distrust, which in turn generates legal claims and lack of company loyalty, wihch only further plays into the “outsourcing” and “downsizing” mindset. In the end everybody is overworked and stressed out. In France they have a 35 hour work week and get something like 3-6 weeks of vacation. In the U.S. the guys buying all the longboards are working 50-60 hours a week, on call on weekends, get 2 weeks vacation for the first 5 years and after that 3, but can’t take more than 1 at a time because they are already covering two full-time workloads and would get crucified by the work piled up if they left for two weeks. So they take the odd vacation day to make three days weekends, which are too short to go anywhere, so the local breaks are always busy, increasing the stress at the places they go to ease up… Say, wasn’t Min Fang the name of some old Marvel Comics monster? http://www.vagabondsurf.com/SurfopolyWhyNot.html
Yeah Rascoe, I agree. The other problem is the so called small core shops and even the big so called core shops and I owned one for quite awhile. The big guys try and keep the lines to themselves surfboards included. They are the ones buying the chinese boards and then out of the other side of their mouth lamenting the possibility of these cheap priced boards finding their way to Sams or Walmart etc. Many of these surf shop owners act like they have some exclusive right to sell the cheap priced boards because of all they claim they have done for surfing, when in fact if it were not for these shops jumping on the latest fad to begin with and giving it credability, the problem or delema would not exist at all. The only choice these companies would have had would be Walmart or sams etc. and the fad might already be gone. Now they actually have what they need, acceptance and credability. Experienced surfboard builders are the backbone of progressive surf design not Quiksilver, Billabong,Volcom, or any other clothing company yet these retailers fight to buy the latest overpriced crap clothing with nothing but a label behind it that comes out of their overseas factories, where human beings lives are cheap as their labor. Same goes for the chinese made boards and the surftechs. As for quality, many of the American products are no better, but there is a person behind the name in most cases not simply a name created for a product. Whats going to happen when the American boardbuilder disappears or is forced out?
I think Nels has it more dialed than Rascoe(all due respect Rascoe) it’s not the EPA or the Unions or environmental regulation-nope it’s the upper management trying to maximize profits. that and the endless consolidation of production. I spent my whole working life in an industry that is just being reamed by these forces.Surfboards are next. Check the wetsuit industry. The concept of yeoman democracy(Jeffersonian y’all) is totally compromised by multinational capitalism. Call me a communist- I’ve been called worse. On a different note- i hear the reason that the boardworks factory was shut by the Slovakian authorities was that the owner/operators had not paid their taxes or comp to the government. Take that out and ride it.
Yeah Nels, It isn’t just Harvard MBA’s, it’s the entire Ivy League, especially Cornell. Here’s how one scheme works… First you bribe congress to set up bankruptcy laws which give America’s judges the power to place all remaining value from bankrupt public corporations, not in stockholder hands, but in “trustee banks”. Then you bribe a lot of federal bankruptcy judges to direct these “trusteeships” into the hands of Eastern bank holding companies run by your Ivy League cronies. The next step is to buy small public corporations in major industries. You hire magicians to make the corporations look viable, vibrant… “dynamic”. Then your Wall Street Ivy League cronies’ mutual funds buy large sums of stock in these corporations. Instead of selling products and paying dividends… you maintain… break even, and invest the stock money in “fungible” assets, assets which can be sold easily. You don’t pay dividends, but the corporate hype causes vast increases in stock value. At the same time, you force your industry competition to use the same tactics, or go belly-up. The hype feeds itself. You hire Ivy League auditors to make the scheme look legal, and count the huge pile of fungible assets as anything besides stockholder cash. Then you force corporate officers to skim the stockholder cash to you as “profits”. When somebody finally discovers that your coffers are empty, you are long gone. Your directors and the directors of many of your corporate competitors file for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy judge transfers all remaining industry value to your Eastern bank cronies, and everybody walks away bemoaning that “Chinese competition just destroyed another American industry”. Well, I guess that has some truth if you figure in that the President who allowed these schemes to happen was elected with Chinese campaign funds.
Steiny: I havn’t heard about the Boardworks plant shutting down. When did this happen? I,m just a good ole boy surfer dude that never went to college,but I sure wish I was trained in economics or something to better understand some of the issues involved.It seems to me for capitalism to work effectively,you have to have the HAVES and the HAVE-NOTS.Everyone strives to be a HAVES,but everyone can’t be,or the system won’t work.Some people in the world have to always be the HAVE-NOTS.It seems like war will always be the end result,when the HAVE-NOTS rise up because they’re over it.Heck, this sounds like the history of the world,not just my take on capitalism.I love America too,I’m a full on capitalist I guess, a raging consumer as guilty as the next guy.Lately, though I wonder where things are headed;I think we as Americans need to tighten up,take a look at our lifestyle.It seems we don’t know how good we got it.There’s a whole world out there that wants what we got,and would be stoked to have just one-tenth of it. Back to the subject of surfboards being made overseas by non-surfers,what happens when blackmarket Merricks & Rustys start popping up. Patents and trademarks don’t mean crap over there,look at all the Oakley blade copies on every corner for 10 bucks.All they have to do is make laminates,the computer shapes are right on,set up a little clandestine glass shop somewhere in Thailand…voila’,international brands for $199.Scary.
Mandrake: Great summary. Now I can explain to the wife why buying land is still the way to go! Thanks. Patrick
to each of you who just dogged me: I strive to live the AMERICAN way.I WORK MY ASS OFF FOR MY FAMILY, AND MY WAY OF LIFE. YOU ASSHOLES DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM. SO HOW CAN YOU SIT THERE AND ANALYZE SOMEONE YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW. OUR INDUSTRY, AMONG OTHERS IN AMERICA, IS GOING OVER SEAS. PEOPLE ARE LOSING JOBS TO THE OUTSIDE. I WORK HARD TO KEEP MY COST LOW SO I CAN STAY IN THIS BUISNESS. CALL IT WHAT YOU LIKE, IT’S A DOG EAT DOG WORLD. AND I DON’T PLAN ON GETTING STUCK BY THE CHINKS, UH, CHINESE TO YOU SENSITIVE’S. AMERICA IS HATED AROUND THE WORLD. JAPAN, CHINA, TAIWAN,ETC., NONE OF THOSE COUNTRIES GIVE A FLIP IF YOU MAKE IT OR NOT, THEY PROBABLY WOULD PREFFER THE LATTER. BEFORE YOU KNOW IT , THERE WON’T BE AN AMERICAN WAY. AND ALL OF YOU WILL BE STUCK WORKING FOR THEM. FOR PENNIES. GET A BACKBONE PEOPLE. STEP UP AND BE PROUD. CALL IT WHAT YOU LIKE, BUT I DON’T WON’T SOME S.O.B. TAKING MONEY OUT OF MY POCKET WHO DOES’NT BELONG IN THIS INDUSTRY. THESE PEOPLE ARE MAKING SURFBOARDS AND DON’T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT SURFING. AND SHOPS AROUND THE COUNTRY ARE BUYING THEM UP. KEEP AMERICA BUILDING. RACIAL I’M NOT, BUT PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN I AM. CALL IT RACISIM OR WHATEVER, BUT THEY ARE NOT STEALING ANYTHING AWAY FROM ME OR MY FAMILY. YOU PEOPLE NEED TO GET A SPINE. THINK OF ME THE NEXT TIME YOU SEE YOUR FRIENDS WALKING DOWN THE BEACH WITH A CHINK STICK UNDER THERE ARMS THAT THEY BOUGHT OFF THE RACK IN THE LOCAL SHOP.
paranoid? you should be. we’re coming in full force. get out while you can.