Quality Fade: American or Chinese, which is worse?

I've been thinking about writing a similar entry lately...but Paul delinger did it better...


Paul Midler is an experienced sourcing expert who has worked in China for many years, and publishes The China Game blog. I believe that he is the first person to coin the term “quality fade”. Quality fade is, according to this article published in Forbes:

This is the deliberate and secret habit of widening profit margins through a reduction in the quality of materials. Importers usually never notice what’s happening; downward changes are subtle but progressive. The initial production sample is fine, but with each successive production run, a bit more of the necessary inputs are missing.

It seems a long time ago, but last year, a great deal of ink was devoted to covering the issue of defective products from China. In some cases, lives were lost in the US.

If I have one criticism of Paul Midler’s criticism of this very real problem, it is the impression it gives that somehow unscrupulous Chinese exporters are deliberately seeking to cheat and harm Americans, when in fact, many more Chinese have been injured and even killed by defective products coming out of Chinese factories. It’s just that the US media does not pick up these stories because the victims are, well, Chinese.

But if we are going to be fair about this problem, then shouldn’t we talk about the Chinese and other non-American victims of this problem as well? I think so.

Now, when it comes to the credit bubble problem, the issue of quality fade becomes even more interesting. This time, the culprit is not Chinese, but American. For a problem of such immense proportions, which is getting bigger and bigger by the day, amazingly, no one has identified the human culprits responsible for the bad decisions. But then, accountability never been a strong point for this US administration.

In China, when there was a problem with deaths caused by tainted drugs, the head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration was sentenced to death and executed. No one yet knows the size of the credit bubble, but I have heard numbers from $15 billion to $45 billion bandied about. Mind you, the US economy is a US$12 trillion a year economy, so we are basically talking about anywhere from 1 year to four years of economic output disappearing.

Americans are losing their jobs, many are losing their homes, and the Fed has been scared into a series of panic interest rate cuts and into subsidizing the purchase of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan Chase and offering a Fed-backed unlimited credit lending facility to US investment banks.

In this article from The Washington Note, Steve Clemons talks about how the US exported poisoned financial products.

So, while Chinese factories have on occasion exported defective products, the US has exported defective financial products. And the US government participated because Treasury sold T-bills which were backed by these defective financial instruments.

Hmmm….

Now, back to quality fade. Let’s see if we can modify his definition of quality fade to capture the credit bubble situation:

This is the deliberate and secret habit of creating the illusion of increased purchasing power through the creation of fiat credit derivatives of dubious value. Exporters usually never notice what’s happening; downward changes are subtle but progressive. The initial credit derivatives are fine, but with each passing year, lose their value as more credit derivatives are created until there is a gradual collapse and new currencies and trading rules have to be established.

(The italics are where I have made changes to Paul Midler’s original text.)

When it comes to quality fade, the Americans have been wholesalers, while the Chinese are just occasional retailers.

While I'm rambling about iPhone Apps

Nope. No, iPhone Turntable Application

I've been working on a few projects recently. The iPhone turntable application being one of the smaller ones which I was fairly excited about. It was more of a passion project and not very $$$ making so I'm okay with having to cut it short.



It sucks to say but the app is going into my recycle bin because Apple has its arms around its itunes jewels -they are not allowing any 3rd party applications to mess with their itunes music model. The SDK does not include any frameworks to access the music on the iphone/itouch and allow application to do anything with them (such as scratching, changing pitch, etc...).

Thought it would be interesting to post some failures within my seeding process...

Modest Mouse - Dashboard

More awesome work by Motion Theory

Justice @ Commodore Ballroom

Saw them live at Vancouver last night. Sick!

Compromising is a lost battle in the war.

Brb Seattle.

~~~ Be Good Tanyas - Ship Out on the Sea ~~~
+++ Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice +++
+++ Justice - Cross +++
+++ Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend +++

Life Hacking

I just realized I utterly hack my life. no mercy.

The definition of hacking your life is pretty broad, but in my case I force action as a way of sticking to goals. It definitely takes a bit of creativity and discipline, but it works for me. In my opinion, the key to hacking your life requires you to understand thee-self.
Hmmm. I guess it's not easy to convey the concept to those who don't write code and may not understand the true definition of the word 'hacking'. But I suppose a subset of 'life hacking' can also be stated as exploiting ones weaknesses to increase productivity.
An example hack of mine to remember something for the next day is to put an out of place object (like a cup) in front of my bedroom door before I goto bed. The next morning I'll remember that something when I see the cup.

So the above example is a small hack. But imagine many hacks of various size to ones life...

EAG Demo

Ok. So Adi, Gary, and I are forming a band. We're the typical Wednesday comebys around 8:30pm at Presidents Piano. I've decided to post our 2nd end of day recording for comments. Yes, we suck, and yes, we need a vocalist.

Demo1.mp3

Part 2 of this set is here. I've yet to spend enough time with them to find out which I like more (if I do that is).


I finally understand why flash sucks. I should begin count on how long it'll take for me to find the time and include this new piece at erikchan.com

Stuff White People Like

• #6 Organic Food
• #17 Hating their Parents
• #41 Indie Music
• #66 Divorce
• #76 Bottles of Water
• #81 Graduate School
  
• #80 The Idea of Soccer

A blog to read when you are bored out of your mind...

Perseverance

It's tough on the mind to fail repeatedly... i wonder if i'll ever give up.

Chanel Mobile Art Exhibition

Sam and I checked out the Chanel mobile art show earlier today.

The exhibition stops by Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, London, Moscow, and Paris (Hong Kong being the first stop). I would strongly suggest anybody with interest in interactive art to check it out -it is cooool.

The show lasts around 45mins and is accompanied by a recorded narrator (over headphones). The production values are super duper high. Check out the website and you'll see what I mean.

10 reasons you should start a startup before turning 25

Found this article at Hacker News by Y Combinator...

This is Vegas

My ex-employer, Surreal Software, just announced 'This is Vegas'. I've been waiting to hear about this title since I was working on it back in 2005 =] I can't wait to check it out when it arrives.

a road less traveled

+++ Jack Johnson - Sleep through the Static +++
+++ Sara Bareilles - Unplugged +++
+++ Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone +++
+++ Jimmy Eat World - Chase this Light +++

There are a few things I wish I could just spill my heart about, but maybe its just not the right time right now...

Its 2008. I have the feeling this ain't going to be the best of years. For me, I think its going to be a lot of transitioning and experimenting. The ghouls of my past are still chasing me and they drive me mad.

I see all these things happen around me, and sometimes I think to myself I know better. Though, I'm far from claiming that I know how the world works; in fact, the older I get the more complicated everything is seeming to become.
I'm used to seeing everything very clearly and am pretty good at staying laser-focused on those things that matter. Is that a good thing or not? Lately, I've been forced to face some of the realities I have been avoiding for many years and all of a sudden I'm asking myself 'can I still continue to keep things simple?'

I'm starting to see more of the weaknesses I have developed with my strengths. Or better put, its not possible to be everybody. It's like that enneagram personality test thing.

My Portfolio

I never really considered myself an artist until...now? So I decided to hog up www.erikchan.com before somebody else did.

Check it out and let me know what you think :) Its already slightly outdated since I have new items to put on, I think i'll leave that for another day.

HK

Its been a while.

+++ Justice - Cross +++
+++ Daft Punk - Alive 2007 +++
+++ Sia - Some people have real problems +++

~~~ Kings of Convenience - I don't know what I can save you from ~~~
~~~ John Mayer - Neon ~~~
~~~ Kanye West - Bittersweet ~~~
~~~ Alicia Keys - No one ~~~

2008 is going to be an interesting year. It has always been interesting. The sun never stops.
I feel like I've matured and learned more than I've been given credit for over the past couple years. Shit, I don't even give myself credit. For a short time, I had let the people and the moments sweep me off my feet, but i think its all part of the process; part of the learning. All the mistakes I had encountered were inevitable. Better to hit and continue running now than to be knocked off the cliff when the stakes are high.

The Right Brain vs Left Brain test ... do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS uses logic detail oriented facts rule words and language present and past math and science can comprehend knowing acknowledges order/pattern perception knows object name reality based forms strategies practical safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS uses feeling "big picture" oriented imagination rules symbols and images present and future philosophy & religion can "get it" (i.e. meaning) believes appreciates spatial perception knows object function fantasy based presents possibilities impetuous risk taking

Halloween 07

My first pumpkin carving...

Vegoose 2007

Goal in life: See Daft Punk live (check)
Goal in life: See Rage Against the Machine live (check)

Tunes 9/23/07

the big things are coming.

~~~ Medeski Martin & Wood - Anonymous Skulls ~~~
~~~ Alpha - Monophonic ~~~
+++ Kanye West - Graduation +++
+++ James Blunt - All the lost souls +++
+++ Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War +++
+++ The Postal Service - Give Up +++
+++ Paramore - Riot! +++
+++ Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone +++

+++ Datarock - Datarock Datarock +++
+++ Blue Scholars - Bayani +++
+++ Rooney - Calling the World +++
+++ Kings of Convenience - Versus: The Remixes Collection +++
+++ Timbaland - Shock Value +++
+++ KOS - Atlantis: Hymns for Disco +++

It feels like I'm in the middle of a dip. I need to learn to lean forward.

Sour - Sink Town

These guys are awesome. I have a copy of their album for anybody who wants to get a piece of it.

AKG K701

Pricey but worth every bit of that investment.