Made In China

Time to get a bit stricter on the regulations don't ya think? I'd hate to be the person approving all the faulty equipment that was the result of 75k peoples lives in a single year. That's a ridiculous number! Lazy, cheap, and careless. Very sad.

2

wej.....put down the pipe, and step away slowly please

Um, I am no fan of Republican deregulation (just look at my postings if you don't believe me), but how the hell does a story of 19 workers dying in a construction accident in China make anyone think it's a good time for a partisan hackfest?

I can't stand it when Republitards do it, and I can't when Libritards do it too.

See? Reducing the size of government and those pesky elevator inspections works!

Jeff,

Well said.

Welcome to Republican Paradise - no regulations and no unions. We don't care if you die since more of you are graduating high school and will simply fill those jobs.

Yeah, let's compare China's working conditions to those in US, and throw politics in while we're at it.

Use as much hyperbole as you can, because as everyone knows, there are no state health and safety laws in place for the vast majority of people in the country that DON'T belong to a union.

Idiot.

Construction elevators can hold alot of people and equipment.

I wonder if they had their emergency device's with them. Them funny red umbrela's they all use.

What a terrible tragedy. It has been estimated almost a million workers have died in the past 10 years. In a previous article on China's workers, it discussed the dangers workers faced. Clearly it isn't a matter of workers being lazy and careless, but having to work with a government system that does not value people above profit. Whether lack of or improper training, poor communication from hostile working environment, exhaustion from dangerous long working conditions and companies or the government cutting corners to save money,while ignoring the risks to people.These are the leading causes in deaths and injuries. The rash of recent mine tragedies are the perfect examples. With over a billion people in the nation, why spend money for safety? China considers human beings expendable. That's the greatest tragedy.In a throw away world, they believe in throw away people.

@Tranquil Nihilist

How's your Mandarin, @!$%#?

Jessica that was one hell of a GREAT post. Perfectly stated. Thanks.

bob1/28

WHIP

You left part of your comment out but I will finish it for you.

Made in China, Untouched by Human Hands .

You both forgot about the sign on the elevator...

Bueno hasta la última gota

too bad no one pressed 2 for Spanish translation.

manufacturing WILL NOT return to America until americans are willing to work for pennies on the dollar

It's not so strictly an issue of lower wages in places like China. They've always had lower wages. The problem is that big money has lobbied to revise tax and trade laws to make it easier to utilize overseas labor. We loose a competitive edge not so much from the cheaper labor in other countries, as from allowing imports to flood the country very cheaply from countries that put big fees on American exports. Corporations not only make use of the cheaper labor of China and the like, but also can move their products back into the country and on store shelves with little difference in cost compared to if the products were manufactured domestically. The outsourcing trend won't change substantially until we institute fairer trade laws.

One other factor to also consider along side the two I pointed out is that while the right likes moan and groan over the corporate (or top 1-2%) tax rate being too high, and try to make liberal a dirty word, republicans are exceedingly liberal with providing upper income earners a vast array of deductions, subsidies, and loopholes (unintended or politically engineered ways to bypass parts of tax law altogether). Oh, and if you haven't noticed, throw a fetish for perpetually bigger tax cuts for the rich which theoretically would eventually trickle down in the form of more jobs and higher wages (we know how that works in reality though).

Jessica, I can hear your heart bleeding from here.

Tell me, if the unions are so wonderful and so necessary, why was there such a massive exodus from them when Walker made paying union dues optional in Wisconsin?

Jax A, the republican party uses this tactic with everything they want to get rid of but can't. They undermine programs financially first, to de-fund or underfund them, to make them ineffective. Then they go back to abolish them under the premise that the programs are ineffective. Look to any government agency they're against, the consumer protection agency, the epa, etc. They manufacture a scenario ripe for criticism to try and validate a false argument.

Jeff, you do a disservice to Libertarians with your Libritard designation. Perhaps you should have used the name of the other well know political party and said "Demotard" instead.

So sad that 19 people died because a freight elevator malfunctioned because of lax controls.

OMG - my biggest fear is drowning. Now add a new fear of being a packed sardine on a 30 floor falling elevator. I cannot even fathom what that was like.

Jeff, so increase the size of gov will make the elevators safer? Well, for your information, China has the largest government (in size) in the world.

Jeff, so increase the size of gov will make the elevators safer? Well, for your information, China has the largest government (in size) in the world

However, China also has the largest population in the world, so unless we compare government size per capita your factoid means very little.

Also, whether or not you include the military when calculating government size (since service members are government employees) will probably make a big difference, because China has a massive standing military.

And just imagine....the Chinese built the new Bay Bridge span in San Francisco.

China has the largest government (in size) in the world.

It's size is irrelevant if you neglect any comparative standard, like -size in relation to population. It's within reason and logical to consider that the most populated country (1.5 billion) in the world might be in need of more government workers than a country of only a few hundred million.

Neglectful and limited viewpoints like yours seem to be the backbone of republican policy making.

Fianchetto, how's this?

你他媽的自由的污物

Jessica...Tell me, if the unions are so wonderful and so necessary, why was there such a massive exodus from them when Walker made paying union dues optional in Wisconsin ?

JaxA, let me answer for Jessica.

Because many people are very short -sighted. Besides, Walker seriously crippled the ability of the unions to fight for better wages and working conditions.

BrainCandy...what is the "everything" you're talking about that the republicans want to get rid of here, unions?

Let me answer for Jessica.

Because many people are very short -sighted. Besides, Walker seriously crippled the ability of the unions to fight for better wages and working conditions.

Oh, I see. People are "short-sighted" for leaving the unions when they have the choice. They don't know what's best for themselves. O...K....

Tell me, did Jimmy Carter and the democratic Congress do the same kind of "crippling" with the CSRA in 1978 when they took collective bargaining away from federal union employees?

jess,

vote for that clown obama if you still want to sit on your a$$ and collect your welfare check, wic , fod stamps and adc.

China is a "junk" country. It also is the ultimate model for American republicanism. Thomas Friedman is It's greatest economic exhorter, and "jax A #1.35: You are a gwaddamned liar.

China has the largest government

A comparison argument over big government effectiveness using China vs America, that is just nuts. The PRC is communist for crying out loud. The PRC will always spend a staggering proportion of their budget on political control. From the pictures there must have been a police officer for every single person participating in the 2011 Jasmine protests... and those were the just those we could count dressed in uniform. They get all bent out of shape over a Christian house church 'cause its not licensed / sanctioned, on a street corner. They arrest people practicing the moral philosophy Falun Gong 'cause it might get too big. They're still out in the rural areas tracking babies, One-Child Rule.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
nytimes.com/2011/09/03/world/asia/03china.html

So, when the right succeeds in eliminating OSHA, and this happens here, because of lax enforcement and equipment inspections, or lack of inspectors due to funding cuts, this will be acceptable to you?
Wake up! Safety regulations cut into profits, just like livable wages. It translates into smaller CEO salaries and bonuses.

Can't have that, now can we?

and "jax A #1.35: You are a gwaddamned liar.

Brilliant. Now explain what it was I was "lying" about. You mean, it WASN'T Jimmy Carter and a democratic congress that passed the CSRA in '78? Enlighten us, please.

@bro...

Falun Gong is not a "moral religion". Its a cult with a ridiculous cult leader who actively tried to recruit members of government in order to gain political influence.

I know that is true because they attempted to recruit some of my in-laws. Plus, if you can actually read chinese... and read their literature, their 'leader guy' is a half illiterate nut job who makes up insane claims.

Like the time he claimed to have astrally projected and defeated an extradimensional alien threat to reality. I. @!$%#. You. Not. Plus... the guy was actively trying to get Chinese people to stop using their life saving western medications. Try reading their material in Chinese sometime; especially the early stuff before the hammer got put down by the PRC. Cancer meds, psychoactive drugs, AIDS meds, TB meds... you name it. The PRC doesn't like to ask wackos to stop what they are doing more than once; after that, they tend to be heavy handed.

I won't excuse how the PRC handles FG followers but I can't blame them for wanting to limit FG's power over the populace.

The PRC is bad; Falun Gong is definitely not much better and if the "leader guy" had half the chance, you'd better believe he'd be far worse.

Con-science

Fianchetto, how's this?

您的語句是啞

Do you have any idea how hypocritical so many of you sound?

You want all these regulations that drive up the price of goods exponentially, yet you refuse to sacrifice your standard of living and quality of life. Let me make this really easy for you to understand. Everything you touch and use costs a fraction of the price it otherwise would because of the cheap labor and lax regulations overseas. If we magically had control of China, India, Taiwan and every other country's regulations and forced them to match ours, as well as unions and bureaucracy, you would have to give up more than half of everything you enjoy because your salary wouldn't be able to afford them.

So until you shout equally as loud about your willingness to give up so much of what you have, then just keep your mouth shut because your toxic rhetoric not only makes you look like you have the mind of a child, but it also further makes others who believe you ignorant, and it does nothing to bring the country together. That's right, you're just a local terrorist.

You all claiming that the GOP wants to be China is propaganda at a terrorist level. You won't stop portraying the issue as either we have regulation or it's the freakin wild west. As if there is no such thing as a more beneficial middle ground. No one but a select few radicals are saying there should be no regulation at all. What the majority of people are against are the corrupt regulations that unnecessarily drive up costs.

They want to stop the millions of lawsuits generated by evil scum that actually get paid to go through local businesses and try to find every little tiny violation like the height of a mirror is off by 2 inches or a door doesn't swing shut with the proper amount of torque.

They want to stop the corruption in government agencies where regulators have to drum up all these useless fines in order to maintain their job security.

They want to stop the special interest groups from bribing lawmakers to generate all sorts of hurdles for new business owners in order to stifle competition.

You won't stop until you make as many people as possible believe that conservatives want to get rid of ALL regulation and that speaks volumes about your character and your inability to be a net positive for society. Why are your thoughts so toxic? Where does that hate come from? How could you be so clueless in your perception of what the majority of people who disagree with you really want?

I recommend you spend more time figuring out where you went off the rails and less time posting your vitriol. Oh, and maybe you could spend a little time creating your own business so you can learn a little something about what business owners have to deal with and why they are forced to raise prices to cover unnecessary costs that make it virtually impossible to compete globally.

It is a Donkephant problem. Both political parties. This impacts both small business and their customer. Looking at 4,700 companies with annual revenue over $1 billion headquartered in the U.S. and Europe, by 2016 a total of another 2.3 million jobs in finance, IT, procurement, and HR will have moved offshore. This represents about one third of all jobs in these areas...

thehackettgroup.com/about/research-alerts-press-releases/2012/03272012-hackett-research-forecasts-offshoring.jsp

Why do the losses continue? A senior accountant in India makes $10K/year (USD)... ask a Walmart greeter if they know anyone that can live on $10K/year. Will this ever end? ...the day our economy looks like theirs, and every senior accountant finds that they need well over a YEAR'S WHOLE PRETAX salary to buy a five year old used Corolla...

payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Senior_Accountant/Salary
xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=600000&From=INR&To=USD
vicky.in/usedcar/model/toyota/corollaaltis/

All of the labor cost-cutting of the last 30+ years has done two things, displaced the worker producing durable goods and created national debt (worker displacement/retraining and broken balance of trade). With advancements in Information Technology this has spread to white collar employment. First to multinational corporations, secondly to midsized corporations which contract with multinationals for IT, Finance, etc.

Small businesses need customers with discretionary income with which to buy their goods / services. With each passing year this comes closer and closer. The company I work for has not hired college graduates for engineering positions in 10 years. It has been solely about cheap labor. We either fail together or we succeed together.

Everything you touch and use costs a fraction of the price it otherwise would because of the cheap labor and lax regulations overseas. If we magically had control of China, India, Taiwan...

vglance,

How about: Everything we touch and use costs a few dozens of times more than the cost of manufacturing it in countries like China, or India. An average factory worker in China makes less than $2.00 per hour, in some regions less than $1.00. In India they make even less.

And don't put Taiwan together with China and India. Taiwanese enjoy the standard of living comparable with the United States or Western Europe. Just check GDP per capita in CIA World Factbook.

What is your argument?

So much of what we use and consume are products that if the US manufactured from start to finish would cost so much more than they currently do. There's no way our salaries/wages would allow us to have all that we have. We'd have to give up a large amount of it but no progressives/liberals will own up to that sacrifice. Yet they demand more regulation and higher min wage and more benefits and more entitlements and everything else that drives up the price of goods sold.

How is your rewording what I say altering that reality?

And Taiwan still has access to cheap assembly labor as they've moved much of their manufacturing to the mainland and have a very favorable trade surplus because of it. And much of the reason why they enjoy the high GDP is because of their commitment to high education standards, support of entrepreneurs, dedication to capitalism and privatization of banks and other sectors.

Funny how places like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan have grown so incredibly in wealth as they've embraced capitalism and the free markets and the more Europe and the US have moved away from it, their economies have suffered and the only thing growing is unsustainable debt.

It takes a very troubled individual to not make the connection.

One of many hypocrisies by progressives / liberals is that they want a global economy. A utopia of everyone getting along in peace and harmony under one unified currency and no borders. Well if we are supposed to be one world united, then why is it ok that when you go to your local festival or carnival and one booth is selling fried dough at $4 and another is selling the same fried dough at $5, you wisely buy from the one selling at $4. But I get looked upon as evil when I choose to use a call center in the Philippines that will save me $5,000,000 a year than the same call center here in the US.

And when I walk into a Walmart and see all the progressives/liberals buying the tube of toothpaste for $2 instead of the same tube selling at Smiths / Albertsons for $4—which certainly helped their standard of living since when you scale it out, it's millions of people saving thousands of dollars a year—they will be the same hypocrites bashing Walmart for low wages and substandard benefits.

Meanwhile Walmart provides hundreds of thousands of jobs to a low/no skilled labor force that would otherwise have NO job.

Bash big corporations, but Apple gets a pass. Because as monopolistic and draconian as Jobs was, hording more money than any company in the history of mankind ($750 BILLION), not even paying a dividend (finally after he died they started to, and only under extreme pressure), destroying competition through buying patents left and right and suing everyone and everything... basically everything the occupy wall street movement is against... Apple still gets a pass because their products stand for individualism and anti-establishment.

Bash big corporations for their impact on the environment yet the sum of all the small business' impact on the environment is exponentially greater than the sum of all corporations. Another hypocrisy. Big corporations can't easily dispose of hundreds of tons of batteries, they're being monitored and have to establish relationships with proper waste disposal companies. But a small shopkeeper flies under the radar and can dump a handful of them in the trash bin out back. Again, scale it out and small business, which makes up the majority of business in this country does more damage to the environment.

Progressive / liberal ideology is built on emotion. It's built on a simple concept of creating perceptions from sources of information that pull at emotional heart strings. The majority of them don't understand how things work in the real world because they aren't the business types. Business is too competitive, too logical, to measured, too structured, lacking in artistic flavor.

Nothing against them but the world would be a better place if they stuck to the things they know and love and not vote in people who are going to try economic systems that have failed 100% of the time.

Don't talk down to me. Engineering and technical research make up the lion's share of my work day. Interesting that you quote countries which offer their people job protection under government regulations, and oddly enough actually expanded them while efforts take place in America to reverse them,

chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2007/09/20/123255/Layoff-regulations.htm
guidemesingapore.com/incorporation/hr/singapore-employment-act-guide

My postings seldom dive into your complaints about government regulation (you complain so well on your own), but since you tout these locations as examples, Singapore is a leader in Asia in both salaries,

payscale.com/research/SG/Country=Singapore/

and strong environmental regulatory control, for example, just last Monday they passed a new energy efficiency bill (even scheduled energy audits)

eco-business.com/news/singapore-passes-energy-efficiency-bill/

vglance, We either fail together or we succeed together. Period

InfoTechnology,

#1. It's not my intent to come off as talking down to you. Your specialty is tech and engineering. Mine is international trade, employment, supply chain, logistics, economics. I own a business process improvement consulting firm and developed a mass sourcing solution for the staffing industry (think call centers and any other industry that does bulk hiring). This isn't about who is smarter, everyone is smart at something. Not many are well-informed about how the world works economically; what it's like to own your own business and be responsible for making payroll.

#2. You can site all the regulations and environmental controls out there all you want. You're only supporting my argument because their size is a fraction of ours. Their layers of government and bureaucracy are a fraction of ours. Their labor and government union presence is virtually nonexistent in scope and power compared to ours. Their entitlement spending in no way matches ours. The lack of lawsuit abuse compared to ours... etc. etc. These countries do not have the bloated waste and corruption in their regulation and to try to draw comparisons between the two? I don't know what to say to that. Same thing with energy efficiency. They bike / moped or use public transportation as their primary means of commuting. We drive for miles in cars. We have millions of gas guzzling tractor trailer trucks crossing this country back and forth which is the heart of our logistics system. The cost in both money and personal sacrifice (in the form of changing our lifestyles/habits) that the US would have to make in order to match that of these other places is a non-starter because too many of the people (regardless of political ideology) will refuse to make those changes.

I want regulation. Conservatives and even libertarians want regulation. Libertarians are not anarchists. We need consumer protections. No one but the extreme few would argue against that. 90% (speaking arbitrarily, but it's clearly over 50%) of government spending and regulation is inefficient and corrupt. That is simply what we're screaming for to change. Even if it's not a person exploiting their power and position but simply a regulator who is forced to file cases simply for fear of losing justification for their job, the way the progressive movement has led us down the same failed path as Europe, has built a system that is unsustainable and devastating for our country. It was built with good intentions, but failed in its understanding of the consequences.

As far as your last line, I couldn't agree with you more. In 100 years from now, when we've decayed in almost the same way Britain did, the history books will point to the fact that complacency caused us to lose sight of the big picture. Our society just doesn't want to learn about history, politics, economics... and has lost little by little all the emotional intelligence survival traits: work ethic, resourcefulness, accountability, respect, empathy, perseverance, humility and countless others.

It's so much easier to just learn from what is spoon-fed to us, and unfortunately that would be the liberal media and overwhelmingly progressive/liberal colleges and universities.

You're only supporting my argument because their size is a fraction of ours

Hardly, I quoted things like news articles / press releases / marketing materials. Places like a Janus Corporate Solutions marketing page isn't going to print the Singapore Parliament's regulations (their going to charge you for the registration, accounting, immigration and statutory administration services, and yes, consulting fees). The page is hardly more than a summary. Big government or not? For example, where do we see an American green legislation comparable to Singapore's plan for 80% of all buildings to be green building standard mandatory compliant by 2030? You don't get there just by dropping in a new air conditioner when the old one wears out, its about building materials, its about window placement, etc. For another example Medishield, a Singapore government national health plan (part of a broader plan, including their Medisave, which adds individual medical savings accounts). Singapore has had a form of ADA (like our Americans with Disabilities Act) for years, Code on Barrier-Free Accessibility in Buildings (initially, 1990).

To successfully claim one bigger than another, you'd need actual government legislation or regulatory code. To successfully win people over to your viewpoint, you'll need links to comparative data -empirical data, side by side. If you are passionate about this subject, it would be well worth your effort next time. Thanks for the conversation, looking forward to seeing your posts online in future articles.

ANYbody.going.down?

But it brings new meaning to the term "Going down....."

Uh, apparently only 18 people....

The invesitgators need to find out if the elevator was made in China....if so, they need to look for ethyl glycol, a poison used in just about everything made in China!

Aren't they all still mostly Otis Elevators?

From now on, I'm taking the stairs.

How awful! And the 75,500 work-related deaths last YEAR? I sure hope that's a mis-print as it's a staggering number.

I'm OK with our US government safety regulations (and more government, if needed) to keep us safe.

So when the Chinese sell you melamine in your toothpaste, candy and dog food, poisonous drywall, lead paint on children's toys, etc, you are surprised they have an "unsafe for work" environment for their laborers and peons? How do you think they can make and sell all that crap so cheaply here after shipping it halfway round the world ? And they say critical thinking in the US is dead !

I know it is part of the etc, but they also sold us tainted baby formula. Can't let that one not be highlighted.

@ United WE Stand

Those who would give up Essential
Liberty
to
purchase a little Temporary
Safety,
deserve
neither Liberty nor
Safety.

Ben Franklin

Well, to be fair they are going through the same growing pains that America went through in her industrial revolution when profits are all that mattered...until the evil unions ruined it all.

Think of how great America could be if unions hadn't destroyed anything?

Why, with approx 75K deaths a year, think of all the job openings?

Unions, now im seeing just how much of a job killer they really are...keeping people alive, doesnt help anyone else and thats just selfish.

Jessica I see that you've really done your homework on child labor in the US and why labor union formed.

Why you must be an expert on coal mining as well?

selfish? You ma'am are an iggit.

moonie, you didn't get the sacasm...really?

We could compete effectively with China if the Republicans can do away with more regulations and regulatory agencies like OSHA........maybe even win this dubious "record" in expendable workers...............maybe NOT. Some regulations can be good for you it seems and I just noticed BlueJake with the same sentiments..........+mark for you Blue

@ Bill

Franklin was not describing some tension between government power and individual liberty. He was describing, rather, effective self-government in the service of security as the very liberty it would be contemptible to trade. Notwithstanding the way the quotation has come down to us, Franklin saw the liberty and security interests of Pennsylvanians as aligned.

AS USUAL, the sheeple take and twist things to suit them

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2011/07/15/security-vs-liberty-what-did-ben-franklin-really-mean/

Bill-874787

"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one".
Benjamin Franklin

We don't want no gubmit interference. Let the markets work themselves out.

Somebody is copying my "gubmint" spelling. Cool !

Oh, the regional dialectic "gubmint' has been around for many decades in the south, though growing up in rural West Tennessee, we recall the omission of the "b" sound ...

as it was more commonly called "that *$@!# gumint" ..

I know! It's the democrats who are all for labor!!

Too bad it was the democrats who took away collective bargaining from federal union employees in 1978, huh?

D'oh!

Oh wait, that was Bush's fault too!

Yea, just like we know Carter was the prick for President who fired ALL Air Traffic Controllers who were striking for better hours. I mean who cares if someone sits and watches 1000's of planes precariously for 12- 16 hours a day? Damn them for wanting better working conditions, those lazy pussies.

Trust2112 - that was Reagan who fired all the Air Traffic Controllers.

We don't want no gubmit interference. Let the markets work themselves out.

As Ron Paul said, we don't need auto safety regulations because consumers would stop buying vehicles that killed so many of them.

How does that guy has a following is beyond me.

trust2112, you know what happens to the vast majority of people in the country who don't belong to unions when they don't show up for work?

OK, take a second....concentrate...think really hard... wait for it .... wait for it ...

You guessed it, they get fired! Ah-mazing! So the air traffic controllers got to feel what most of the rest of the country gets for not showing up for work. Too bad their little tantrum backfired.

By all means, the next time you think you work way too hard for the compensation and benefits you get, just don't go to work. People will really empathize with you when they fire your a$$. Really.

And again, thank Carter for taking away collective bargaining from federal union workers...those democrats really are for the working people, all righty!

trust2112

Yea, just like we know Carter was the prick for President who fired ALL Air Traffic Controllers who were striking for better hours. I mean who cares if someone sits and watches 1000's of planes precariously for 12- 16 hours a day? Damn them for wanting better working conditions, those lazy pussies

_____________________________________________________________

ARE YOU FRIGGEN SERIOUS?? CARTER????????????

OMG

Jax A

trust2112, you know what happens to the vast majority of people in the country who don't belong to unions when they don't show up for work?

OK, take a second....concentrate...think really hard... wait for it .... wait for it ...

You guessed it, they get fired! Ah-mazing! So the air traffic controllers got to feel what most of the rest of the country gets for not showing up for work. Too bad their little tantrum backfired.

By all means, the next time you think you work way too hard for the compensation and benefits you get, just don't go to work. People will really empathize with you when they fire your a$$. Really.

And again, thank Carter for taking away collective bargaining from federal union workers...those democrats really are for the working people, all righty!

______________________________________________

YES THEY ARE

Try to get through your little brain that the operation of the Federal government is pretty darn important..

Given that tidbit of information, if there were to be a strike of essential government workers, of any dept, it would be detrimental to the security of the US......

SO YES, Carter was watching out for the country

When was the last time you heard a Federal employee complaining about working conditions????????

Dude, I know it was Reagan, if you read other posts, they were claiming it was a Democrat conspiracy. I was being sarcastic. I was a teenager when Reagan @!$%#canned them.

Dan 2287140 -

You either have no idea what the CSRA of 1978 was, or the topic at hand, or neither.

I'm guessing neither.

So I'll try to ask you in a way you CAN understand.

How was Jimmy Carter and the democrats taking collective bargaining away from federal union employees in 1978 any different than what caused the uproar in Wisconsin, you know, when Walker took collective bargaining away from the municipal union workers? (See? the "working conditions" was never the issue, here...it was...say it with me...collective bargaining.)

Explain the difference to me.

Yo Voice : I use "gubmint" as that is the way Ronnie Raygun, said it. Don't believe he was from the south. Didn't see it on the site before I used it. Posted at least a hundred times over the last few years.

Being a lawyer in China is a very risky occupation; especially if you represent the poor against anyone with any measure of power or wealth at all.

I've seen the Chinese legal code first hand; its a bloody nightmare of contradictions and completely empty proclamations of honest and fair intent while simultaneously being very careful not to grant any actual rights or protections against the government.

You can simultaneously get a license from the government to conduct business with all required papers and still be in violation of the law in a dozen ways ensuring you can be shut down at any time anyone wants. Plus, unless you are handy with bribes, nothing you submit will ever see the light of day.

I love the Chinese people, their stalwart work ethic and their rich culture; the PRC government itself is a god damn nightmare.

Yeah, but that's called a "safety feature," which costs money, and needs to be maintained, and inspected on a regular basis. Luckily, they don't have to put up with such oppressive "socialism" in China.

Construction Elevator

http://www.ehow.com/about_6383816_do-safety-elevators-work_.html

Oh yes. Otis invented the safety feature way over a hundred years ago. But when you build a new one, you need qualified engineers to include it in the design, and supervise it's manufacturing and installation. Qualified Techs to maintain it. This is why a product built in the US costs $50 bucks and "same" thing from China costs $5 to make, $10 to ship and sells for $35 in the US. A qualified engineer never saw it. A metalurgist never supervised the materials. You Americans think you are saving the $15 on price. But you re-buy the same product over and over because they don't last and can't do their jobs. Meanwhile you force the closing of the American jobs in the hunt for your precious $15. So we have 15 to 20 million unemployed looking for a gubmint check and you resent the higher taxes it takes to pay them. We are a schizoid and uneducated bunch caught in the throes of canibalization. And we blame the other guy.

Just like the new girders used to fix up the bridges in California.

Made in China

Just like damn near everything in your house. Most of the parts and electronic components in your car and most of the clothes you wear. Even if your car was assembled in the US, what do you want to bet most of the parts were manufactured in China? Even if you have a japanese car, their manufacturers outsource from China too... and those countries hate each other.

Don't want to buy Chinese goods? Good luck with that.

"...or yen as it is in China."

Do you vote?

LOL!

Exactly JoAnn....read my post below

Yen = Japan

Yuan = China

Also, it is neigh impossible to avoid purchasing everyday products that are made in China, and if they aren't made in China they probably still aren't made in the USA.

Crap, who cares? We know she meant foreign currency. You may not be able to avoid things made in China, but most people don't care. You can go online to find American made, and if you can't at least buy it used when you can. i am like JoAn, I don't want to contribute to the further downfall of American manufacturing.

pfffft.

Shame you didn't start doing that 20+ years ago....maybe the manufacturing jobs would still be here instead of overseas.

If AMERICANS insisted on AMERICAN MADE products then products will be made HERE.

If you insist on continuing to buy cheap crap at Walmart you can bet that Americans will continue to suffer.

Good luck finding a computer, TV or cell phone that isn't filled with Chinese parts if not completely manufactured in China.

Wait, do you use an old rotary phone or something? Got an old Zenith 20 inch TV with a UHF dial?

Somehow, I highly doubt the substance of post #11.0

Thank you Joann. I have found that somethings just can't be found here without buying Chinese. Essential items can always be found with made in America labels though. If I can't avoid Chinese products, I just DO NOT BUY them. No point what-s0-ever in building the economy of what looks to be our next military oponent.

Nice. What about the human beings that live there?

Yeah, that's great Phil but if you really didn't care, you wouldn't have posted anything at all. From this, it looks a lot more like you might be harboring some kind of grudge against foreigners, asians or Chinese people in particular.

Wait? Would that make you some kind of racist... or maybe a nationalist? Tell us how you really feel.

Wow Chuck, this sounds just like American capitalism.

It sounds like American patriotism. Corporations that ship the concept of capitalism overseas is a whole different story.

What brand of keyboard, mouse and computer do you use? What about your cell phone? There's an all american made cell phone?

Which one is that? I'm dying to hear.

Unless you've got an old Apple IIe on your desk, I seriously doubt anything you just wrote in that post you just made.

Gravity is a bitch.

145 mph?, Rich must of forgot about terminal velocity...

I agree completely avoid chinese products whenever possible.

Yes, they are pathetic.

So Brooke, what's it like to be a sociopath? I always wanted to know how it feels to be dead on the inside.

Is that someplace in California, and I hope limited to California? I read about that and I am still angry and dismayed that it could even be considered.

That's scary. Write your congressman/woman.

Not at all true. I've heard this one before and I believe it involves an american construction company that is partly owned by civilian chinese investors. Not exactly the same thing as PRC laborers with little red stars on their heads running the show now is it?

Yes they really are.

"I went there one day ain't never going back."

Hell? Don't be so sure.

I think he was using that phrase like an idiom or whosawhatsit.

That's great Judd. I'd prefer it if America weren't represented internationally by bigots as well.

When you watch osha come into a company and nitpick "violations" that are a joke to the tune of $75,000 in fines it is abuse and detrimental to the country.

It can be interesting...