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Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

> It's also become increasingly difficult, and in some cases nigh impossible, to avoid items from China.

I have the opposite experience. I find it's becoming increasingly easy. I'm finding myself surprised that most things aren't made in china. So far the only thing I haven't been able to get was a waffle maker -- I can do without! Or I should just actually get a $300 waffle maker instead of something stupid that will probably break after a few runs

The hardest to find was a power drill.

I suspect that much of this is labor costs in china going up and manufacturing moving to India, Pakistan, Thailand, vietnam

Also -- I don't buy much from Amazon anymore, so this is going to b&m establishments

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I picked up USA made waffle iron from C. Palmer Manufacturing. It's super basic and almost 2-3x more expensive than the first few results on Amazon, but it's great! (https://cpalmermfg.com/waffle-irons.html) Hope that helps with your waffle making.

perfect! But I will be making chaffles =D

At first I suspected made in USA could mean assembled in USA from Chinese castings and other parts. But man is it so freaking satisfying to see at the top of the page next to "About us" is a link to their tool and die shop. They're a freaking casting shop that decided to make waffle makers. Fantastic.

Some random niche waffle iron company just saw a spike in online sales. They have got to be wondering what just happened. You’ve been “hacker news hugged” would probably just confuse them.

Super basic? What more do you need!? It makes waffles!

Also I just saw that they actually sell the individual parts should you need to replace something. This company seems like a real gem.

It's two days before Christmas! Why couldn't I have seen that link three weeks ago?

"Or I should just actually get a $300 waffle maker instead of something stupid that will probably break after a few runs"

I did this for a while but a lot of US manufacturers seem to like producing low quality items for a high price under the label "Made in USA".

"Made in USA" is often code for "made with prison labor". Louisiana is said to make a point of incarcerating particularly black citizens on made-up charges and excessive sentencing to maintain a ready prison labor pool.

So, it is probably important to verify that such products are not from prison labor.

China has is rightly criticized for unjustified incarceration, particularly in Xinjiang, but the US incarcerates many more on largely similar pretexts, which amounts to a much larger fraction of its population. Reducing US incarceration rate is a moral imperative.

That’s an incredibly serious claim to make, do you have evidence to support your claims?

It's not particularly controversial. Here's the NY version, for example. https://corcraft.ny.gov/

There's an explicit carve out in the 13th amendment's slavery prohibition for people convicted of crimes.

They make signs and license plates for the state. As far as prison labor goes, that seems relatively benign.

They do a very great deal more than that. Places with strong unions restrict what they do just so they don't compete with union labor. But that leaves enormous leeway, which is reliably exploited.

Many private prisons have contracts with states guaranteeing them a quota of prisoners, on pain of monetary penalties. It becomes the job of police and courts to deliver that quota, regardless of behavior, because there is no money budgeted for penalties.

Everybody can be found guilty of something, if you want to.

Even if something doesn't say "Made in China", the chances are that many or most of it's components were made in China.

You have a bit better chances if you instead whitelist countries with stricter rules of origin (for example, Made in USA requires 50% of the components to be made here) but even then much of the supply chain for that item will probably trace back to China.

> but even then much of the supply chain for that item will probably trace back to China.

You're still doing one stage better; but also you'd be surprised how much of that supply chain doesn't come from china, especially now, with supply chain issues and manufacturers using it as opportunity to re-tool their sourcing.

> The hardest to find was a power drill.

Depending on where you live and what you like....DeWalt and high end Craftsman make drills in the USA. Makita makes some in Japan. I believe Bosch does some in Germany, but don't quote me on that.

DeWalt, Craftsman and Makita all had "made in china". Bosch was not (I think it's thailand). Maybe i was too low-end.

Yeah, on the low end you're out of luck. It's the top end stuff that's made in USA. About 120ish for a drill, vs say, 30 for some Ryobi.

Model to Google for Craftsman is CMCD720

The Bosch Professional 18V drills (blue) are made in Malaysia.

Sadly the battery packs are still made in china though.

Battery tech seems to be a big problem in general.

What's interesting there is that internally, all of them use Samsung, made in Korea batteries.

They just assemble the case and circuitry in China.

I bought a Samsung power bank recently and was surprised that it was made in china and not Korea.

If that’s just assembly that would make sense considering Samsung’s expertese.

I suspect in the next few years that will be less of an issue. There are companies currently ramping up in Japan, Germany and the UK that are making 3D printed solid state batteries that will be lighter, higher capacity, higher C rating than the current batteries. The tech exists, is safety certified but not yet in mass production.

Fairphone have an analysis on their complete supply chain, of every component. Lots come from China, but more interesting: components of components have a source too, raw materials too, as does travel.

An example of the latter, Fairphone used trains to move the assembled smartphones to EU. Those trains moved from China through Russia, dven during and after Crimea conflict and MH17 disaster.

Its a shame I don't have a link handy to their supply chain infographic. It is so detailed, includes all corporations and locations, that it would warrant a HN submission within its own. OTOH, they yet have to make it for their recent product, FP4.

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