An Inconvenient Truth…about JDM - AKA The Death of Innovation
#2
Yea.. what an opinionated, verbose and cynical (yet logical) asshole.. I wonder if we are related
Except for the fact the he loves JDM stuff, so maybe an evil twin..
Not really a trekkie, just wanted to make my 1200th post..
But in all seriousness good link as usual!
But in all seriousness good link as usual!
Last edited by DiamondStarMonsters; 02-15-2011 at 12:36 AM.
#4
Nothing new on his rant. Good read though. Money talks, BS walks. Yes knock-offs kill the market and the true innovators. But until they make it illegal, punishable by death or any kind of law to keep copy cats in check. Nothing will ever get done. Fines? bah...if they are making money, they laugh at the fines. Heck even the courts are stoked because they get a piece of the fine, so they too are in no hurry to see these guys shut down. People KNOW the problem, but just like in government, no one is willing to make the hard choices because it will affect their jobs, or the bottom line.
2 cents.
2 cents.
#5
It's a shame that the innovators are not as clever at business as those that copy their products.... I am old enough to remember when kids came home from the local 5 & dime store with something labeled "Made in Japan" were scolded by their parents for spending money on junk... I can also remember out running 45 cubic inch Harley-Davidson flat heads a few years later on a Japanese built 175cc Bridgestone motorcycle.... Up into the mid 1960s most Japanese motorcycle manufacturers were copying British bikes of the early 50s to the extent that parts would interchange.... A lot of the manufacturers of "fake" stuff of the past are some of the biggest innovators that everyone on the planet has purchased products with their name on.... Hohner was the big name in harmonicas forever until Lee Oskar teamed up with the Japanese company of Tombo and created the brand that bears his name... I have a mess of Lee Oskar harps and recently purchased some of the finest harps I have ever seen that are made by Suzuki... I have picked great playing chromatic and diatonic harps that are Chinese made and comparable and in some cases superior to Hohner products... I have Korean built resonator guitars that have better fit and finish of parts and better sound than a Gibson Custom Shop "Dobro Lektric" that cost 8 times more money and now the Chinese are doing the same...
#6
It's been going on forever. The competitive nature of capitalism.
Get an edge on the competition by 'taking' their investment and turning it into your own profit, hopefully at their expense and demise.
A walk down Canal Street in NYC will put you in touch w/ the second floor walk-up black market in designer goods. The highly mobile street vendors have any DVD you want and can make it all disappear in three seconds.
Company reputation is vested in its branded products. It gets real expensive trying to protect them. It simply ain't a fair world.
Outsourcing is one way domestic companies play the game to their profit and our loss of production jobs and innovation.
Some one made the suggestion that if you were to get rid of everything not made in the USA you would have precious left.
Get an edge on the competition by 'taking' their investment and turning it into your own profit, hopefully at their expense and demise.
A walk down Canal Street in NYC will put you in touch w/ the second floor walk-up black market in designer goods. The highly mobile street vendors have any DVD you want and can make it all disappear in three seconds.
Company reputation is vested in its branded products. It gets real expensive trying to protect them. It simply ain't a fair world.
Outsourcing is one way domestic companies play the game to their profit and our loss of production jobs and innovation.
Some one made the suggestion that if you were to get rid of everything not made in the USA you would have precious left.
#7
Yep, I remember the great talking head of the 1980s making a speech about how the U.S.A. was moving into a new era where we would no longer be a country that manufactured products but instead would provide services... Dick Cheney and G.H.Bush and the others were pulling the strings then as now.
#8
My daughter's step dad works at the Bath Iron Works up in Bath, Maine building ships for the USN. You don't even want to get him going about outsourcing.
There isn't a more patriotic workplace than an American shipyard and there's precious few left and those that are are under constant threat directly from our own government. As shameful as the way vets are continually treated.
Under constant threat from our own government.
How many really understand what that means, let alone have experienced it.
I'm thinking it's all about the vested lobbyists that are running our country. We elect leaders to do the best job they can to protect those who have all the money. Republican Democratic it don't matter.
A band of thieves........ them all.
There isn't a more patriotic workplace than an American shipyard and there's precious few left and those that are are under constant threat directly from our own government. As shameful as the way vets are continually treated.
Under constant threat from our own government.
How many really understand what that means, let alone have experienced it.
I'm thinking it's all about the vested lobbyists that are running our country. We elect leaders to do the best job they can to protect those who have all the money. Republican Democratic it don't matter.
A band of thieves........ them all.
#9
It is sad and at the same time amusing to see how people have been taken in by the right wing left wing facade and allowed the country to be divided and it appears to me conquered.... Markets are being manipulated money that has been backed by interest owed to the Fed is now worthless because of notes called by lenders that made loans that should have never been approved, wars that really should have never been and a bogus bail out of the biggest thieves that have ever existed... Yeah vets get a real screwing, especially the disabled ones.. I have to drive over 200 miles tomorrow for a medical appointment at a VA hospital and I know people that think I am a drain on society because they give me travel pay for the 8 hours and expenses incurred while travelling. I wish all of them could be doing what I was doing on my 19th birthday and the 7 months before and 6 after.
#10
Coyote - you might be interested in this little piece of news I just ran across: It's ALL about Money
It's all up for sale - name your price. The other big news item today tells us that food ans clothing prices are up - DUH! Where do these people exist????
Some hot shot celebrity is touting the fact that 'her' clothing line is going to break a billion in sales.......
And we live in a country with how many trillion owed?
Hang on kids it's going to be one hell of a ride.
It's all up for sale - name your price. The other big news item today tells us that food ans clothing prices are up - DUH! Where do these people exist????
Some hot shot celebrity is touting the fact that 'her' clothing line is going to break a billion in sales.......
And we live in a country with how many trillion owed?
Hang on kids it's going to be one hell of a ride.
#12
You need to find a copy of "Trading With The Enemy" and read it.... We are about to become the Forth Reich... We have been heading toward a Nazi type form of socialism since before WW2... Mussolini said that Fascism should really be called corporatism and it was the huge corporations that came out on top because of WW2....
#14
Sorry guys, I can't get behind this guy as much as I would love to live in the world he dreams of where all products that are bought and sold are high quality and appropriately priced. The truth is that there just isnt a market in the us for aftermarket wheels and aero that actually increase performance. Capitalism is about making money and our country is based on that. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to buy cheap wheels and shit for your car and sure, maybe you aren't a 'true jdm enthusiast' if you buy replicas, but who the fuck is he to tell me what to buy? It is a shame that company's designs are stolen by companies that sell them for a fraction of the price, but if demand for such a high quality product doesnt exist supply will suffer. The natural course of things, no matter how much we all bitch and moan, is that companies like seibon will put the real designers out of business and theyll have nothing left to copy. Then seibon will keep making shit until people demand a higher quality product. There are plenty of people who just want their car to look good that arent racing it on the weekend or want their shit stolen too. This is like a kia vs. bmw fight, people will buy what they can afford and what they want. Dont hate on people that wont drop $1200 on wheels for their fucking car or $800 for a fucking hood. YOU know its fake, THEY know its fake and companies that make the products people want to buy will win. Welcome to capitalism. Please stop hating on poor people.
#15
Sorry guys, I can't get behind this guy as much as I would love to live in the world he dreams of where all products that are bought and sold are high quality and appropriately priced. The truth is that there just isnt a market in the us for aftermarket wheels and aero that actually increase performance. Capitalism is about making money and our country is based on that. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to buy cheap wheels and shit for your car and sure, maybe you aren't a 'true jdm enthusiast' if you buy replicas, but who the fuck is he to tell me what to buy? It is a shame that company's designs are stolen by companies that sell them for a fraction of the price, but if demand for such a high quality product doesnt exist supply will suffer. The natural course of things, no matter how much we all bitch and moan, is that companies like seibon will put the real designers out of business and theyll have nothing left to copy. Then seibon will keep making shit until people demand a higher quality product. There are plenty of people who just want their car to look good that arent racing it on the weekend or want their shit stolen too. This is like a kia vs. bmw fight, people will buy what they can afford and what they want. Dont hate on people that wont drop $1200 on wheels for their fucking car or $800 for a fucking hood. YOU know its fake, THEY know its fake and companies that make the products people want to buy will win. Welcome to capitalism. Please stop hating on poor people.
This attitude is the exact reason our Fits have such comparably little aftermarket support. Good Job guys.
Great idea! F*ck everyone who supports the community and brings us worthwhile products. That'll learn 'em.
And GE guys wonder why no one wants to produce technical items like FI kits for the USDM Fit. Exact reason Kraftwerks jumped ship. Thanks a lot. For the record, I am not rich by any means, but instead I save up and work for quality parts.
#16
I was watching a Japanese news insert on public access that was covering a story on a chinese version of Antiques Roadshow. Guess what? 80% of the 'antiques' people would bring to get appraised were fakes. Life is full of ironies. Usually sad ones.
When it comes to new manufactured products (ie electronics, car parts, shoes, etc.), all the products are already made in China. Most of the fake stuff is just either rebranded or stock that never went through the official channels. When you have the molds it's easy to pump out a few extra cookies.
And unfortunately Texas Coyote is not some crazy kook. Just look up IBM holocaust on Google. Alas, this is a car site. And I love my Honda.
When it comes to new manufactured products (ie electronics, car parts, shoes, etc.), all the products are already made in China. Most of the fake stuff is just either rebranded or stock that never went through the official channels. When you have the molds it's easy to pump out a few extra cookies.
And unfortunately Texas Coyote is not some crazy kook. Just look up IBM holocaust on Google. Alas, this is a car site. And I love my Honda.
#17
Oh yes, and controlled by 13 families that most folks have never cared to learn about because they can see no further than to there left or right and not all that far in those directions... Things have never been as they appear to be when it comes to the question of who is really pulling the strings.... I got a surprise call from the S-2 scout of the company I was attached to in the Ashau Valley in early 69 yesterday... He reminded me of the tires on some trucks that I had directed an air strike on along the HO Chi Minh Trail, which was really a well engineered highway minus pavement. I had forgotten the air strike but remembered those damned tires as did he... Bigger than shit and in English they said "Made in the USSR"..... There was something about that which was significant and troubling to me then and now but I'm not really sure exactly why... It was crazy to me at the time that we were not originally sent into Laos in the first place since it was completely under Communist rule since I had been in elementary school and reading about it and SEATO in "My Weekly Reader". It the first to fall to Communism in all of French Indochina and 10 years later the fact that Marines were crossing the border was being kept from the citizens of the country that sent us there... I'm sorry for being so off topic but somewhere deep inside it is all relevant to me in some way, but I am twisted... Wouldn't anyone be if they had submitted grid coordinates for a B-52 mission that was approved and ran as an eighteen year old high school drop out that had been out of boot camp nine months, and twenty five years later is working on the back of a garbage truck... It is strange to me that under communist rule Vietnam opened a stock exchange 21 years after we had closed our embassy there and pulled out the last of our troops and China has taken our place as the manufacturing giant and building Buicks... The changes that are occurring are accelerating at a rapid rate and our days as the worlds largest consumer of the products of the world is coming to an end.... The time will come when water will be metered by the ounce.... It's chill pill time again and the dog needs to go out and pee....Ciao Ya'll
#18
I don't know how to feel about this. I'm just not willing to pay 150 for a genuine Greddy bov when I can buy a knock off that works just as well for 30. The parts I need can't be knocked off. Who's ever heard of knock off cams, rods, pistons, crank, high stall TC, etc? I sure haven't nor would I buy them if they did exist. I think the problem is that these companies waste all this money developing crap I don't want to pay big money for anyway. It's not like greddy invented the bov.
Last edited by Lyon[Nightroad]; 02-16-2011 at 06:56 AM.
#19
This attitude is the exact reason our Fits have such comparably little aftermarket support. Good Job guys.
Great idea! F*ck everyone who supports the community and brings us worthwhile products. That'll learn 'em.
And GE guys wonder why no one wants to produce technical items like FI kits for the USDM Fit. Exact reason Kraftwerks jumped ship. Thanks a lot. For the record, I am not rich by any means, but instead I save up and work for quality parts.
Great idea! F*ck everyone who supports the community and brings us worthwhile products. That'll learn 'em.
And GE guys wonder why no one wants to produce technical items like FI kits for the USDM Fit. Exact reason Kraftwerks jumped ship. Thanks a lot. For the record, I am not rich by any means, but instead I save up and work for quality parts.
Im still debating on if I will give away my tune if somebody asks for it (besides a few people) Part of me wants to support the community and part of me wants to give up on them.
DSM I'm truly amazed by your unexhaustable well of patience for people. I just don't have it.
And well if everyone was as cool as TC I'd say hell yeah make
a kit for the GE.
Last edited by Lyon[Nightroad]; 02-16-2011 at 07:34 AM.
#20
I don't know how to feel about this. I'm just not willing to pay 150 for a genuine Greddy bov when I can buy a knock off that works just as well for 30. The parts I need can't be knocked off. Who's ever heard of knock off cams, rods, pistons, crank, high stall TC, etc? I sure haven't nor would I buy them if they did exist. I think the problem is that these companies waste all this money developing crap I don't want to pay big money for anyway. It's not like greddy invented the bov.