ASK Cub Reporter, A Weekly Q & A Session, Version 05.19.2010

“Are hobby prices going up because of lack of workers in China? I read that on a messae board.
Erwin”
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Cubby- Ya know, there is no doubt there are some weird things going on in that wonderful communist country called the People’s Republic of China. In recent months there have been 5 incidents of men grabbing knives/hatchets and going after school kids, which reminds me a bit of the period when our postal workers were wound a bit too tight. They’ve got a lot of people living there in China (over 1.3 billion, America only has around 300 million), and plenty of stressors as well. But of course that’s no reason for the prices of their goods to go up.

But, there is some truth to the rumor you heard. China pretty much makes everything for everyone in the world now days, and even their 1.3 billion people aren’t enough to make it all. Yes, China is starting to suffer a labor shortage (due in part to their governments stimulus package), and as that happens, wages go up, and when wages go up, the price of the finished products must go up as well.

So will this mean increased prices at your LHS? Perhaps not, and I’ll tell you why. It’s quite obvious a very large percentage of all our hobby goods come from China (ok, that was a massive understatement… LOL), but just like every other product in this world, there is always another supplier. The buyers from our large rc companies are a Very savvy group, if they can get the same build quality but source it cheaper from Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, etc, they will change suppliers just to keep your costs low.

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That’s it for this week ya bunch of crazy animals. Submit your questions, love letters, naked photos of your x(women only), and hate mail to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com.

YOUR Cub Reporter