Thanks alot China


The good thing is that, because we've been a huge net importer, our dollar has fallen in value. As the dollars get cheaper, more of our goods will be attractive to foreign consumers and we'll start exporting more, which will move our balance of trade back towards neutral. Which countries we import things from are immaterial from an economics point of view. The important thing is to get people in those countries to buy some of our goods. The balance of trade deficit is the most dangerous thing for our economy right now and it's getting almost no attention.

Getting back to trains, we have to convince the Chinese to start modeling American prototypes. That way, Athearn can get back part of the money exported to make trains when Chinese modelers buy them too. We nee a World's Greatest Hobby program in Chinese. :)
 
I've mentioned buying models made in the US on this forum for the past three years...only a couple people mentioned similar sentiments, as most didn't seem to care where they came from as long as they were cheap and good looking. It's interesting how the media can influence thought patterns. I'm not sure any model trains were even involved in the recalls, but it got everybody thinking about it...

Bowser, Stewart, Kadee, and Accurail are the biggest HO companies left with production here (but their RTR cars are assembled and decorated in China), and there are lots of smaller companies too. If I'm looking for a product, I check with them first. I know first hand that production in China can hurt...we (my family's machine shop) used to do a lot of mold making for model trains, and much of that has gone overseas (or just plain stopped). Interestingly enough, we've done some work recently (past year) for a couple of European companies that didn't want to take their trains to China. They didn't like the lack of control over production, and didn't like their expensive tooling in faceless hands...
 
Well, BLI has a lead free paint cert on their site, trying to re-assure you're that you're not getting screwed. I myself really could careless, its not like I'm chewing on my model trains!
 



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