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Comment by pmorici | Hacker News Reader

Those companies are still around but they are making industrial grade tools sets for commercial and government customers that are less price sensitive. Craftsman even continued their Made in the USA Tool line for a time under the “Craftsman Industrial” brand. You can still get Made in the USA tools you just have to be willing to pay 5-10x the price. Wright, S&K, MAC, Proto, Snap-on among others all still make tools in the USA

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Some of these tool vendors make most of their money with predatory loans pushed by tools. Gotta be the young guy with a large, high interest loan for your Snap-On tools: https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/sxkd...

Note the person in that article is completely off on their math. They have a 19% line of credit and seem new to understanding how interest and principal work. (The article person thinks it’s 19%/month and is shocked that they are paying more than the principal in interest).

The loan described here sucks but seems similar to buying everything on a credit card and as a new tradesperson 19% is probably as good a loan as you’ll get without a credit history.

Most credit unions will give you better terms than 19% interest on a personal loan as a teenager if you have not seriously damaged your credit profile already.

These tool loans certainly aren't going out to people that have already rolled the bus on a Capital One $300 credit line credit card.

My credit union will for my kids because I’m a member. But if I’m a new person with no history, they’ll give me a lower interest rate, but only for like $500-1000, so probably not enough to get tools.

Certainly a good idea to shop around but it’s hard to get a $5000 loan with no credit and no collateral.

What I found odd is that I rarely see these tools for sale used. I expect they’d be valuable, but I guess they just get bought up before hitting eBay or Craigslist.

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