Posted on 09/08/2012 8:21:05 AM PDT by Harley
U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms Cities hire Chinese instead of American workers for building projects. (WATCH VIDEO)
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I believe “free trade” could have been done differently.
As it started it had hope.
However we did not demand reciprocity. We jumped in without insisting on protections for our own manufacturing.
We signed, and we made a lot of money. Now we fact the results of that...
Our manufacturing is gone. Our government has become a HUGE expensive hand-out.
And almost less than half of Americans now pay taxes.
It is time to recognize we did it wrong. And back-track.
Now.
Not in four years.
Now.
So if you were you in charge, you would arrest the entire Cato Institute staff then?
As a trained engineer I was instructed to take every system under design to its limits as proof of concept. Lets take the trade arguments to their limits. Lets remove all unions, taxes and regulations from manufacturing in the USA. All of it. Now having "unleashed" the US worker I argue that the US worker would still be undercut by third world slave labor regardless, perhaps at a slower pace but the off shoring would continue. Under these circumstances then, it would be illogical to manufacture anything in the USA. There is enough slave labor in China alone to manufacture everything in the entire world.
“There is enough slave labor in China alone to manufacture everything in the entire world.”
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Emphatic bump.
And the Chinese have SUCH a fantastic record with high quality materials and workmanship! You can almost call all Chinese stuff “single use only” if that!!!!
Including bridges.
See I don’t think they’ve thought this through.
You missed the last step.
There is a shrinking middle class. There is no doubt of that.
What you leave out is the rest of the world. Manufacturing.
By eliminating manufacturing, we eliminate wealth creation, so now we are merely arguing back and forth about who controls what portion of a (shrinking) whole.
Asia becomes stronger. Rapidly.
What we are witnessing is the end of the West.
The end. Not merely an adaption. If we do not turn this around, we perish.
I ordered headlight lenses on ebay for a ‘02 mitsubishi. They came stamped made in China. Funny, the drivers side was for the wrong year. But the box had the correct label. So the factory worker stuffed the wrong lens into the box instead of correcting the problem. See in a slave factory you dont stop production just slap and go.
The type of manufacturing in question is not coming back, no matter what government does. Even Chinese workers are gradually being replaced by automation. Some factories are already starting to come back onshore due to higher transportation and raw materials costs, but jobs aren't coming with them - robots are. The age of the Middle Class American Factory Worker is long gone - and the manual stuff will move on to Africa as Asia slowly gets too expensive.
We could perhaps require that American companies get all public infrastructure contracts - but we could not then afford to complete any of those projects unless union labor was explicitly prohibited (and imagine how that would go over.)
We are undergoing a major economic shift just like the Industrial Revolution. In that time farmers could move to the city and work in factories - today, so far, factory workers have little to shift to besides lower-paying service work. And that is almost entirely the fault of government.
Our government has been shaped for a century to answer to the needs and priorities of Industrial Age companies (especially the banks) - thus, our system of laws does not account for the potential of the individual in the Information Age and in fact actively works to stifle him in an attempt to curry political favor from banks, industrialists, and antiquated union labor.
The computer/Internet boom of the late 90's largely happened because government was caught flat-footed and didn't know how to respond or regulate or tax what was going on. Some analogous development will no doubt come along that we can't foresee right now, resulting in another Information Age mini-boom though repurposing idled factory workers and doing it so quickly that the statists can't cope with it. Such booms are much more likely to take hold if government keeps out of the way.
Unfortunately, using government to erect and enforce trade barriers is not going to achieve the desired purpose - government will get stronger, but the economy won't.
Free trade policies may have ended the American Industrial Revolution a decade too early. But ending them now can't bring it back.
By off shoring Free Traitors have eliminated the conventional option. Mushroom clouds on the horizon....
At current speed and direction, I agree 100%.
That is why I have completely reversed course.
We have (far) overstepped all logic in outsourcing. We have lost control.
We need to quickly reverse course and rebuild. Re-build. Re-build, and manufacture things in America again.
Using trade barriers to every extent possible.
Now.
The factory, whether its automated or not, is irrelevant. What is important to me is the location of the factory. Factories need to be in the USA, as every manufacturing facility has the ability to provide for national security in a “real” war.
Hub haunts auctions and garage sales for old tools/parts etc that are made in the US or even in Taiwan or Japan.
Chinese junk is JUNK. The rubber stinks and cracks, the aluminum rusts, the iron cracks and breaks. Nothing fits. It’s worthless. Anyone reading news has read about huge Chinese projects in China that disintegrate and fall apart. A commie/thugocracy that destroys its own environment and people so an elite few can become filthy rich should NOT be supported by “American” businesses. Companies have gone there to manufacture just so that they can make more money off of serf labor and no environmental laws, and no doubt politicians got some $ out of the mess.
China can’t collapse too soon; it’s happening as we speak.
No news here. Profits at all costs is the name of the game. If you can’t take the work to the slaves, bring the slaves to the work. This shows that slave labor is working its way up the food chain, and eventually even high end financial, business, government, technical, and even jobs considered to be outsourcing resistant will be vulnerable. Welcome to the global economy folks, where no boat is left floating.
Troll alert!
Oh noes! Now their importing trolls to live under the bridges.
Yeah, right, seriously.
Couldn’t build it without the help of your chinese comrades?
If that’s the case, then we’re in deeper trouble than I originally thought.
Without question, absolutely!
We get this country right and do it really fast, or the government and their wealthy elite insider friends, who have zero allegiance to the U.S., will leave America dead on the floor.
Profits regardless of consequences.
It's the same with our lawless bleeding borders. The fat corps and big biz owners love the dirt cheap labor. They want employees who think a 5 minute break is a company benefit, who smile while making 9 bucks an hour, as they bankroll the Republicans and Democrats to make damn sure those borders remain wide open, with continued waves of low wage workers.
Those making the big profits do not care when hundreds of thousands of American jobs and businesses end up in Mexico or Red China, India etc.
They just don't give a damn. Just looking around at our debt, standard of living, borders and our economy, it *totally* substantiates this.
Their wealth goes through the roof, while Ma and Pa in Kansas or Nevada watch theirs go into the toilet.
Send hundreds of thousands of jobs/businesses overseas, while routinely importing tens of hundreds thousands of low wage foreigners?
Who are these people who suggested this would benefit America?
It's literally national suicide.
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