1)china is going up , total fact , Govt in China is funding farmers to stay at home and earn money , grow crops , ect . This limits the labor supply along with rising cost of labor and tech industry paying more for labor. In addition , anything oil based -linked to plastic products =increase .
2)USA is in an interesting pickel , we have a govt (as always ) that has never held real work outside of govt , so they dont know that the best way to creat jobs is to reward the independant business owner to grow his/her own business , so while we see govt attempt at jobs like improveing rest stops ect , real work is not perpetuating, only temp work with govt contrcats .
3)So what does this all have to do with Tower , the hobby and USA .
You have to study trends to know that its all linked and also know that opportunities to make money and capture new hobby segments are real and alive for the keen eye .
New explosive trends in RC are ARF in epo formats , this is not a labor intensive product , but more so a industrial investment with labor assembly , Tower and the big guys are totallly behind in this trend .
4)direct to consumer exporters -like Hobby King are Killing Hobbico , Horison and the top 4 , trust me on this . So if I were Tower and one of the big 4 , you have choice , stick to your current model with core brands like Futaba , Spectrum ect or offer your brand along with your new "budget brand" .
In essence its better to compete with yourself then allow a competitor into your segment .
So by not offering budget brands , your demand is down , your cost are up for lack of demand and increased cost (as stated earlier) , all this adds up to an unpleasant long term perspective for USA hobby distributors who lack trend planning and demand planning .
5)if this is over your head , you simply dont want to realize that its ALL LINKED , we are a global busines world , like it or not , USA jobs can thrive and be created by looking at what we do well , study trends , strengths , weeknesses and opportunities , compete with yourself first and you will be your best competition !!!!