#71
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Buying and Selling
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote: On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote: On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote: On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote: On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote: On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote: On 2017-09-19 07:06, wrote: snip Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and free ship. As I have always said the postage fees are grossly lopsided between Asia and the US and that is one of the core reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that most politicians (except manybe one ...) do not understand that. It's an international reciprocal postal treaty that no one worried about when it was mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent sending packages to relatives in China. More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big time. How long does it take for politicians to turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do they even have one? ... The origin country gets all the postage and the destination country gets nothing with the assumption that the volume will be roughly equal. The small volume of direct-to-consumer low-value items from China is not a core reason for the trade deficit. It is rising, big time. I know people who buy just about anything other than groceries on EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in three to five weeks" you know what's going on. Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come via "China Post". ... These items would still come into the U.S. through other channels, at higher prices, were it not so cheap to do international shipping from China, you'd just have a middleman. Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but the shipping charges are grossly lower than if a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It isn't just China. For example, when we needed name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for nursing home visits) we ordered them via Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila, Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It came from a seamstress who appears to specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping cost discrepancy alone puts similar seamstresses in the US out of business. Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are as much as five times cheaper in China than in the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going to effect sales? The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable at five times less. Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in China that fuel costs are also cheaper. Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example Singapore) prices: http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG= China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul. The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of facilities, labour and equipment. Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ... To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to commercial users. The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not 80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not found in the equipment. Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper because they did not demand any form of guarantee. How _much_ cheaper? But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds. Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-) No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for 1/10th of the price. Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all cheaper in China. Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses internationally. Those companies require quite strict procedures or they will call off all bets. Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a number of what one might call "standard" versions, for example number of passenger seats or number of crew positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with only two crew positions when other companies were buying three crew configurations. And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have anything to say about it. The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh, let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert. Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US air space. Rightfully so. Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable different manufacturers make airplane parts. Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft manufacturer (except once) . What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as long as that is documented then there is no question that it can be used. See? [...] When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then they were selling to private helicopter companies in the region. It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than equipment-related. Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is determined by the government of the country in which the mail is posted. Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_ is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision to no longer offer surface mail overseas. What you are really saying is that the U.S. mail system charges what might be termed as outrageously high rates while foreign countries charge more rational rates. I've already mentioned the cost of mailing a letter domestically. 2 baht (about 6 cents US) versus a U.S. cost of 49 cents - that is eight times more expensive. Same goes for international shipping when compared with most Asian countries. Heck, even Europeans can now send stuff over here to the US for less than we can to Europe and that was not possible 30 years ago. We sometimes make customized calendars for relatives but lately the post office wanted a whopping $25 (yes, twenty-five) to send it to Europe via cheapest rate. Rather than complain about the Chinese or other Asian mail rates you need to take a look at the U.S. costs. That is what I am saying all the time. The US system is messed up and needs remedy. For the first time we have a president who understands such commercial stuff and I am hoping he'll do something about it. Unfortunately he has poor support from his party. By the way, the Singapore postal service charges 30 cents Singapore (about 19 cents US) to mail a letter domestically, approximately 40% the cost of the U.S. and the Singapore Postal Service makes a profit. Take another look. Compare the average travel distance of a letter in Singapore to one in the US. Singapore is not among the countries offering good shipping rates to merchants. China and the Philippines are, for example. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
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#72
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Buying and Selling
On 2017-09-26 18:46, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:29:11 -0700 (PDT), wrote: On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7:23:20 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds. I suppose this is part of your thesis that they send jet engines via China Post Nope, I was replying to Joerg who was, it appeared, claiming that airplane engines were only made by Rolls. I never wrote that. Do not put words in my mouth that I did not say. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#74
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Buying and Selling
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:40:06 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-26 18:46, John B. wrote: On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:29:11 -0700 (PDT), wrote: On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7:23:20 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds. I suppose this is part of your thesis that they send jet engines via China Post Nope, I was replying to Joerg who was, it appeared, claiming that airplane engines were only made by Rolls. I never wrote that. Do not put words in my mouth that I did not say. A rather large aerospace firm emailed that they want to put me on their officially approved engineering list. I said yes though I'm not about to move and they do have some facilities in the bay area. I keep getting job offerings that I apply for. I never hear anything from them and then a couple of months later the same job shows up. What in the hell do you think that is? This has been going on with the same jobs for months. |
#75
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Buying and Selling
On 2017-09-27 08:46, wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:40:06 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-26 18:46, John B. wrote: On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:29:11 -0700 (PDT), wrote: On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7:23:20 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds. I suppose this is part of your thesis that they send jet engines via China Post Nope, I was replying to Joerg who was, it appeared, claiming that airplane engines were only made by Rolls. I never wrote that. Do not put words in my mouth that I did not say. A rather large aerospace firm emailed that they want to put me on their officially approved engineering list. I said yes though I'm not about to move and they do have some facilities in the bay area. Being on a list doesn't always result in real assignments though. My requirement is that I can do consulting (design) work right here. The occasional trip to a client for EMC compliance work and such is fine but I will not move there. Most can be done remotely now. I just came off a lengthy debug session where for the most part we used the Zoom conference service and I could see their oscilloscope live, as well as the board schematics, layout and code. That way it was easy to talk their engineer through the measurements and derive conclusions about what needs to be changed. This is one of those cases that would have required a trip to Texas in the olden days. No more. I keep getting job offerings that I apply for. I never hear anything from them and then a couple of months later the same job shows up. What in the hell do you think that is? This has been going on with the same jobs for months. Unfortunately this is normal these days. Sometimes companies want to create an image in public that everything is going gangbusters there, by bloviating that they are hiring like crazy. So you sometimes see job ads for jobs that aren't really there. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#76
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Buying and Selling
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote: On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote: On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote: On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote: On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote: On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote: On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote: On 2017-09-19 07:06, wrote: snip Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and free ship. As I have always said the postage fees are grossly lopsided between Asia and the US and that is one of the core reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that most politicians (except manybe one ...) do not understand that. It's an international reciprocal postal treaty that no one worried about when it was mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent sending packages to relatives in China. More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big time. How long does it take for politicians to turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do they even have one? ... The origin country gets all the postage and the destination country gets nothing with the assumption that the volume will be roughly equal. The small volume of direct-to-consumer low-value items from China is not a core reason for the trade deficit. It is rising, big time. I know people who buy just about anything other than groceries on EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in three to five weeks" you know what's going on. Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come via "China Post". ... These items would still come into the U.S. through other channels, at higher prices, were it not so cheap to do international shipping from China, you'd just have a middleman. Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but the shipping charges are grossly lower than if a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It isn't just China. For example, when we needed name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for nursing home visits) we ordered them via Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila, Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It came from a seamstress who appears to specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping cost discrepancy alone puts similar seamstresses in the US out of business. Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are as much as five times cheaper in China than in the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going to effect sales? The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable at five times less. Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in China that fuel costs are also cheaper. Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example Singapore) prices: http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG= China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul. The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of facilities, labour and equipment. Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ... To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to commercial users. The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not 80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not found in the equipment. Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper because they did not demand any form of guarantee. How _much_ cheaper? But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and SAFRAN Group.. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds. Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-) No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for 1/10th of the price. Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all cheaper in China. Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses internationally. Those companies require quite strict procedures or they will call off all bets. Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a number of what one might call "standard" versions, for example number of passenger seats or number of crew positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with only two crew positions when other companies were buying three crew configurations. And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have anything to say about it. The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh, let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert. Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US air space. Rightfully so. Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable different manufacturers make airplane parts. Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft manufacturer (except once) . What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as long as that is documented then there is no question that it can be used. See? [...] When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then they were selling to private helicopter companies in the region. It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than equipment-related. Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is determined by the government of the country in which the mail is posted. Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_ is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision to no longer offer surface mail overseas. Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping. Neither this president nor this administration is going to subsidize your shipping overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the general fund. And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA hat), pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China? You should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business expense. Or, as in the case of real businesses, you ship via container and pay the charge. The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping costs. Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see him on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap for you and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit drain. -- Jay Beattie. |
#77
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Buying and Selling
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 10:10:07 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 08:46, wrote: A rather large aerospace firm emailed that they want to put me on their officially approved engineering list. I said yes though I'm not about to move and they do have some facilities in the bay area. Being on a list doesn't always result in real assignments though. My requirement is that I can do consulting (design) work right here. The occasional trip to a client for EMC compliance work and such is fine but I will not move there. Most can be done remotely now. I just came off a lengthy debug session where for the most part we used the Zoom conference service and I could see their oscilloscope live, as well as the board schematics, layout and code. That way it was easy to talk their engineer through the measurements and derive conclusions about what needs to be changed. This is one of those cases that would have required a trip to Texas in the olden days. No more. Well the kind of money they were talking means a role in management and it's pretty difficult to do that from a distance. I keep getting job offerings that I apply for. I never hear anything from them and then a couple of months later the same job shows up. What in the hell do you think that is? This has been going on with the same jobs for months. Unfortunately this is normal these days. Sometimes companies want to create an image in public that everything is going gangbusters there, by bloviating that they are hiring like crazy. So you sometimes see job ads for jobs that aren't really there. That must be what's going on then. In this area they are getting sick with jobs for electric car control and self driving cars that all operate over the Internet. There's no way I'm getting involved in any of that. Let the millennials live and die by their own stupidity. |
#78
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Buying and Selling
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 11:37:46 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote: On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote: On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote: On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote: On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote: On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote: On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote: On 2017-09-19 07:06, wrote: snip Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and free ship. As I have always said the postage fees are grossly lopsided between Asia and the US and that is one of the core reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that most politicians (except manybe one ...) do not understand that.. It's an international reciprocal postal treaty that no one worried about when it was mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent sending packages to relatives in China. More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big time. How long does it take for politicians to turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do they even have one? ... The origin country gets all the postage and the destination country gets nothing with the assumption that the volume will be roughly equal. The small volume of direct-to-consumer low-value items from China is not a core reason for the trade deficit. It is rising, big time. I know people who buy just about anything other than groceries on EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in three to five weeks" you know what's going on. Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come via "China Post". ... These items would still come into the U.S. through other channels, at higher prices, were it not so cheap to do international shipping from China, you'd just have a middleman. Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but the shipping charges are grossly lower than if a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It isn't just China. For example, when we needed name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for nursing home visits) we ordered them via Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila, Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It came from a seamstress who appears to specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping cost discrepancy alone puts similar seamstresses in the US out of business. Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are as much as five times cheaper in China than in the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going to effect sales? The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable at five times less. Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in China that fuel costs are also cheaper. Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example Singapore) prices: http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG= China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul. The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of facilities, labour and equipment. Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ... To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to commercial users. The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not 80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not found in the equipment. Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper because they did not demand any form of guarantee. How _much_ cheaper? But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds. Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-) No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for 1/10th of the price. Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all cheaper in China. Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses internationally.. Those companies require quite strict procedures or they will call off all bets. Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a number of what one might call "standard" versions, for example number of passenger seats or number of crew positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with only two crew positions when other companies were buying three crew configurations. And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have anything to say about it. The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh, let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert. Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US air space. Rightfully so. Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable different manufacturers make airplane parts. Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft manufacturer (except once) . What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as long as that is documented then there is no question that it can be used. See? [...] When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then they were selling to private helicopter companies in the region. It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than equipment-related. Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is determined by the government of the country in which the mail is posted. Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_ is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision to no longer offer surface mail overseas. Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping. Neither this president nor this administration is going to subsidize your shipping overseas.. Not with USPS sucking-dry the general fund. And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA hat), pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China? You should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business expense. Or, as in the case of real businesses, you ship via container and pay the charge. The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping costs. Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see him on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap for you and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit drain. Unlike your hero, Trump actually listens to the public as you will discover much to Hillary's displeasure pretty shortly. |
#79
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Buying and Selling
On Wed, 27 Sep 2017 08:34:32 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 6:58:54 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:36:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote: On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7:53:43 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote: On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 15:50:54 -0500, AMuzi wrote: On 9/25/2017 2:42 PM, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-25 08:03, AMuzi wrote: On 9/25/2017 9:06 AM, Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote: 24 Sep Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote: 23 Sep Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote: 22 Sep Joerg wrote: On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote: On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote: On 2017-09-19 07:06, wrote: snip -snip snip- Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all cheaper in China. Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses internationally. Those companies require quite strict procedures or they will call off all bets. -more snip- USAF, Navy, Marines & SAC fly LOTS of miles/hours. (no Airbus hardware!) Which of them has their aircraft serviced by a low cost shop in China or elsewhere? Mr Slocumb might elaborate but I bet no facility staffed by Uncle Sam's enlisted military, anywhere, is 'low cost'. Having observed some of the civilian "feather merchants" that inhabit the military system I suggest that perhaps, disregarding the physical installation, the Military might be the lower cost :-) But in a more sober vein the Military works on a budget system. the Defense Department allocates so much money to a Unit for, say aircraft fuel, and the Unit is then tasked with using all that fuel, as the byword in any government agency is "Never, Never under spend your budget!" The theory being that if you don't use all the money this year you will get less next year. First you give us the interesting theory that the Air Force doesn't do preventative maintenance (if it ain't broke don't fix it) followed by hundreds of Chinese "overhauling" F4's. I must say that at least your ideas are novel. Quite the contrary. The Air force did come up with a program which THEY referred to as "if it isn't broke don't fix it" which referred to the "time change" items, mostly engine components, that were changed on an hours of use basis rather than on a does it work basis. The result was both an increase in the hours flown/hours maintenance ratio as well as a reduction in the time required for the various scheduled inspection times. The "overhaul" facility I mentioned in Taiwan, effectively took an F-4 apart and rebuilt it completely. Even the hydraulic hoses and tubing were replaced. I don't know what Air Force you were in but in mine all mission critical items were replaced on schedules. Maybe you were talking about the food in the mess halls? I certainly agree that "my" Air Force must have been different than "your" Air Force. Even your use of the term "mission critical" is a term I never heard used in reference to aircraft maintenance from 1952 until 1972. But in the early 1960's SAC did initiate a study of maintenance for their aircraft where in every maintenance action was logged and entered into a data base. After more than a year of study it was found that a great many maintenance actions, specifically time change of, mainly, engine components was accomplishing nothing in terms of aircraft availability. In fact, in one case I remember it was found that time change of alternators and base rebuilding was actually detrimental to the service life of the alternators. You have made statement several times that could be taken to mean that you served in the Military but when I asked you what your position was, enlisted, commissioned, flying, ground pounder, you never seem to answer. -- Cheers, John B. |
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Buying and Selling
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 6:57:18 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
You have made statement several times that could be taken to mean that you served in the Military but when I asked you what your position was, enlisted, commissioned, flying, ground pounder, you never seem to answer. There's that alzheimers of yours acting up again. I told you I was E3 in a maintenance squadron. But like your claim that Britannia ruled the North American continent, it is always convenient to forget some things. Such as France and Spain. |
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