Reply With QuoteI love this part:
"Communist Party officials say they're concerned and want disputes handled peacefully" :hammer2:
Drive down the local tank and just talk it out.
An article I saw in the news (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050723/...tory_vs_farm_1)
I love this part:
"Communist Party officials say they're concerned and want disputes handled peacefully" :hammer2:
Drive down the local tank and just talk it out.
The US Navy...Made in China
China-Mart Takes Over
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
My poor beloved country, trapped in a Middle Eastern quagmire and tricked by Osama bin Laden into subsidizing to the tune of $300 billion (spent or appropriated) a training ground for Muslim terrorists and insurgents while our once fabulous economy disintegrates.
If the US were still rich and just wanted to throw several hundred billion dollars at bin Laden as a good will gesture, that would be one thing. But we are borrowing the money
that we are using to train Muslim terrorists to kill and maim our troops in Iraq and Londoners in England.
The money is being lent to us mainly by Asians, especially the Chinese. China has so many dollars to lend to us because we send so many dollars to China to pay for the goods and services that patriotic American corporations have decided to supply to us from China instead of from America.
US corporations decided that the way to get rich was to destroy their American consumer base by closing their American factories, throwing their US employees out of work and hiring Chinese instead.
The Chinese work for less, you see, and free trade economists say lowering costs makes us better off.
What US corporations and the free trade economists overlook is that giving Americans' jobs to foreigners raises foreign incomes and lowers American incomes. When credit cards and home equity lines are maxed out, there will be nothing to support the US consumer market. The American corporations who moved their capital and technology to China will have to find new customers.
Maybe the Chinese government will let the relocated US firms sell to Chinese customers, or maybe the Chinese government will let the US firms go bankrupt. The latter favors China's strategic interest. Chinese businessmen will purchase the bankrupt firms, and Chinese businesses will sell to Chinese customers.
Americans are pouring so much money into China that China can finance our wars while it buys up our companies.
Everyone was shocked that a Chinese company could outbid Chevron for Unocal. China has already purchased IBM's personal computer business, and is now after US appliance maker Maytag (whose appliances are made in Mexico).
The outsourcing mania has hit the Pentagon, and China will soon be supplying the ships for the US Navy. The Pentagon, seeking lowest cost, is pushing defense contractors to outsource offshore for more materials, components and systems.
This means the end of US shipbuilding capability. Component suppliers to American shipbuilding are already skeletal thin, with most components only having sole suppliers. For example, Manufacturing & Technology News (July 8) reports that 80% of the components for the Virginia Class submarine come from sole sources.
With not enough US Navy ships being built to support even an industry of sole suppliers, Asia is fast becoming the only source for US Navy ships.
While President Bush spends $300 billion recruiting and training terrorists for bin Laden in Iraq, US Navy ship procurement has fallen 33% since 2001.
Meanwhile China is on a rip. China is now the third largest shipbuilder after South Korea and Japan. In five years China's submarine fleet will be twice the size of America's. In 10 years China's navy will be larger than the American fleet.
This is amazing performance for a country that as recently as 1989 had essentially no shipbuilding industry.
This year the US is producing 6 ships, one-tenth of South Korea's output. In 2006 the US is scheduled to produce only 4 ships, because China has outbid us for the steel. The US "superpower" can no longer afford to compete against China for essential materials.
Cynthia Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association says that "the manufacture of entire components and systems will migrate to China in the next several years under current Department of Defense policy with respect to outsourcing."
But, hey, we will get ships cheaper, and it is making us rich!
Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
The Chinese are not buying Unocal. They are retracting their offer, apparently due to congressional concerns of National Security Interests.
By the way Blown, you left out the fact that George Bush (I guess personally so the service branches (Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force) get no credit) is KILLING most of Bin-Ladden's (forget Al-Zarquawi, the beheading butcher of Baghdad, he's a nobody) "trained" recruits. Even BIN_LADDEN has expressed himself (electronic eavesdropping is such a wonderful thing. YOU can't listen to a cell-conversation but the USAF sure can if it wants to) that his group of "trained" murderers is dwindling. He is having a hard time recruiting people for the express purpose of DYING. His bodies are stacking up like so much cordwood while we lose a soldier every now and again. He can't afford to lose a rate of 100 to 1.
Liberalism ... A Mental Disorder.
Blown,
Sounds to me like if the American worker didn't demand $18/hour to scan groceries we might not be in this shape.
A government is not responsible for supporting a country unwilling to admit what labor is worth. As it is with any job, when you decide you are not working anymore for what they are paying you, two things happen, you gamble that nobody can do it for less, and your employer gambles that they can get it done for less.
The chinese have a far lower quality of life than we do. They don't have to worry about boat payments, and they don't have to worry about $3 gas for their SUV's. As a workforce, they will happily work for less. More power to them.
I can't shake the impression that you are complaining with your post. I realize it is a quote from someone else, but what would you have the businesses do? Flounder to overpay people?
The military is so worried about budgetary concerns because fukking hippies have denuded their budget. Complain about Chinese shipbuilding next time someone cuts a military spending budget. So what if we can't build our ships? We have someone who can. I know for a fact that shipyard workers are demanding $50/hour and up. That doesn't take quantum physics to see huge savings right there. You want to see shipbuilding stay here??? Tell a guy welding that you need him to start working for $12/hour, not $60 just because he has been there a while. (Before everyone gets pissy, I was a shipyard welder... they are not worth $60/hour. I have consultants working for me that are industry leading making little over that. Welding ain't rocket surgery...)
I am not even going to address the war on terrorism. That is some seriously ignorant stuff right there...
Take some responsibility folks. If you can be easily replaced, do something harder and better to change that. Earn a niche. If you complain that the service is worse now that the tech lines are overseas... build your own damn computer. See how bad your own service is. Nobody likes being replaced. Get over it.
The Thai boatbuilders are doing a better job than ANYONE in the US. Woodwork that looks like a damn symphony hall, fit and finish so killer you can't see fasteners and a pride in completion not seen anywhere here. You don't believe me? Take the pepsi challenge between a Marlowe Explorer and any American yacht. It will be like a Quizno's commercial, and the Marlowe is a fraction of the price of an American built yacht. Same quality materials, American engineered and inspected.. Thai built.
While hippies are busy complaining about Glen Canyon Dam, the Chinese are building the shit out of those knapsacks they tote their patchouli around in. Go hawk your hemp necklaces somewhere else...
I hate whiners...
Even the union workers are getting fed up. The Teamsters and Service Workers have bailed on the AFL-CIO because they are losing people and control. Unions have a value, but they refuse to work with the companies. They are still back in the 1930s with their tactics and demands. Now the airlines, GM and major other companies that are using union labor are going bankrupt and dumping those overly generous benefits left and right. Meanwhile, the union brass are not cleaning house, reducing excess or cutting their benefits. They are getting rich while their members are losing jobs.
Until we get to the point where we are comfortable with our children being welders, machinists and mechanics. When we consider a lawyer to be a disgraceful profession and when we accept the fact that family is more important than anything else, only then will we restore our industrial base to a position of strength.
Oh, and Lowrider, my tail is still sore. :smile:
Unions HAD a day, and I believe it has passed (before the "I'm anti-union" bash starts, I belong to one, and I AM anti-union actually).
Want to know what a union does to a company, just ask ANY ex-Pan American Airlines employee. Pan Am didn't close their doors because they were tired of flying people arround. They didn't close because the public chose another carier. They closed because they went BROKE. The economy got more competitive, the union (and the foolish employees) refused to permit any contract changes (wages, raises, bennefits) to keep the company operating so it went bankrupt. The guys who had 15 years there, were making great wages (comparatively at the time) then found a new bennefit (that didn't pay nearly as well) "Unemployment".
I belong to the IAMAW, solely to have voting and complaining rights if I do not like a contract I am offered or is ratified by a majority vote over me. Just like a natl election, if you want complaining rights, you have to express an OFFICIAL opinion (vote). No vote, then cry to the hand, the ears won't listen.
Froggy & the Dog are entirely correct. The reason Mexicans are here picking strawberries (illegally)? We Americans think we are "too good" to do it. We think we are "worth more" and so won't do it.
The reason we have no steel-making industry here? American steelworkers cost so much that Iron ore can be shipped 8,000 miles, smelted into steel, worked into shapes as desired, shipped 8,000 miles BACK and STILL sell for less than ours here (and contrary to popular opinions, can be made to equal strength quality if desired).
Only a part of it is Wages/Bennefits though. At least an equal part of it is Govt regulation (ALL Of it which predates the current administration (might as well stop the blame now)).
OSHA
EPA
NIOSH
Federal Wage Labor Board
IRS
etc.
Sorry about your tail Seadog. I'll lend you my all-foam lifejacket next time. Fri afternoon the water was BEAUTIFUL for The Admiral & I. You and the Dam (the other female dog term, the one that goes with "sire") should have come for a ride then. You would have had no complaints then. See you arround my friend. :smile:
The way I see it, GW is a Fing genious. According to the unofficial body count, we've killed something like 50,000 of those dirtbags already and we've only lost 1,800 of our troops TOTAL! So how long would it take us through spy games and special forces missions to take out 50,000 of them? How much would it cost in surveillance and manpower? How long would it take? We have the luxury now of not only killing these scumbags on THEIR turf before they can get into an airplane in Boston, they are coming to us to get killed from the surrounding countries!! Imagine if you were a home owner and the exterminator showed up to deal with your termite problem. If he told you he had a way to make the termites all march out into plain view so he could kill them, would you pay extra for that service instead of having him tear your house apart or bag it? You bet you would.
The liberals and anti-military hippies are all pissed off because Bush is doing what Clinton couldn't or wouldn't. While BJ Bill was busy sticking his cigars in Monica's "humidor", Osama was making plans for 9-11. If Clinton had kicked Saddam out and liberated 40 million people from a murderous dictator, the New York Times would be demanding his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize just like Jimma Carta the peanut farma. Now, after predicting the elections in Iraq would fail, we'd lose the war and all that, they realize they once again are on the wrong side of history and are pissed off even more. Nothing but a bunch of sore losers....
Oh, so anyways... back to the regularly scheduled commentary on what this thread was REALLY about. China scares me. They are going through an industrial revolution right now similar to the one we went through in the late 1800's/early 1900's. On top of that, their military is expanding and improving at a rate that might soon be able to match our best stuff. They also benefitted nicely by Clinton's quid pro quo. I won't go into details, but before the Clintons, China had no viable nuclear program and no ability to sub-launch a nuke. Overnight, they somehow figured out how to do those things and the Clintons bank account swelled considerably.
So now we have a country with a military that dwarfs ours, with technology less than a step behind us, who has proven their desire to provoke us at every turn. (The P3 incident and Taiwan documents) And unlike the rubber spined leadership in our country, I believe China would have no problem unleashing a no holds barred war upon us. They won't worry about our rights or POW treatment or not attacking our religious establishments. They will roll over us if they have half a chance no matter what we think our "rights" are. Right now they are no doubt taking stock of our weaknesses and adjusting their plans to take advantage of them.
The final problem is resources. China's thirst for natural resources has literally exploded and I think their demand versus our demand might be the impetus for a conflict. There won't be enough oil for the US and China in 20 years, so then what happens? But maybe this article signals a ray of hope.
Will China go the way of Japan? The Japanese looked hell-bent 20 years ago to take over our country financially. But then our culture invaded their youth and everything that made them strong went by the wayside. Will China's citizens tolerate the government ramming expansion down their throats? Or will they succumb to the natural yearning for freedom that is inherant to human nature?
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