NO cheers, unfortunately.
...oh, and Merry Christmas.
Posted on 12/22/2007 10:48:10 PM PST by nwrep
New York, NY (AHN) - The Boeing Company announced on Thursday that it has signed a $1 billion agreement with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) of India as a part of manufacturing outsourcing contract.
According to the 10-year pact, HAL will manufacture sub-systems of Boeing's fighter planes including F-18 Super Hornets and Apache Helicopters.
Initially, Boeing will invest around $20 million annually to increase its manufacturing unit size and complexity along with business opportunities in the sub-continent.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Jim Albaugh, President of Boeing Integrated Defense System and Chairman Ashok K Baweja, the Indian defense Public Sector Undertaking of HAL.
The Chicago-based Boeing said in a statement on Thursday that it will provide Bangalore-based HAL with its technology to develop manufacturing processes for the production of the sub-systems or hardware for Boeing.
"The agreement represents an important step in our efforts to build solid long-term partnerships in India to make Boeing products more globally competitive, while allowing HAL to grow and expand its potential market around the world," Jim Albaugh said in a statement.
HAL has 18 production units and nine research and design centers in India with 32,000 staff members.
Speculating what SatinDoll was getting at, I believe the "left a valve open" was shorthand for the idea that it was human error. Slip-blind water isolation plates that could have prevented the problem were not not used--evidently weren't on the checklist. This isn't a design problem, but an operational problem. Likewise, the inoperative alarms and other equipment.
The other point that has been made is that the plant's original design had been changed by the Indian engineers to make use of what was available indiginously and more cheaply (e.g., hydraulic, rather than electronic, instrumentation).
It does seem that there was blame to go around, including a large part to the Indian side of things.
Or, Americans keep themselves competitive by being superior in some way that justifies the difference... Or we convince the whole GLOBE not to buy from the lowest bidder (or lowest safety/environmental/rights standards [e.g., China])... Or be the ones who can still make money while the wages are low--the owners...
But the globalization genie is out of the bottle, and protectionism isn't going to stop it. Typical protectionism can't stop Germans from buying where they get the best deal, even if it hampers Americans from doing so. "Buying American," just to do so, doesn't really help. TANSTAAFL!
If globalization/equalization continues, and Americans can't provide a good argument why they should be paid so much more than other workers, then the only way I see Americans maintaining their current standards of wealth is to forget jobs. Wages will be minimal. Americans must be the owners, getting a profit by using low-wage workers...and that's what the CEOs, etc., are doing now.
You can't just plunk a facility as dangerous as the Bhopal plant in a foreign country and assume things will work out. The oversight should have been much, much more stringent.
To Union Carbide's credit, they built all of the right equipment. They just didn't do anything about it when it was not operated or maintained properly.
I take it you’ll be in the market for an F-22 :)
I’m with you, Psycho: anything military related should be made in the U.S.A.
You are making my statement. It is because of a lack of regulation, of safety mindedness, and the fact nothing gets done in India without bribes that makes the business environment in the subcontinent so attractive to U.S. businesses. They would like the U.S. to be that way.
On a visit to India I witnessed a child crushed by a panicked elephant. A tragedy. But people there ignored that little girl’s body lying in the dust. When I started yelling, someone came over and told me to shut up, that the child was “dalit”. They just left her body there, and all because she was an untouchable. That was in 1979. Maybe things have changed dramatically since then, and I, for one, certainly hope so.
I’ve worked in quality related positions in the Nuclear Power Industry. Many of my coworkers have been Indian. Most have no desire to go back to India. I know of no one, not myself nor any of the Indians I worked with who would have accepted lax safety regs or procedures. But if your people, your employees don’t live and breathe safety, all the laws in the world that punish businesses, won’t keep the public safe.
Sounds like the auto industry: was it?
>>
...the governments in the East insist on being given the latest technology...as a “condition” of opening up their markets...in the future, after...knowledge has been taken...the factories and other offshore assets will be...nationalized...
>>
You got that right.
Thank you for your information. Sounds exactly right. I never said Union Carbide was without fault, only that U.S. businesses move to a foreign nation and expect everything to function the same over there as things function here at home.
People everywhere are not the same nor do they share the same values.
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...the only reason the USA could fight a war on 2 large fronts...was because we had out own ore mines, our own steel mills, and our own aircraft and ship building companies...
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Yep. Yet somehow the lessons of history just aren’t being taught in school anymore. Political correctness is deemed more important.
Americans have to get a higher wage because of the government requirements on them. They need health, life, auto insurance etc. they pay into unemployment compensation, they pay high taxes to pay for infrastructure and on and on. Do your homework! Third world countries do not have these requirements. That’s why they can work cheaper. Putting it simply we have much higher overhead here in America and need a higher wage to pay for it. That’s why the competition is unfair and the corporations are taking advantage of this.
CEO's and globalists apparently want to have it both ways at the expense of working productive American people. Most productive Americans do not live nor do they want to live like those working in third world countries and the cost of living is not even comparable. These are exactly the reason that the Democrats WILL take power and we will become a socialist country. Hope all the globalists and cheap labor CEO's are happy destroying the American Dream for common man, not to mention the Republican Party who fails to address the average working American. What percentage of the population do you consider to be CEO's? This is ridiculous. Who is going to buy these products made by cheap wages?
“and it will continue until Americans realize that they can’t expect to be paid way far above global market wages.”
Wrong! When the rest of the world lives at our standard then can you say such a thing.
“I hope Boeing has some good QC procedures in place, for their own sake.”
They don’t. They have that silly “Six Sigma Black Belt” superficial fluff for quality control.
NO cheers, unfortunately.
...oh, and Merry Christmas.
bump with no comment.
spoken like someone that has no clue about the numbers.
i have been forced to run operations using offshore labor. show me how your college educated kid would ever compete against similar education & experience.. while only being paid $350-500 per month (60 hour weeks normal). good luck. hey, maybe he/she could re-train into another field...
America gets nothing by shipping our goods to countries where the median income is less then $8000/yr. the only plus comes to the small group of large investors that may yield a better dividend from saved wages. meanwhile, Americans lose their local jobs.. further reducing the supply of jobs in the US... while experiencing an influx of labor from south of the border. that all sums up to massive downward pressure on the wages of the lower and middle classes. meanwhile, we also lose the next generation of products and ideas... as they usually come from those working on the current generation
i have done every job from construction, restaurants, stock boy, parts runner, gas station attendant, software developer, architect, to CTO. anytime i hear some globalist going on about how we need to have free trade and import labor and offshore jobs.. because these are jobs Americans do not want to do... it just pisses me off. it’s a spit in the face of true Americans that have no problem rolling up their sleeves to get the job done.
and yes.. normally these globalists have never had to rely on the wages from an honest days manual labor
all America would have to do to resolve these issues would be to:
1) heavily fine any organization employing illegals (it is the law after all)
2) add tariffs to imported goods which would allow Americans to compete
Nobody is denying that an human element would have played a role in the accident.The issue here is whether,it is universal of companies in India(or for that matter, elsewhere).UC,Bhopal was not the first industrial/chemical plant in India-several such facilities have been built through out India by Indian,Western & Japanese companies/with assistance.How good/bad is the safety record for those????It’s directly related to the ivestment in proper training & safety procedures.
Actually,I think I am accepting reality as it is.Little you or I can do about it.
Well said.
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