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posted by martyb on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the tired-of-winning dept.

Trump's China Tariffs Claim Another Victim: A South Carolina TV Manufacturing Plant:

The tariffs imposed by President Trump have claimed more jobs, this time at a consumer-electronics manufacturing plant in South Carolina.

Element Electronics blamed tariffs on Chinese imports for its decision to shut down its manufacturing facilities in Winnsboro, SC, a town located about 30 miles north of the state's capital. The plant, which makes Element TVs, will maintain a skeleton crew of eight workers, as it hopes the shutdown will be temporary."

The news is especially hard for Winnsboro and its surrounding communities because of recent job losses in the area, including the shuttering of a Walmart store, the closing of a textile mill, and the cancellation of plans to construct two nuclear reactors.

Element notified the state's Department of Employment about its plans, according to Columbia-based The State newspaper, which first reported on the plant's closing. In its notification, Element stated, "The layoff and closure is a result of the new tariffs that were recently and unexpectedly imposed on many goods imported from China, including the key television components used in our assembly operations in Winnsboro."


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:10PM (10 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:10PM (#719376)

    20+ years ago I worked at a contract engineering company that did I&C (Instrumentation and Controls). You know, SCADA, PLCs, etc. CEO went for Fortune 100 (or 50) companies, so clients and projects were major. One huge multi-year project was for a brand new steel factory in China, doing things in completely new ways that could only be done with our engineering / automation abilities. They simply didn't know how at that time.

    I wasn't on that project, and I don't think my soul would have allowed it. In those days China was considered much more of a mysterious threat. Even in those days there were stories of Chinese nationals getting jobs at major military research facilities and getting caught stealing secrets. And we (USA) didn't have "free trade" agreements like we have in the years since.

    Anyway, I remember being torn- in spite of popular USA-bashing language around the world, we (USA) love helping other people to live better. We're very open to most of the world's people to come here and go to schools and universities, we send people abroad to teach, set up schools, do work, etc.

    But at the same time I knew our (USA) steel factories were in decline. Like too many corporations, steel and its stockholders wanted short-term profit. Steel was the core business of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s and had become too vulnerable to the short-term profiteering stockholders. Refitting a steel factory would cost big money. Nobody wanted to take that hit on the stupid stock market.

    But China doesn't work that way. They do things as a collective. Their leaders have an extremely long-term investment attitude. It's not a level playing field at all.

    So we've come full-circle- we've taught the Chinese how to make steel so efficiently that they can buy our scrap and raw materials, make steel, and ship it to USA cheaper than we can make it on our own soil. So our steel factories have been shutting down one by one for the past 25 years, and the few remaining only make very specialized expensive limited-market products.

    Tariffs or not, we're now vulnerable to the Chinese.

    I've seen this coming and I've never understood the "free trade" philosophy based on this predictable eventuality.

    Keep in mind that cars are being made of more and more plastic, so there's that whole thing- similar to steel with EPA, OSHA, etc., and maybe worse with more chemicals and toxins, recycling concerns, etc.

    All that said, hopefully the auto mfgrs. are smart enough and will invest in steel and aluminum manufacturing.

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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:38PM (3 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:38PM (#719422) Homepage Journal

    a while back there was a naturalized US citizen of Chinese origin who was busted for stealing nuclear secrets from Los Alamos.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:04PM (2 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:04PM (#719467)

      Yep, THAT guy. And I couldn't get a job at [major defense contractor] where my dad worked for years with likely top secret clearance but we don't know and weren't allowed to know and there's nothing in my background to prevent said employment just insane red tape with the shiny-shoe overly serious dudes who wanted to know where my dad's parents were born. The same dad. Yet Chinese guy gets access to far far greater stuff and sends it to motherland. That's how high the US govt. average IQ is shown to be.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:22PM (1 child)

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:22PM (#719477) Homepage Journal

        I am completely convinced that his _real_ clearance was much higher than that.

        He was in the Navy during Vietnam, got an MSEE with the GI Bill after the war then returned to the Navy as a civilian Civil Service engineer.

        Much of his work at Mare Island Naval Shipyard was done on the Sea Wolf. Decades later a book is published that claims that the Sea Wolf was one of the subs that tapped into Soviet undersea fiber optic cables.

        I wouldn't know, but I do know that Dad had this to say: "Aboard submarines there are some black boxes. And there are some quiet men who tend to those black boxes".

        My father was a quiet man.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @05:50PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @05:50PM (#720003)

          A top secret or TS/SCI clearance would be typical for the sort of work your dad was doing.

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:42PM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:42PM (#719425) Homepage Journal

    -"

    No one has yet complained that Soggy Jobs covers India [soggy.jobs].

    In my opinion anyone who wants to better themselves through the sweat of their brow deserves all the encouragement they can get.

    However, that I list jobs in India is intended to help Indian engineers find work close to home, without having to emigrate to a foreign country. I was once an immigrant in Canada. While Canada is in every way a wonderful country the entire time I was overcome with homesickness.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:16PM (2 children)

    by Aiwendil (531) on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:16PM (#719578) Journal

    This reminds me of an observation that James Clavell (the author of Shogun) made (to paraphrase heavily); westerners measure time in years but (east)asians measure time in generations.

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:25PM

      by RS3 (6367) on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:25PM (#719587)

      That's so true. I'd write: "westerners measure time in milliseconds..."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @10:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @10:11PM (#719651)

      We count in quarters because that is how we do financial accounting. Our counting system contains these numbers: -1, 0, 1, 2