But what does it all mean for us?
And are you a student of macro-economics? Micro-economics? Trickle down, Keynesian, Austrian? Me? Oh. I read Flash Boys and watched The Big Short so not only am I a student, I think I’m probably an expert but our current trade war confuses me greatly. Is it not just a tax on the American consumer? Am I missing something important and fundamental? Tell me what I’m missing but in the meantime let’s discuss the “plight” of U.S. based “surfboard” manufacturers that have product “shaped” in China.
Oooee!
Frustrated and let’s turn to Reuters for the painful tale of non-surfing surf executive Sue Bowers for we will then all understand.
President Donald Trump’s decision to slap 10% tariffs on imported surfboards convinced surf executive Sue Bowers to move factory jobs out of China – but not back to the United States, which was one goal of Trump’s tariffs.
Strict environmental rules and steep labor costs have sent scores of Southern California surfboard manufacturers to China. Now, the tariffs have Bowers and other executives searching for factories in places such as Thailand and Vietnam.
“This was Surf City,” said Bowers, general manager of Southern California Sports Industries in Orange County.
“I would like to have our production back here,” said Bowers, whose office/warehouse is decorated with surf legend Mike Doyle’s artwork and filled with surfboards bearing his name.
Instead, Bowers – not a surfer herself but who learned the ins-and-outs of surfboard construction from Doyle – is joining the growing list of U.S. manufacturers and retailers reconfiguring supply chains in the wake of the Trump’s bitter trade war with China.
She was among a half dozen U.S. surf company executives who told Reuters they support using trade policy to shelter their homegrown industry from a daunting wave of international competition.
Etc.
Ok, and I’m sorry, but also completely confused. When Sue Bowers says, “This was Surf City…” is she talking about China? It is completely unclear but, in context, I can only read “Surf City” as China and now “New Surf City” is either going to be Thailand or Vietnam.
Also, what were the “ins-and-outs” of surfboard construction that she learned?
Planing?
Rocker?
Volume?
All of it?
Where are you Pete Schroff! Help me understand!
same, only ever sell if traveling and need to flog a board for space/convenience
Production boards made in China are sold by a full container. I’d estimate the per board cost to be somewhere around 150 to 250 USD. They are then sold at 350 – 400% ORIGINAL COST, price depends on the brand’s capability to charge their ridiculous amounts, pay their employees minimum wage and make a hefty profit all the while getting around polution regulations, local shapers and glassing bays, etc…
Wavestorms surf like a wet loaf of bread. There, I said it.
What she is saying is “we have to trash some country’s environment somewhere and cause Monsanto Roundup like cancers in someone for ultra-low pay but it’s just too difficult in the US. The inconsistent,
incoherent, environmentalist, anti- profit, socialist/communist surfer will pay the lowest price as long as he/she can’t see the damage. Trump is an inconvenience.”
In related news Trump, the fucktard, is going to buy Greenland from Claire Danes (because he thinks she’s Danish..and hot)…. and that’s where golfing greens are made.
Amazon is potentially evil…. if not already…. too big to fail themselves, everyone else beware
wait… wait… I thought it was official… didn’t they say Lemoore was Surf City?…
The Walmart model was a little more like making a deal with the devil. They would make deals with a producer and have them scale up production 10 fold, consolidating the products available while squeezing the costs down, which killed the producers competitors. Then after Walmart had nearly all of the producers capacity they would continue to squeeze then eventually pull their orders entirely.
Wall Street wins again. They moved the jobs, made the profits, and now have us blaming the Chinese and each other for it.
i buy all Merrican production. I think that it is ok to have some expensive shit in your life. fuck we are merricans and it is our right to cheap shit, didn’t you know, and as much of it as walmart can sell us god dammit!
do they not use any Chinese made products? not having a go at you but I imagine it is hard to find a surf board anywhere that doesn’t contain at least something made in china. paper for the decals?
Haha yes of course. I’m a shaping, political and woke as fuck dynamo!
A local shaper friend of mine constantly badmouths any foreign made product as junk meanwhile the board that he recently made me took 2 months when he promised it in 3 weeks and it got a ding a month in. All of my Asian epoxy boards were bought off the rack and most are still ding free.
..and they surf like crap and you look like a kook
Nothing is more pathetic than a middle aged man still trying to be cool. I’m just glad that I can still surf.
It’s good to be getting in the water in middle age and TRYING to be cool is lame at any age. By buying and using chinese pop-outs you are openly saying to all, “I’m OK with putting one of the last great things still made in US, OZ etc to death and I am OK with having a board that a surfer never touched. ” I can’t understand why anyone rides overseas boards when there are so many options (more than ever) created at home in all technologies, shapes, etc. Anyway, hope you get some fun waves soon cheers
Non-surfing surf exec knows little about surfboard design. Non-politician president knows little about unintended outcomes of trade war with the Chinese. We are almost through the looking glass now.
Now.. we just need a non-expert on race relations to post a fairly racist insta pic and we will be all the way through.
Oh, right..
it’s the surfboard that lasts longest and can be repaired easy !
I think the USA surfboard manufacturing is now doing fine , everyone has changed their business plan to be smaller , more efficient and to give their customers personal service…..that’s why there is this MAGA bullshit about bringing jobs home……ah the last 12 mths has seen 0.5% in USA manufacturing…..yeah Don!
The USA s/bd manufacturing is the worlds healthiest market at the moment!
It’s been a healthy year of production in the San Clemente surf ghetto thus far, with no real end in sight!
production times at Merrick used to be about 12 weeks, now they show up at 4-6 weeks.. crazy on a custom.
I know they arent high performance yet, but check out some of these wooden “vessels” at Grain. Surf Splendor did a podcast with the boatbuilder/surfer who makes them at Grain.
. If you only had one board to travel the world, it might be something like this.
Do ding repair on the beach with driftwood and tar…..ha!
Someday, ..someday.
https://www.grainsurfboards…
great stuff they make and you can too. a bit on the difficult end to duck dive, floaty, and hard on the skull/shins/wrists when they come near your body. good looking though.. for a wall if you are into that sort of thing
yeah, good points. I used to ride some horrendous resin slabs…years of ding repairs. man they could bruise. I hate too floaty though. I wonder if they could ever get the whole thing lighter and flexier…you know, some spiderweb/cellulose composite wizard material. Get on it lads!
Wait, what?…who the hell paid $200 for a Wavestorm? Dumb asses out there.
Who pays $4k for a foil?!!?
They’re the biggest marks in the ocean right now!
“CNN has a guide on how to survive a shark attack… It also says to spring for the shore…”
Spring for the shore.
As if we’re like, a good leap away from dry sand.
https://edition.cnn.com/201…
This is the wavestorm market.
“Gee! You mean, your head might get wet?”
only 10% , I think ol DT was lobbied for a 30% rise , they funniest thing about youse Merrycans, is believing manufacturing can return to the USA when there is no business infrastructure to replace the Asian production.
A couple of years ago there was over 800K water craft coming from China , 50K from Taiwan , 50K Thailand , 20 K Vietnam…..just into the USA…..Nick C has seen the same data as me…..pretty stunning numbers!
The biggest problem has been the big brands making inferior product in Asia , and selling it as top end product , like FW and Mr S designs!
Total bullshit, i have been riding firewire and slater designs for 7 years, had at least 20 boards, never had one problem and i have sold after 1-2 years at high prices because of their integrity.
If you can sell a board after one or two years you don’t surf.
Well thanks for that pearl of wisdom, who the fuck are you to tell me what I am?
I almost feel like you want to be taken to pieces by the beach grit readership. Your opinion that wisdom gained by riding epoxy popouts is above reproach is a very interesting standpoint. I commend your strong opinion.
i just get sick of people telling Slater he is riding the wrong board, and yes , i am not concerned what people think about my choice of surfboard, are you?
I do what i think is the right thing for me, and i guess KS does the same. There is no right or wrong about it.
when you have watched Kelly since he was a teenager , everyone who has anything to do with him know he surfs better on PU surfboards , what’s sad is he is pushing his product at the expense of his surfing
im not convinced that is true, but i know you have been seeing him ‘live’ surfing when i am watching a screen. My point is that the guy has 11 titles, likes the way his boards ‘feel’ under his feet, even if the judges dont agree. Who gives a toss? He is highly scrutinised and i think unfairly criticised.
at Bells this year he jumped on a Simon Anderson PU , the whole competitors area was nodding their approval at how much better he looked , but he is committed commercially to EPS as FW and Slater designs use this cheap nasty blank…..it’s kinda sad to see him at the end of his career really pushing all his commercial ventures , time will see how all of this works out!
I did hear about that Simon experiment. I have ridden Simons and MR’s shapes, great boards. Do you think the blank FW use has poor flex qualities and that PU blanks make a board faster and more lively? The reason i ask is the first time i rode a helium blank it felt much different to LFT, and i loved the flex pattern.
What do you think about GSI boards? I had a Webber fish and it was about as strong as a chicken eggshell.
While i have you and because i like poking the bear, do you think your intense dislike of FW partly relates to Taj going from your boards to riding for FW?
And were you once state champ in Vic, or won the Allan Oke, Pa Bendall comp?
I’m Kelly Slater. Don’t buy my boards anymore.
i thought you were an aerobics guru, or the son of Bob Simmons, if that was the case i would pay attention to your opinions.
good on you, I like ugly fat chicks and don’t care what anyone thinks
Wiggs! Hi Supernintendo Chalmers…I’m learnding.
On another note, I’ve had exactly one FW and it was the worst surfboard I’ve ever had….was delaming within a month of purchase. What a turd. Now a few friends had the exact same board and theirs have lasted 4 plus years ….so I believe I just got a lemon. But a FW lemon is a terrible thing cause they’re almost beyond repair. Anyway, cheers
I peed my pants
Smart move. Sell before the sold by date
Like buying a German Auto…. everything is great, first major repair get rid of it now.
Ok RW , sounds like you have had some luck or don’t surf waves of consequence ….I see them broken and creased everywhere in the world…OZ/USA/Japan and France , repair shops are full of them, no-one really wants to repair them….it seems only in the last few years that the technology and strength have been watered down , to where about a mth ago , there was a big FW/Slater sale at Burleigh heads where small boards were sold for $250 Aud , and $375 Aud for bigger boards…..on swellnet there were quite a few people who bought them ……….some broke the boards first session , cracks /leaking , not very good quality boards being sold for %70 off retail , and still making a handsome profit!
FW is top-end product. Sure they aren’t easy to repair (looking at you Helium construction) but they last longer than just about anything else I’ve ever had.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
This board i just sold for $550 is 2.5 years old and did not have one dent, mark or ding , repair on it. The deck was smooth and flat, helium is an incredible tech. I have also owned a libtech puddle jumper which was similar. FW are also trying to build towards a sustainable eco future for construction.
Note the shark shield implant, which i do not use anymore.
Firewire are fake eco, their boards are eco certified level 1 which pretty much anyone can apply for as long as you use epoxy resin. As someone who has sold hundreds of surfboards over the last 7 years i can tell you the way they package and ship their boards is one of the most unsustainable around. I’ve seen dozens of delams in their Timberteks and seen quite a few snapped Heliums. Still a reasonable product but are definitely not holier than thou
Don’t really care about the eco aspect to be blunt… they are good boards. Have had a Helium delam, but only after leaving it in a boardbag baking in the sun for 5 hours
But what does it all mean for us?
That we should be patronizing our local shapers, Chas.
Please don’t patronize the local shaper – they are trying as hard as they can…
As Bonnie Rate says: …”Lay down with me – Tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don’t patronize – Don’t patronize me
Oh, shit you mean to buy their stuff. Sure, go for it.
I for one am hoping that business moves their stuff to Central America and Mexico using a redone Nafta to send some stuff back to the states, where some value added might be utilized in borders. The whole of Central America and Mexico has the potential to become a more friendly China. China’s Belt and Road is fucked up folks (putting impoverished countries in massive amounts of debt and using corruption to get deals done.. the Chinese don’t give a fuck man!!) and as much as I despise the blonde butthole, the take on China is a good thing for the world.
I’m with you, as long as there is a wiser take on toxic waste and community/ worker health.
Mexico deserves better than becoming another China re: environmental carelessness.
as long as Mexico doesn’t follow the USA , as reckless climate abusers, while professing there is no climate change…..
China is filling in the vacuum the USA has left and is taking over Asia and the pacific , including Australia…China is now Australia’s new economic master ..it’s too late we sold out and the USA is drowning in Trumpian bullshit!
Bingo Brutus… capitalism is gaining speed, amoral to a fault.
China is investing big in Mexico too… taking over the harbors… hmmmm…. They don’t bomb shit like we do, they buy infrastructure. Serious as fuck.
China own Australia’s arse now , our economy totally reliant on their tourists/selling our rocks in the ground , sold one of our ports to them right next to USA base…….the Pacific Nations Forum rejected Australia and the USA and accepted help from China…..over climate change….the USA is now a spent force , and the rise of China looks unstoppable!
While the US was flexing our only muscle, the military, China has been playing chess to our macho checkers. Their plan is decades in advance, slowly assuming infrastructure and real estate leverages globally.
All the pacific coast harbors in Mainland Mexico are now being renovated by Chinese firms…. they’ll even pay the Mexican Longshoreman to learn Chinese. Look at the cranes in the harbors, Chinese Flags.
The Lonshoreman strike in Los Angeles, 2003, was devastating. China will figure a way to offload in Mexico efficiently and avoid the labor unions.
China is a disease with so much cash it becomes contagious.
Immigration, from a US view, is simple to solve, but can money allow it to be as easy as logic?
We spend how much intervening in the ME with nothing to show for it when we could clean up our sister country Mexico and deploy the abundant resources and labor to build the country into a powerful ally. “Illegal immigration’ would come to a halt, many of these people are refugees fleeing unstable, dangerous conditions at home. See that word “Home”….if they could go home safely with any opportunity, many would. Our corporations would be begging for shadow labor. Trump would be begging for shadow labor on his resorts.
What China has done to the Maldives is criminal.
friend used to do news on the drug trade in Mexico, this person stopped when they showed them a family picture of a relative in another country. they told me so many bloody stories it is insane that we have any troops in the ME, when south of our border is in a war. The cartels are making money like Exxon without any labor or product costs to speak of. Insane!!! virtually none of the immigrants and my friends in CA that want to come to USA really want to be or come here, just for the $$. They love their homes. Creating industry south of the border is what we should all be talking about. CAD Shape the blanks south, bring them north for the value added?
like millenium and Artic foam …???
don’t know enough about the foam and surfboard business, just economics mi amigo. but it sounds like Millennium does exactly that?
I have buddies in the jungles… hike into some sketchy places, but that’s why they are empty.
The threat to relatives is real. We saw impaled bodies on stakes leading down a dirt road, nothing is coincidental. That’s why the police wear kevlar masks. It’s fucking the wild west on cocaine.
The fact that we ignore our southern sister paints a conspiracy…. someone is making money from the drug trade. Shadow economy. How else can you explain the saturation of cocaine to the inner cities… it used to be a drug for the rich, now it’s everywhere. Cheaper and purer than it was in ’80. MMM, name another product with that economic curve? Someone is turning a blind eye and the the for profit prison system requires contractual occupation #’s.
Connect the dots.