Why Not To Buy Local!

[Jaredberryman]

So you think there's no middle ground?

The choice is horribly inferior products at high prices or 25% unemployment?

How does the rest of the world manage to avoid this dilemma?

By having sensible import/export policies. By protecting local industry for certain goods but what cannot be manufactured, is allowed into the country. Actually, this issue in Argentina requires a pretty clever solution from some politicians, it's more complicated than expats realize. It can be done though. I think what Argentina must manufacture are the finished products/luxury/end user products, while importing freely the raw materials (which they simply do not have in many cases), machines, parts, and the less sophisticated items. The lower end of manufacturing, the base, is actually harder to manufacture. At least that is my understanding after talking to the CEO of a major European tool company here in Argentina. Over the years, as they get better at the less complex stuff, they can get better at manufacturing the base products, like machines for instance. Of course, that would require stability, foresight, and planning, major weaknesses of this country and even culturally. Lo atamos con alambre. That doesn't fly in manufacturing, unfortunately.

 

[EricLovesBA]

A friend of mine works here in a plastic injection plant. He was telling me recently that he used to show parts to his supervisor that came out of the mold with defects, but invariably his boss would tell him "it's fine, go ahead and ship it out." Now he just throws bad parts into the recycle bin without showing them to his boss. I think my friend may be rare here, and his boss the norm. He also told me that there are similar problems with the plastic coming into the plant - apparently it's difficult to secure good pure plastic with consistent quality standards.

I first realized plastic goods were a little different here when the plastic handles and whistle-mounts of two different tea kettles caught on fire.

 

[AmigoArtistico]

[background=rgb(242, 242, 242)]AmigoArtistico, on 24 June 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:[/background]

So you think there's no middle ground?

The choice is horribly inferior products at high prices or 25% unemployment?

How does the rest of the world manage to avoid this dilemma?

By having sensible import/export policies. By protecting local industry for certain goods but what cannot be manufactured, is allowed into the country. Actually, this issue in Argentina requires a pretty clever solution from some politicians, it's more complicated than expats realize. It can be done though. I think what Argentina must manufacture are the finished products/luxury/end user products, while importing freely the raw materials (which they simply do not have in many cases), machines, parts, and the less sophisticated items. The lower end of manufacturing, the base, is actually harder to manufacture. At least that is my understanding after talking to the CEO of a major European tool company here in Argentina. Over the years, as they get better at the less complex stuff, they can get better at manufacturing the base products, like machines for instance. Of course, that would require stability, foresight, and planning, major weaknesses of this country and even culturally. Lo atamos con alambre. That doesn't fly in manufacturing, unfortunately.

Well, my questions were intended to be rhetorical, but that's ok.

I think that the real answers to these questions could fill many books.

 

[robwerwe]

I know the quality of locally mass-produced toys isn't great, but I balked at the price of the Lego here, 4 or 5 times the normal price, and bought my son the Argentine version (not cheap, cost the same as UK price).
I hoped it might last a few months at least, since my childhood Lego has lasted decades.
Boy was I wrong. The first bricks started to shatter after only a couple of days!

The funny thing is you could replace the word 'lego' with just about anything here and it would still be true,

 

[glasgowjohn]

Most of the stuff assembled in TDF is acceptable quality . I would imagine that the multinationals send their QC people to verify that the manufacturing process is adhered to.

In theory , these industries should start to develop their own products and not depend on parts from Korea and other parts of Asia . But given the investmnet climate , I cannot see Argentinean or international business men make major investments until the economic outlook brightens.

 

[camberiu]

What is the opinion of stuff assembled in Tierra del Fuego?
Touching wood here, but we've bought a fair bit made down there including TV's, monitors, numerous mobiles and aircon units over about the last 7 to 8 years and it's all still functioning as it should.
My limited knowledge tells me that goods are assembled with imported components (Korea. China etc).

Because it is just FINAL ASSEMBLY, QA and packaging that is done on Tierra de Fuego. The kits are imported pre-assembled, there is a minimum amount of work to do the final assembly, then some high level testing, packaging and voila. There is not much one can do to screw that up. It is not that different from assembling a piece of IKEA furniture, really.
It is very different from actually building a compressor for a refrigerator, an injected plastic piece (LEGO) or forging an engine block. That is where good quality control and production practicies are critical. You can't use final assembly a Tierra del Fuego as a reference or benchmark.

 

[camberiu]

I hoped it might last a few months at least, since my childhood Lego has lasted decades.
Boy was I wrong. The first bricks started to shatter after only a couple of days!

I think this is more of a symptom of "Shadow Inflation" then actual ineptitude. The manufacturer is seeing his production costs rise, but he knows that he can't pass all of the cost increase to the consumers, or his sales will plummet. So what he does is he starts cutting corners, using cheaper material, lower production standards to lower his costs.
This was very common in Brazil during the high inflation years back in the 80s. It is funny to remember how much the quality of Brazilian made products jumped once there was no more inflation.

 

[che]

I think this is more of a symptom of "Shadow Inflation" then actual ineptitude....using cheaper material, lower production standards to lower his costs.

For sure. Like Diocletian mixing metals in Roman coins and today's world horse meat Lasagna and watered down bourbon showing up in Europe... link
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/2/13/self-medicating-with-watered-down-bourbon-an-insidious-infla.html

 

[JayCroghan]

If Lego isn't produced here then why does it surprise you that it's expensive? That's my biggest question here. Even at home in Ireland anything knock off such as lego bricks which aren't the real Lego brand are absolutely crap so being an inferior product doesn't surprise me in the least. But at least in Ireland you can import finished products without an absolutely ridiculous import tax on top.

 

[Farenheit]

It surprises me that it is ffffffiiiiiiivvvvvveeee times the price. Even though I have lived here 6 years. We didn't use to suffer from such hefty import tax. And unfortunately, most stuff made of plastic here breaks immediately. I am happy to buy local stuff but not if I have to bin it a few days later. The locally made "Mis Ladrillos" turn out to be more expensive, because they only last 0.000000000000001% as long as the Lego.