MUSICandCHARACTER

Well, Steinway is getting more profitable, and the band instrument division is certainly contributing. Notice how "higher margin imported student instruments" improved gross margins by 1.2% Not that much really, but that is the corporate world.

Jim

hazmat

They better be making profits. They own so many music companies now: Armstrong, Artley, Bach, Benge, Buescher, Conn, Emerson, Glaesel, King, Ludwig, Musser, Scherl & Roth, Selmer, and W.M. Lewis and Son. Plus their own instruments.

From what I hear, the quality of all the instruments at Bach and such has gone up since they were bought. Can anyone vouch for this?

Lazorphaze

I just think it's bad that one company owns most of music.

CJDJazzTpt

I really hope that some of the 'smaller' instrument makers get some play now.

MUSICandCHARACTER

Under Steinway, it seems the Bach quality has gone up. The Conn Vintage One has been produced, etc. But some of the lines have been moved to Taiwan.

Conn Director
King Tempo
Selmer Aristocrat
Bach Aristocrat

The jury is out about the quality of these instruments. Taiwan seems to make decent beginner horns (Jupiter) but this remains to be seen (or heard).

The Bach Prestige line is made in China. I have heard two teachers complain loudly that these are typical crappy Chinese horns. Bach name or not, they are awful. Now Steinway has not made money by selling junk. If the horns don't measure up, they may not sell them. THAT remains to be seen too.

It is the overseas production that gets to me. If quality horns were coming from overseas for less, maybe. If China wasn't a Communist government, maybe. They don't play on an open market fair playing field. And if they were not set on taking Taiwan at all costs (pride, not practicality) it might be OK. Or if their workers got paid a reasonable wage. But the horns are crappy, the communist system is capable of flooding a market, and they are taking our jobs, paying their people crap, and using some of the profits to build a large submarine fleet (to take on a US carrier battle groups).

I personally avoid anything Chinese when possible. That means I have to completely avoid Wal-Mart. So be it.

Jim

dcstep

With all due respect, you're mixing political an economic terms so freely it's making my head spin. In case you've been out for an extended lunch, CHINA is rapidly becoming capitalist. Their middle class is growing at a phenominal rate. With a population over 1-billion, they have hundreds of millions that are desparately poor, but that true in the USA also, proportionally.

Is the USA the only world power to spend a big piece of their gnp on war machines??

You seem passionately anti-Chinese, but you don't seem to know much about what's really going on there. It looks to me as if you data is extremely old, from the pre-Nixon days.

You may be right to fear them, but your lack of respect demonstrates an dangerous attitude that the USA needs to avoid. We need to be supportive, but observant and quick to defend you rights, economic and human. I just think that we need to avoid demeaning a very powerful country that his making huge strides toward gaining its fair share of the world's wealth. They'll do it either with us or without us, so, I think, it's better to try to understand them and help them integrate into the capitalist world, rather to boycott their products.

Best regards,

Dave

MUSICandCHARACTER

Dave,

"Mixing" is your word. It is OK and a matter of opinion. My word would be "linking."

As for being lost in the Nixon era, I hope not.

Notice the date, July 19, 2004. Nixon, I am afraid, has passed away along with Ronald Reagan and Kennedy, Johnson and a few others. Dead Presidents can still be seen on money.

Why can we not outspend the Chinese into submission like the Soviets? Because it has become the number one place in the world to invest. Have they become more capitalistic? In pockets -- yes. In total, not much. They are always being taken to the world courts for copyright infringement and other such non-free trade problems.

They get plenty of investment from the US. With that money, they might start an arms race. Maybe not. But they have bought Soviet technology, have upgraded ICBMs and are on a submarine spending spree. The have a huge number of their nuclear warheads pointed at Taiwan. The rest at the US. They can build and buy submarines and other war technology because we give them jobs and investment capital.

So yes, I link the two. When we buy Chinese stuff (which is mostly junk anyway) we are helping this policy. The US has recently asked Israel to quit helping the Chinese with military equipment and technology. I am not stuck at all in the Nixon era. This is about today.

Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world. It is also the biggest seller of Chinese imports. Always lower prices -- no matter what the cost. I make the link there too.

Dave, I know you and I disagree sometimes (and agree sometimes) but I am neither uneducated nor uninformed. Your opinions my differ from mine, and that is OK, even good. But please do not assert I am working on 30 year old data.

With respect,

Jim

dcstep

Yes, I agree to disagree, gladly, but reserve the right to jab at you occasionally, as will you at me, but always with the greatest respect. :)

As for the 30 year old data I was referring to political and economic, not military. I agree totally with your observation of the China military buildup, but we must consider the impact of our own threats against the rest of the world. Any major power has to see the USA as a threat, both economically and militarily. The arms race with the USSR was all about mutual ability to destroy.

If we project China's economy twenty-years into the future, it will be second only to the USA. It will likely surpass most of Europe, in combination. Any student of history realizes that such wealth must be self-protected. Hence, their rush to build the most effective fleet possible. What would we do in the same situation? I think we'd (the USA) do the same thing in the same circumstances (there's no single weapon more effective than nuclear subs off your enemy's coast).

Sooo, I'm saying that this baby is growing fast and we can't stop it. It's now trying to claim it's rightful place in the world economy and we have to accept that and work with that as best we can. The more economic interchange, the better. Let the market say which products are worthy and which are not and focus our attention on fair trade going both ways, together with protection of the West's intellectual property advantage (to the extent that it's created in the West).

Best regards,

Dave

BTW, I've yet to see a clear categorization of the current Chinese economic/political system. It's a mixture of communism, capitalism and republicanism (in the world since of that word, not the US political party sense). It's moving a lot toward a Japanese model, but the elective process is very mixed. There are no longer dictators, but neither are elections really free. If anyone has seen a good discussion of this, I'd like to see it.