What China has that the U.S. cannot match

Ah, China, a free-market dream!

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Ah….the Year of the Dragon.

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So at the next debate when Ron Paul says business moving overseas has nothing to do with taxes or regulations, he’ll get booed.

When he describes the conditions of Chinese workers, Newt will say “Hey! We can do that right here and bring back American jobs!!!”

and he’ll get a standing ovation.

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America rid itself of slave labor long ago. Many workers in the U.S. would rather have a job that provides benefits such as healthcare, retirement, workmans comp, and unemployment benefits if they are released.

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I think that’s what the cons here envy, communist envy, where the workers are put in their place and the corprations reap the financial riches. Globalization for the US has been a bust, instead of raising them up to our standards, we are careening downward to theirs…

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And this was built by saint Jobs…….Many on here were praising the man for his insight, compassion, etc just a few months back.

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As the overseas made electronics continue to erode jobs and
careers in the US no one in poitics or business addresses this
problem. Free Market Business cannot compete with government
sponsored business but the Free Market does not recognize that
the foreign owned brands will someday handle all the products
of the foreign owned manufacturers or they don’t care.

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Mad Max

See what happens when some people get new information? The reassess what they think. That’s as opposed to those who sign pledges to never, ever change.

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…and don’t forget the company stores…

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Republicans likely yearn for a return to those days.

They sure were trying when they passed the immigration bill. Imagine that….Americans are not willing to move to South Georgia and harvest crops for $10 an hour. There was palpable frustration we couldn’t get people to abandon their families for a couple months of hard labor with no benefits.

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Because so much of what you purchase goes to China, right?

List out your monthly expenses. Federal taxes, state, taxes, property taxes, health insurance, Home Insurance, Car insurance, cable TV, movies, music, gasoline, electricity, natural gas, fresh foods, canned foods, …….and then Ipods and other electronic gadgets and clothing….

Now what % goes to China?

That’s what we thought. Barking up the wrong tree again.

Taxes and regulations are strangling everything you get from the US (vast majority of your expenses. Cheap imports is affecting less than 5% of your monthly expenses. It’s not the Chinese labor that is affecting you after all.

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Donovan

Care to tell us which keeps us from becoming more like China regarding work conditions:

- putting in place laws and regulations regarding workplace safety, work conditions, maximum hours worked, minimum pay and overtime, etc. or

- getting rid of all regulations regarding the same, eliminating OSHA, getting rid of all wage, workplace health and safety laws and regulations?

Then lead us to the conclusion which course will make us more like communist China?

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I hear you can even buy bottled air in their company stores. Fortunately, regulations do not prohibit them from selling dangerous pressurized air cylinders so they can enjoy the benefits that a truly free market has to offer, for less.

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Paul,
What will interest me is how will the GOP pull off a Theocratic Communistic government.

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Jay, last week I listened to Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory on This American Life and it gnawed at my gut for several days.

I don’t know if I can bear to read the Sunday Times story as well.

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Yes sir, Lee, donovan, and Bill Arp, are the poster children of the truly GOP brainwashed…

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Doggone/Ga,

The problem is not restricted to Apple products.

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paul

Another day of simplistic false assumptions by some truly tunnel visioned, low information, opinionators. They’d rather have an enemy to blame than find solutions to the issues…

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Sounds like it’s time for a boycott.

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but…but….but….this is about choices. This is what happens when you purchase Apple products at Walmart. Its the consumer’s fault!

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Bill Arpp: No the best thing China has is a vision of the future. No, not the communes…a finacial plan and a national plan to move forward with…not a plan to discuss and fuss continuously about!

Oh the regulations…oh the uncertainty! When were there not regulations and uncertainty?

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There are two scenes in that This American Life story I’ll never forget.

One is of his translator’s emotional reaction to what she’d had to dispassionately convey to her intrepid American reporter, climaxing in: “It’s all too much.”

The other was the reaction of one of the fired workers to actually seeing an iPad booted up and running (obviously, he and thousands of other workers have never laid hands on the finished devices): “It’s magic.”

Seriously, listen to it, if you can spare the time (unfortunately it’s no longer available as a free download, but can be streamed from that link above.)

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“Unless Americans are willing to live in dorms where their lives are completely controlled by their employers, and do so for less than $17 a day, they cannot compete for the kind of assembly-line jobs that many of our fathers and grandfathers performed.”

Well, gosh, Jay! It seems like some blogger on this here blog’s done been sayin’ that for years. Just like most construction workers in this country can’t compete with Mexicans who live 5 – 6 families per house in communal houses.

But, I can tell you something we’ve got that the Chinese don’t — Callister’s hair! At least not right now they don’t.

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I seem to recall some guy on the tubes commenting that we would pay about 23% more for the same product with our higher labor costs. I assume that would still allow the corporation to maintain its current profit margin. Profits can never be sacrificed. Just ask Monsanto.

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And that’s not the half of it, Jay. Companies like Foxconn are moving factories farther inland to take advantage of even lower-priced labor because the workers along the coast are getting uppity and demanding more money. But, hey! It’s capitalism isn’t it?

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Globalization for the US has been a bust, instead of raising them up to our standards, we are careening downward to theirs…

THIS!!!!

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I see where K71, not wanting to be left out, is also making a very strong bid for the idiotic, evil (LOL!) statement of the morning.

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Jay’s article is right on point and yet all the sheep conveniently use their own take to support their view and yet again ignore the importance of the point. Chinese GDP per capita is about $2,300 compared to $38,000 in the US. That is less than $9/day for a normal 5 day work week. It comes as no surprise that so many would be willing to work in these conditions when it probably doubles what they could make otherwise. The real problem is not lax regulations in China, or lack of unions, or anything else. The simple fact is that we have to make our economy productive enough to justify the huge differential in per capita GDP. If we can, we will thrive and prosper. If we do not, we all will see a lower standard of living and may end up being the ones living in company housing and making cheap electronics for the world. There can be plenty of opinions on how best to do that, but it is the only issue that really matters and the rest is just window dressing.

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“THIS!!!!”

And I don’t agree. It might seem like that for a while, but eventually they’ll start rising up to our standard. The hardest thing to do is get someone to learn from someone else’s experience. Other countries are just hell bent on doing it step by step, as we have done, rather than learning from our experience and skipping a few steps. And of course, there are always going to be companies willing to assist in exploiting workers…but eventually they’ll be on the “losing” side of that proposition.

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Jay apparently you didn’t read it

ON THE FIRST PAGE IT SAYS:

“for technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains”

Another jay fail

Good grief

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George P. that 2300 per capita is close the the per capita earnings
while the 38000 per capita in the US mostly goes to the upper 5%.

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“semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple.”

Jay has reading comprehension issues.

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We could invade Central America and South America.

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Peadawg he doesn’t have one

He’s just a stone thrower

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Heres what china has. Tens of thousands of engineers willing to work with a flexible mindset and a work ethic that has partially disappeared in America.

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So what’s your solution, Jay?

Not that you asked me, but what I’ve posted @ 8.24 & 8.26 is the only ultimate solution. The rest is just deck-chair re-arrangement, in the great scheme of things.

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so THAT’s what the Ga Republicans are up to – they’re trying to get
Foxxconn to come here & build a plant.

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Jm doesn’t realize it, but he is in love with the communist system and all the disadvantages for their workers leading to higher profits for the corporate gods…

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Jm suffers from delusions of relevance.

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Jm is a member of the skimmer class.

Jm’s work produces no goods or services of tangible value. Jm sits in judgement of those who do.

(and speakin’awich, I gots to go do some. Later, kids.)

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Heres what china has. Tens of thousands of engineers willing to work with a flexible mindset and a work ethic that has partially disappeared in America.

Yes, their engineers are nothing more than slave labor.

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And I don’t care

Uh huh.

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confucious say, “blogger who know everything, know nothing”….

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“confucious say, “blogger who know everything, know nothing”

You might want to rethink that one, wise man, there’s an inherent disconnect in there.

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If this country would stop thinking that EVERY child should get a college education and focus on the (technical schools) we could bring manufacturing back to the U.S. It costs a whole lot less to train someone at a technical school versus a four year university. Besides that, most kids that graduate from a technical school will come out making about the same or more than their college counterparts.

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Oh please answers to the root cause of our lost manufacturing won’t be found in the New York Times unless someone enjoys reading lengthy propaganda articles from that sorry media organization. Taxation, over regulation a domestic business climate that’s become less friendly than foreign competition along with government negotiated trade agreements that produce unfavorable trade balances and the shift of investment out of the United States into foreign markets. If you want answers look to business leaders not the left wing propaganda machines like the New York Times.

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I am reading this on my I pad

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Oh, Road Scholar, the hell freezing over part was me agreeing with you and Jm.

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which leads one to ask: what kind of world do you want to live in? where you have to leave your family and live in a dorm to work 12 hours/ day, 6 days/week JUST to be employed???

Great point, USinUK. In isolation, these work conditions sound horrible, until you consider the alternative, which would be no job at all at $0 wages. The reason that 3000 people will jump at the chance to work for Apple in China is because it represents a vast improvement over their current situation. You want to cry over Chinese people working hard and yell loudly when someone suggests that poor kids here n the US be given an opportunity to work at their schools, but the reality is that you have no realistic alternative plan for them. It sounds to me that you’d be happy to see them starve to death instead as long as they did it with “dignity”.

Obviously, the only answer is universal, worldwide governance that gives a good crap about human rights, including workers’ rights.

You know, sfd, if you ever paired up a little brain power with all of that good compassion you seem to be overflowing with, you might get somewhere in life. In case you didn’t notice, an all-powerful state with central planning as its MO is what caused China to be at the bottom of the economic heap in the first place. It is only the limited free-market reforms of the past 20 years or so which has allowed them to prosper.

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Regulations have nothing to do with it.

Well, I beg to differ. Regulations that say we have a minimum wage, a reasonable work-week, and other such laws are exactly why we will never have a city devoted to this kind of thing. Not to mention that unions are ALLOWED by federal law, and people can’t be retaliated against for forming or participating in one *gasp*

Republicans have one thing right – if we want a city full of people that will only do work for their whole lives, living there day in and day out and possibly never leaving, making less than $17 per day and deciding sometimes their only way out is to jump off the roof, then we need to repeal any union regulations, repeal minimum wage laws, and any laws associated with labor at all and let the “free market” decide for itself what to do with workers’ entire lives.

I mean, if that’s your goal….

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I bought made in America for my output display device. I’m still trying to get the hang of reading smoke signals. Y’all type slower, kthks. As for the Made in American CPU, I got an idea from a commercial I saw that had these little critters rowing a boat to generate electricity. Row! Row! Row! …

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Companies like Foxconn are moving factories farther inland to take advantage of even lower-priced labor because the workers along the coast are getting uppity and demanding more money. But, hey! It’s capitalism isn’t it?

Maybe you can help me out, then Sooth. What was there before Foxconn?? Why are these people jumping at the chance to work there???

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Government just outlawed tax refund loans

Hope you don’t need that money sooner

Better to short shrift the Feds anyway

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Bruno – Just because it is better than what they had before doesn’t make it right. I don’t think anyway. Companies like Apple, Dell and HP shouldn’t work with these factories that work that way. I don’t think we could actually do anything about it, which means they’ll always work with those suppliers, but that doesn’t make it right.

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St. Simons,

You’re entirely right. But since the politics in Georgia are conservative, non-collectively thinking, and since you are, I’m going to arrest you for your anti-government speech and have you flogged until you beg for forgiveness. –that’s the Chinese model too.

And on another note, the Chinese are going to have a problem–a huge one–when their population begins to decline because of all the “pulling on the same rope” stupid collectivist decisions they made decades ago to control population. All that health care, elderly care, education and work will have to be done by someone. Who’s going to be around to pay all those bills.

Well, at least India is still growing.

Let’s just keep that in mind when we’re out praising the “virtues” of the Chinese.

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Craig: Who’s advocating that idea?

Ron Paul

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Craig: And anyway the regulations and laws I mentioned are the only ones affecting our ability to create a FoxConn City. Any one of those laws makes such a thing impossible in our country. They ALL need to go if we want a FoxConn City. Personally, I am against that.

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Adam @ 9:33 – People were getting fleeced on those, but the government’s job isn’t to keep people from making bad choices. I mean, if we’re going to go that route, the government should close all pawn shops, title loans and payday loans. But do we really want a government that is powerful enough to do that? If we allow them that power, when do we stop them?

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Jay: Yet we can’t and don’t. Why? Because we can’t get past the bogus “taxes and regulation” formulation that dominates our economic conversation.

I would also argue that we seem to be averse to the idea of funding training of any kind, even in the corporate environment where you are mostly expected to just know everything already.

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What China has is a worker that makes 70,000 outdoor umbrellas for Walmart in a year. The umbrellas sell for 10 dollars each. That is $700,000. The umbrellas cost $1.00 for materials or a total of $70,000. The worker is paid $7,000 a year.

That is a profit for the company of $623,000 a year frosm 1 worker. And that worker is happy to have that job.
That is what China has.

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Nice article Bookman. The Chinese model of manufacturing have made our economy great- more people can afford to buy their cheap products.

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Jay 9:35

The US needs free enterprise zones similar to, though not exactly like china’s

GA could try it but most regs are federal, not state, so that only gets you so far

GA could, however, bulk up the tech school programs. And I mean in a big way. Big campus, big money, big class sizes, big results

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What to do with all the workers that are no longer productive. I need to investigate the alternatives.

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Jay,

Don’t know if your post was directed as a response to my criticism of you and Obama that has gone completely untouched. If it was, I’m here to tell you… You whiffed, completely.

Funny, but what you’re writing about now sounds like whining to me. Talk about it? Debate it?

Yeah sure, this is like the debates (one way debates) Cynthia used to have about “racism”, which in fact, Obama promised, and you damn-well know it.

First, we have engineers aplenty, that is, we do right now (in a booming economy we might have to import some). Second, the education lobby votes Democrat, and it is they, and by extension you and Obama who don’t want education reform. What in Barack obama’s “fundamental transformation” of this country threatened the status quo in education? Nothing. You know that too.

Well, if we can’t get past the “bogus” taxes and regulation format of discussion, it’s only because the Democrats are out of ideas besides nationalizing college students loans and throwing rail car loads of sop-money to teacher’s unions.

Besides, fixing education won’t make 3000 employees available tomorrow.

Sacking the NLRB would come a lot closer, at least to the good people of Boeing and South Carolina.

You think Boeing doesn’t have the engineers it needs, Jay?

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Back when Steve Jobs died, I tried to discretely point out the naivete in Jobs’ optimistic claim that ‘WANTS to die’, a claim I found remarkable given that workers at Apple’s very own affiliate Foxconn had been hurling themselves off buildings out of sheer desperation after being subjected to the horrendous working conditions there.

I think we have a hard time imagining the brutality of what is emerging in China, a place where you have arguably the most efficient form of capitalism ever developed.

And all of it without the constraints of Western norms of human rights and personal liberty.

As Slavoj Zizek says, China’s emergence heralds the realization that the marriage between liberal democracy and capitalism is over.

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$17/day Jay? How much does the Chinese government pay the people who have decided they don’t really want to get up 6 days a week, live in the company barracks, or do the work being offered to them? Do you think they get $20/day or $15 or what to stay home and move from Section 8 line to TANF line to food stamps line to ……………

I’d bet money if you took 3000 people from the unemployment roll and paid them $10/hr to do the same work those Chinese are doing, 1,500 of them wouldn’t show up for work at least 1 of those 6 day work weeks.

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Road – Yeah, I started doing poorly in college and my dad said “you will probably lose your scholarships at the end of this semester, if you do, I’ve talked to Don and he’ll get you a job at the mill.” Interestingly enough, I was able to apply myself just a bit more, and pulled out my best semester in college. Most kids I know weren’t like that. I had a friend who was doing bad at Emory, wasn’t on scholarship and his parents were dirt poor. Yet they continued paying for him to go to school (for some reason they didn’t make him get student loans) and then paid for him an apartment when he flunked out and got a job at Best Buy.

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“We can’t make a fake rubber snake here now-a-days?!? Nice job, Libs!”

It bewilders me how the wingnuts brought about this mess and then want to blame the left.

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ir: It’s both the type of education and the education they get from their parents…if they are even involved. Gov Deal has said he wants HS freshmen to pick one of 17 paths of education for HS. A freshman has no clue. Heck, most college freshmen have a clue of what they want to do with their lives/careers.
Why not narrow the career paths down to a few concentrating on math, science, english, a second language (this should happen when they are younger), and history. Computer and communication electives would fill out the program. There is a dire amount of engineers coming out of college today, esp compared to India and China.

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Fixing education is one of the things “out there in the darkness” and we’re staying under the streetlight.

There seems to be less and less Hope of that happening here in Georgia with each passing day. Not that affordable education has any bearing.

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False choice. Given your “rosy” view of things, one should accept a penny per hour just because it is more than nothing. And that is utter nonsense.

Bruno – Just because it is better than what they had before doesn’t make it right. I don’t think anyway. Companies like Apple, Dell and HP shouldn’t work with these factories that work that way. I don’t think we could actually do anything about it, which means they’ll always work with those suppliers, but that doesn’t make it right.

Sorry, guys, I live in the real world. DDR, for example, had to explain to me last night why it was a horrible crime for Mrs. Sanford, a poor black widow, to pay me $1 per hour ate age 11 to help her and her family work the fields. So, while lawyer Debbie feels great about enforcing the child labor laws and minimum wage laws, I would have made no money at all and the crops would have rotted in the field because Mrs Sanford simply couldn’t afford to pay more.

I know all of you feel great up in you Utopian ivory towers, but those of us who grew up on the poor side of town know that you’re full of crap.

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Craig: Unfortunately, our education establishment is so bogged down in regulation and social idealism (that’s not a good phrase, I know) that I’m not sure how that’s going to work out either.

Our education system is bogged down with the idea that teachers are not allowed to fail their students because they will either get fired or the parents will get mad, and that somehow, in some way, the poor people have to pay exorbitant amounts to get pieces of paper just to meet the minimum requirements for most hiring companies. Other countries with more socialist ideals have state-subsidized education that allows everyone to get an education at any level they desire, and a market that does not require a college degree for work that you don’t need college level knowledge for. Maybe we need to have that as part of the conversation, but first we have to calm down off this “SOSHULIZM EVIL!”

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Once Obama migrates our economy to socialism, then communism, then we too can be like the Chinese.

Now that’s change you can belive in!

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Perhaps we could challenge the chinese in the rubber dogsh*t market?

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Doggone

It might seem like that for a while, but eventually they’ll start rising up to our standard.

That’s all true, but how long will that take for them to start rising, and how far will we have to drop to meet their rise?

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Fast: Where do you get your info on the abundance of US engineers? I get my info about the dire need for more from GT and the Director of Engineering, the head of the CE school and other leaders in private and public busineeses. I also have enginering friends who graduated and have gone into teaching, restaurant ownership, computers, etc. Engineers need not be constrained as some graduates are!

ir: I also had a similar motivation, although not on scholarship! I also changed majors and reverted to my childhood likes…I never grew up..I just got older. But I’ve had a meaningful career designing transportation projects statewide…for 37 years.

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Every highway should have one lane without a speed limit

Special permit and inspection required (your car needs to be able to go fast without blowing up)

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(ir)Rational: For the fact that by trying to keep you from making a dumb decision, they’re trying to save everyone money, I could almost agree with that.

As far as speeding goes, I do think it is something that should be MORE enforced in certain areas, and that speed limits should be higher in other areas (i.e. on a long stretch where everyone goes way higher than the limit anyway) and there should be far better driver education than there is, but that’s all a side note.

The argument you make above is contrary to the one you made earlier, as far as I can tell. The government ends tax refund loans and that saves a lot of people money. I can also see why the government should technically have jurisdiction over what companies can do with refunds in the first place. But my main argument is that the choice to get fleeced without realizing it or being informed of what exactly will happen should not be an available choice, because it is wrong and hurtful to fleece people just to make a quick buck. I have a similar stance on car loans, which have largely gone unregulated and draw in slimy financial managers at dealerships.

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China is doing what we used to do in this country. The world doesn’t mature at the same rate, China has people willing to work under poor conditions for near nothing but to them it beats starving.

Pretty soon we will probably outsource our engineering to China as well.

I don’t really see a solution to this. I wouldn’t mind seeing schools double their time teaching Math and then at the high school level teach advanced science/engineering.

Trying to blame this on Republicans is a reach, What is the Democratic solution to what goes on in China? Neither party is going to change how China conducts their business.

.

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“strong enough for a man but made for a woman”

Hillary Clinton

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“nd until you have some kind of realistic plan by which everyone in the world can live a lavish, utopian life, I’m more comfortable with people having SOME opportunity rather than NO opportunity. Emphasis on the word “realistic”

it’s a BIRD!

it’s a PLANE!!

IT’S BINARY MAN!!!

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dangitall, hit submit too soon.

again, Bruno – who is talking about living a lavish lifestyle? I’m talking about having a job that pays a living wage AND lets you see your family.

if that’s “lavish” to you, then I think we’ve identified the problem. because that’s minimal to me.

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Bruno: You see, Adam, like most liberals, really knows whats best for all of us, and he’s ready and willing to use the government to force his Utopian vision on the rest of us

Yeah right I’m not the one saying everyone who gets pregnant should be forced to carry the child to term or die trying. I’m also not the one saying we are a “Christian Nation” and that it’s not ok to discriminate against Christians, but it is totally ok to do the same against Muslims, and that Muslims should not be allowed to build mosques anywhere, etc etc.

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Adam

Permit would require a much more stringent driving test than normally given

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Craig: Although I am strongly of the conservative persuasion, there’s probably a fair amount of common ground between us.

I would agree with that. For the most part, I think this is highly likely of a majority of the population. However, polarizing issues get in the way too often for us to focus on solutions that work and lift everyone up. Chances are whatever problem we are having, someone, somewhere in the world, has solved it and we only need to follow that example.

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“That’s all true, but how long will that take for them to start rising, and how far will we have to drop to meet their rise?”

Well, that’s a discussion…but just as an indicator, try checking out the progression for “spinners” in the fabric industries and their conversion from hand-spinning to automated. Yes, a lot of hand-spinners were put out of work because of automation, but automation allowed the fabric industries to eliminate a huge bottleneck and to vastly increase their production.

So to the hand-spinners who lost their jobs that was devastating, but in the long-term it was good for the economy. So right now we’re in the position of those spinners who lost their work, but long-term it’s going to be good for the workers elsewhere.

OUR problem is to find a way to bridge that gap until those workers are raised up. In the case of the hand-spinners, SOME of them turned automation on it’s head and made a market for themselves in the market for luxury textiles made by hand.

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Bruno: “And without exception, the average standard of living is far below that of the US in every one of those socialized countries. ”

Uh excuse me?

Countries like Germany (not really socialist but I’m guessing counts as such since they have obviously Leninist principles such as worker co-determination on all major corporate boards, guaranteed cradle to grave health care, etc.), not to mention Denmark, Sweden, Norway have a lower standard of living than we do?

Think again!

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Bruno: And without exception, the average standard of living is far below that of the US in every one of those socialized countries.

At what point will you ditch the theories and look at reality, Adam??

Oh really? Got some proof of that? You can start by making comparisons between us and Germany. Oh, and be honest and use actual data that can be verified. Good luck!

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Steve: Every night broadcast a program designed to teach advance Math geared towards educating young people. That way every child with a TV could get taught by a superior teacher no matter where they live.

Not a bad idea.

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Adam 10:08

2/3 of the country would fail, bringing our immobile economy to a halt

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off topic

Jamvet – getalife

this is what Google, Inc. and other label as censorship in legislation regarding Internet content providers:

http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-dotcom-megaupload-2012-1

According to the US Department of Justice, however, it is Mr Dotcom and his “Mega conspiracy” that is perpetrating the rip-off, costing content owners more than $500m by disseminating pirated content through Megaupload and its associated sites…”

Not paying for stuff you sell is quite profitable

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089954/Megaupload-founder-Kim-Dotcom-sprang-electronic-locks-Bond-villain-lair-police-swooped.html

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Bosch – I know plenty of people like those you just described. I’m one missed paycheck away from moving in with family. Planning to go back to school in the fall (yay evening classes) and get another degree that will hopefully allow me to transition into a different, better paying career.

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(ir)Rational: If you take an early refund loan, and aren’t able to pay it back, your choices have affected you, and possibly your family negatively, but not others. That’s the difference I see.

Well, I just see the problem from a different angle. I think it’s highly immoral for someone to set up a company that does refund loans to make excuses when that family goes broke over it that they did it to themselves. The avenue was given to them to “make a bad choice,” and then we wash our hands of it after we gave them that choice without even hinting at the possible consequences.

It’s like not telling someone that fence is electrified if they decide to try to climb it. Yes, they decided to kill themselves, but if you knew and didn’t tell them and you are perfectly ok with just going “oh well, it was their choice to do it” then something is wrong.

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http://justcapshunz.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/20/funny-captions-finally-a-republican-candidate-who-makes-sense/

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Carlosgvv

So does O

Occupy should be in Pali alto

Not wall st

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Adam- some nice optimism-there. The results of the primary in SC soured my optimism (at least temporarily). I didn’t believe even S.Carolina would have ignored the slime-so very much slime- and sell their professed prinicples for a man like Newt. I find it scary, really scary. As much as I am not a rightwing anything, I always tried to respect these folks’ “beliefs”…at least I THOUGHT they really believed the stuff they spouted. But, no…it was all a bunch of bunk. a facade to cover the real agendas.

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Joseph

“I guess Marxism or Communism is the answer for you then Jay? You already have a President on the same page…….”

You don’t read from the beginning of the blog, do you? From earlier:

“Care to tell us which keeps us from becoming more like China regarding work conditions:

- putting in place laws and regulations regarding workplace safety, work conditions, maximum hours worked, minimum pay and overtime, etc. or

- getting rid of all regulations regarding the same, eliminating OSHA, getting rid of all wage, workplace health and safety laws and regulations?

Then lead us to the conclusion which course will make us more like communist China?”

Pres Obama’s proposals, or Republican proposals?

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what’s the saying?……”it’s amazing what can be accomplished with unlimited slave labor”…look at the great wall for that matter !

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Irrational,

Good luck!! I recently took a plunge and put my family at a financial risk, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed it all works out!! But yeah it’s funny how lots of people are all critical of this Chinese model, while many maybe most people in this country are not much better off!! The good thing we have is our education system, but that is no guarantee of an improvement in living conditions- but chances of improved living standards are certainly lowered without it! Again, hangin there and it’s better to do those things while you are young!!

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China’s demographics are changing quickly. The state allows only one child per couple, which has been the rule for many years, to limit overpopulation. These hoards of single children are being raised to be much like spoiled American and European children, who believe their birthright is to be coddled and indulged, and who are being sent to the best schools in China and around the world to become physicists, biologists, computer scientists, environmental engineers, climatologists, etc.
It won’t be long until the current generation of desperate workers willing to live in dormitories like indentured slaves ages to the point they can no longer be productive as beehive workers, and there will be nobody willing to replace them. Like Americans, this generation of Chinese feel they are too good for manual labor. The demographic transition yields a huge number of old folks to be supported by a much lower number of young folks–just like the U.S. and Europe. Countries now with runaway population growth and a young workforce (with no jobs and no direction) are mostly in the Middle East and Africa.

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Yeah right I’m not the one saying everyone who gets pregnant should be forced to carry the child to term or die trying. I’m also not the one saying we are a “Christian Nation” and that it’s not ok to discriminate against Christians, but it is totally ok to do the same against Muslims, and that Muslims should not be allowed to build mosques anywhere, etc etc.

And neither am I. I support legal abortion and have forcefully taken up the banner for religion freedom for ALL people here on the blog many times. Scroll back to any of Jay’s “mosque building” columns last year and you’ll see mean old conservative Bruno giving the Christian religious bigots all the hell they deserved.

It’s tempting, but please don’t let the actions of the vocal extremists within the conservative movement prejudice you against ALL conservatives.

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(ir) – Adam – I meant, what channel is it going to be aired on? Who is going to pay the people to give the lectures and produce the shows? And then who is going to pay for that channel to continue airing it after their advertisers stop paying for that half-hour because no one is watching?

How about Apple, they seem to have plenty of cash.

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http://justcapshunz.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/18/funny-captions-i-almost-killed-my-family-this-morning-making-pancakes/

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Tell the Unions…Tell congress and their minimum waqe, tell congress regarding import export rules and regulations – bet, Harry, Nancy, Bohener, McConnell, Obama are at a total loss whhen it comes to that…what happens when you have a bunch of idiots worring about re-election rather than protecting the country….but lets provide health care, housing, food (food stamps), day care,free heat and cool for the free housing, free phones, free TV…damn why work!!!

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Brother, B, first thanks for your and PB’s hospitality and generosity. Please do thank her profusely, for me, OK? (She is everything you said she was. Yow. LOL!)

I had one helluva time with you two and the various hot little “wigglers” who wanted to shake their tail feathers at and with me! What can I say? I’ve still got it, buddy!

And I was very impressed with both bands. And I think you know me well enough to know that I would not say that gratuitously. Even though I have very high standards for my rock and roll, those two bands were fantastic and frankly, far more that I expected. Especially the stunning note for note covers of those Dark Side of the Moon songs by Deep Blue Sun.

And the Grapes sure got the crowd going with that jump up, very high energy, dance sound of theirs. And in retrospect, I am certain that I have never seen a band with three drummers.

It was crazy good.

Again, thanks and I look forward to returning the favor in the future…

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I never did worship at the Church of Steve Jobs, and never understood those who did. Don’t have an i-anything, and I’m not missing a darn thing. What a sad commentary on our world!

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The harbor at Savannah will be deepened to handle larger ships bringing imports from China. Ofcourse this is happening right at Georgia Ports Authority. When trucks travel over the roads with containers attached to them destined for American stores, they have Chinese made products. Let’s not forget the old adage of companies who outsourced their operations overseas for cheap labor and no unions to contend with. Unless the utilities and the grocery stores are willing to lower their prices, one can forget about finding a person in America who is going to work for less than $17.00 a day. It is no secret that some in the hospitality profession have to work two jobs just to put food on the table.

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“Here’s a chart of per capita income by country. If you notice, other than a few, much smaller countries, the US is kicking butt, especially in comparison to all the European socialist countries which you guys seem to aspire to”

given that most German households don’t have ANY debt (outside of a mortgage), their smaller income goes a lot farther – plus, they all get 6 weeks vacation that they can actually USE without penalty (and that doesn’t include sick days) – plus, they have good healthcare that won’t make you declare bankruptcy if you have cancer or another catastrophic illness …

so, tell me who has the better lifestyle.

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Taxpayer – It is not as though they are able to support that claim either. It just sounds good to their audience so they toss it out there.

And how is the mantra of “living wage” and “fairness” going to address the issues in China addressed in Jay’s article?

Each side has their audience drinking the Kool-Aid, just different flavors.

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Normal – 10:29 – are they doing a remake of 9-5?? did you replace your family’s skinny-n-sweet with rat poison??

where’s Lily Tomlin when we need her!!

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Welcome,

I can see how you wouldn’t support the Republicans but I fail to see your devotion to the Democrats. They are also puppets to the powers you claim to hate so much.

The “Yeah….but they are the lesser evil” really is not a solid foundation to stand on.

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iphones are not cheap. I recently got mine for $99 but had to sign up for 2 years. If you don’t get insurance on the phone ($15-mo) the replacement is $600 – should you break it…

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Correction to my above post, I see now that Bruno has dug up some average income figures showing that the US comes in at about $10k a year lower than Germany.

A few points.

1) As I said, Germany is not a ’socialist’ country, but rather a capitalist system with a mixed social democratic model. Yet of course, just try introducing any of that country’s structural features here and watch the howls of outrage and cries of “socialism!!” that will be leveled by the rubes and their right-wing FOX News propaganda fellow travelers.

In Germany, no person is denied access to college for lack of money as education is fully state supported. No one risks bankruptcy from a single serious illness or hospital stay. Mass transit and other social programs are vastly better supported. And on and on.

So yeah, I’d say a mere $10k different in the AVERAGE income does not really give you the whole picture.

Plus, those average figures will additionally become increasingly unreliable as the wealth DIFFERENTIAL in this country explodes to banana republic levels.

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JamVet,

Did Bruno bribe you to cross over to the dark side?

Just kidding, sounds like you had fun and if I was in town I could show you how to pick up those beautiful Atlanta women

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so, tell me who has the better lifestyle.

I appreciate your figures, Bruno, but I don’t think they’ve accounted for the more generous and widespread benefits those dirty furriners enjoy. Comparing raw income doesn’t tell the whole story.

Of course I’m not telling the whole story, Joe and USinUK. No possible way to score some cheap political points by doing that. But, at least I realize it and freely admit it. An honest liar, if you will.

Are any of you here willing to admit the same?? We all have only a small corner on the Truth market, because, ultimately, truth is personal. I’m sure my experiences growing up in poverty have strongly shaped my version of “truth”. All I can do is throw it out there so that y’all might see things from another perspective.

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JAY,

I’ve been to several of these “gulag” styled facilities, mostly in Thailand and Indonesia. Fact is that most of workers are females between ages of 18 and 22. They come from all over and since they spend no money for food, housing et al, they return after average 3 year contract back to say…Sumatra, and are in the top 10% or so of wealth. At least in these countries, the workers love these positions and seem very happy.

Since the differential between union labor (including all the extortion items including post retirement and job banks if negotiated) and what they pay now would likely completely eliminate any 400K margin per employee should apple assume these jobs directly or on contracted basis in US. Will consumers line up at Apple Stores if the cost of an IPaD doubled?

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Did Bruno bribe you to cross over to the dark side?

I did, stands, but he reneged the very next morning with his first scathing post against cons.

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Bruno: “Are any of you here willing to admit the same?? We all have only a small corner on the Truth market, because, ultimately, truth is personal”.

Not quite right, Bruno. To echo Hegel, truth is universal.

But it has to be lived by each individual in its particularity.

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Bruno — “Are any of you here willing to admit the same??”

What’s to admit? I didn’t misrepresent any statistics, as you did. My first post here today was to comment on *your* stats.

If you think I’ve got something to ‘admit,’ then I respectfully ask you to explain WTF you think it might be.

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B, the funniest part of it was how when PB wanted to go down front, both of us were literally unable to get out of our seats!

Not for kids, no doubt…….

And yet, Mick offers NO solutions.

TBG–He’s one more devotee of the Bookman School of Social Protest. No solutions necessary.

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carlos – I thought corporations couldn’t be citizens? Are we seeing a change in your thinking here? Or are you just using it for your argument now because it is convenient? As far as being a “tool” like you said, nah. I’m nobody’s tool. But hey, think what you like.

Steve USA – Yeah, but only if they wanted to pay for it. That’s my point. When people quit watching shows of that nature, the advertisers are going to pull their money from that time slot. Then who is going to pay for it?

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Your Party

“Paul, don’t we ALREADY have these things in place?”

Sure do.

So how does that square with candidates’ pledges to repeal all regs put in place under Pres Obama.

And why stop there? Why not repeal those regs, too?

’cause regulations strangle business, don’tcha’ know?

Get rid of OSHA?

That was a question answering Jay’s article.

Or are you making the case that some regulations, some government intervention, some strangling of, and holding back, business is good?

If so, do you think conservative Republicans think so?
It’s rather out of the ‘eliminate Obamacare”

and give insurance companies the power to remove women from policies when they get breast cancer ’cause they didn’t reveal they were overweight, denying preexisting condition coverage, etc.

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Steve – USA: “The “Yeah….but they are the lesser evil” really is not a solid foundation to stand on.”

I thought we’d already covered that recently, Steve.

I thought I’d made clear that I am the first to declare my hostility to the cynical blackmail of “but you’ve got to support Obama bec however lame he is we can’t have Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, [fill in the blank]!!!!”

By the way, as JKL2 brought to our attention last night, we might be about to enter an even more cynical stage of this process as Democratic party operatives and strategists are actually contemplating a formal admission that they will concede defeat and give up the ghost on trying to win the white working class, its historical base.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcampaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2011%2F11%2F27%2Fthe-future-of-the-obama-coalition%2F&ei=DocdT42iA-LRiALS2rDgCA&usg=AFQjCNFCj6vtPES4y7rWODRoMMN1FGHf0A&sig2=MHc0eN9py9_xQc9SB8FZVQ

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B, I never knew this bit of trivia. What a gas!

Some of the profits from Dark Side of the Moon were invested in the production of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Philosophers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1MgCV6uGuc

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We all have only a small corner on the Truth market, because, ultimately, truth is personal. I’m sure my experiences growing up in poverty have strongly shaped my version of “truth”. All I can do is throw it out there so that y’all might see things from another perspective.

Perhaps the first step is to stop falsely claim it to be the “truth” and to use Ministry of Truth tactics to claim “truth” is relevant as “facts” with many verisions. Perceptions are relevant and may distort the interpretations of facts and truth in some oversimplified way distracting from the reality of a complicated interwoven interplay of a variety of “facts”, truth and perceptions.

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Your Party

I see now why you didn’t post under your usual name -

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The Soundgarden show at the Voodoofest was all ages. I noticed young girls would hold hands and walk through the crowd. My buddy turned to me and said, “Check out the jail bait trains.” We fell down laughing.

Then this old man with wild eyes came up and said he had hits of acid and mushrooms for sale. The same friend said to him, “I am a cop” and chased him through the crowd. He would walk up to kids smoking weed, tell them he was a cop and take their weed.

My friend is a con.

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“Check out the jail bait trains.”

Too funny.

Gotta love rock and roll chicks…

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Of course, Germany’s per capita numbers are dragged down considerably by their citizens in the former East Germany.

And then there’s that. Good point Jay.

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Jay – “Bruno Bruno Bruno … Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Austria, Switzerland, Australia all have systems like that described above, and all have comparable and in Norway’s case even superior per capita GDP to the USA.”

People with comparable jobs to mine in Sweden live in a 650 sq ft apartment, Jay. They pay 50% of their income in taxes to support their liberals. If you think that’s a great idea, move to Sweden with the other literally 10’s of people who think it would be a great idea.

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How great though art! said the good lord.
But how foolish are those who put you into slavery?
There turn will come when they wished not.
Yes the U.S. will financially crash and so will their military as predicated by the good book.
But then so will the beast from the east also be destroyed from taking advantage of slavery.
People will only take so much. And when the market is saturated? What next said the little boy? Your calamity shall also come.
It is better to live among the meek and lowly then to rule among fools of industry!
You should have stayed home to help your family and friends when you had the chance. But you worshiped your money not love.

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(ir)Rational: Sorry, had work to do so didn’t get to this till now:

Adam – I see it as the same as telling someone that the fence is electrified and then they tried to climb it.

Well, if fine print is the way you mean, then they were told the fence was electrified in Latin, when they only understand English.

I meant, what channel is it going to be aired on? Who is going to pay the people to give the lectures and produce the shows? And then who is going to pay for that channel to continue airing it after their advertisers stop paying for that half-hour because no one is watching?

PBS has a nice model whereby they get some government funding but get a lot of donations as well. It works out ok so I would go with PBS. It will take someone willing to do the shows without receiving as much pay as they would if they were teaching in a university. Presumably they could then direct their own students to it if needed, perhaps as a supplemental material like text books. Advertisers on PBS may not follow the model you are talking about but I do not know for sure.

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Paul

January 23rd, 2012
11:20 am
Your Party

I see now why you didn’t post under your usual name -

Why?

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Foxconn is international company start in Taiwan and owner is a Taiwanese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn

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The words below – regarding Foxconn and China – were written to me, today, from a longstanding friend of mine from New York City, who was married for almost 30 years to a Chinese professor until he died in NYC.
=====================================================

“There have been a whole lot of articles about it. And WNYC had a wonderful program (This American Life–you can perhaps access it on their archives) on Foxcon, the factory that makes electronic devices for Apple, Sony and many other companies. I taped some of it. I can send you the tape if you want. Just ask. That factory uses chemicals that are potent neurotoxins, which poison the neurological makeup of its workers, so that after a decade of use, their hands tremble so much that they can’t pick up a glass—become useless, and their minds too, are terribly affected. A great many of the factory workers there have committed suicide by jumping off the top of the building. The building has nets to catch the jumpers now. The air in Beijing and Shanghai is unbreathable and the officials all stay inside with their air filters and their water purifiers.

I visited China many times, first as a visiting professor, traveling the length and breadth of the country visiting art schools all over the country. Then I visited with my husband several more time, traveling widely each time. Traveling with him, I was able to stay at the homes of Chinese families, and talk with many of the ordinary people whom we met in our travels, sometimes on long train trips which took several days on the train. He was a very famous architect, and had many connections to people all over the country, who were deeply troubled about the direction China is taking. My husband’s family is Chinese, and we maintain a pretty close relationship. They visit China sometimes, but their visits have tapered off some now because of the pollution and because they are afraid the food isn’t safe, as so many pesticides and genetically engineered foodstuffs have found their way into the food supply. I would like your rightwing readers to read this. This the way the country will go if the rightwingers get their way.

“The repressive, dictatorial, thuggocracy of China resembles nothing so much as the Republican right wing. They loathe labor unions, and jail and torture those who start and support them. They loathe lawyers who go to bat for the common people against the corporations. They adulate and take huge bribes from corporations and venture capitalists. They are massively and unrelentingly pro pollution. Their attitude toward food safety, clean air, clean water is: Who needs it? They have no compunction about torturing those seen as anti-government, and lie about deaths in police custody. China is one of the most pro-capitalist and most heavily polluted and most undemocratic countries in the world. Probably #1 for both. See especially the drama unfolding in the village of Wukan.”

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Well….if this isn’t a duh article……….

Been preaching this for months, but the head in the sand crowd still can’t see it.

Hello……and who do you think is buying all those products they make???

Yep……buying yourselves right out of a job……….

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Where do you get your info on the abundance of US engineers? I get my info about the dire need for more from GT and the Director of Engineering, the head of the CE school and other leaders in private and public busineeses. I also have enginering friends who graduated and have gone into teaching, restaurant ownership, computers, etc. Engineers need not be constrained as some graduates are!

Road Scholar

“Director” of engineering? Don’t know who you’re talking about there. You might mean Gary May, the “Dean”? He wouldn’t know, actually because he doesn’t hire people. Joe Hughes doesn’t either, but he’s no longer chair now from what I hear.

And if you’re working on road projects for 37 years, you’re in the very rare air of experience for engineers, and I imagine you’ve got people calling you all the time wanting you to talk to them. If I had at least ten years behind me, maybe I’d do somewhat better in this market.

Maybe, if things are so great, you could hire me?

Wait a minute. I’ll bet you’ve got all the engineers you need right now, don’t you? That’s my information on transpo engineers right now. Just look at the job ads for Atlanta firms, including your own. They aren’t there, and I bet I even know people at the firm you work for. If you’ve been in transpo for that long, you sure as hell know the principal of the firm I work for. Show me someone with a BSCE, EIT and I will show you someone who is probably unemployed or at the very least underemployed (unless Jacobs hired them to work in Hong Kong). Face it Road, with the lousy economy, firms have their pick of Master’s and PhD candidates.

Besides, you don’t ask the faculty at Georgia Tech anything about the need for engineers. I love all of them–Myer is a great transpo leader too, but these profs get six figures for contemplating how to get grants from the public sector. Those looking for private sector grants right now are hurting, but not quite so much as those of us looking for better engineering jobs. They don’t connect with engineering firms–though there are exceptions. Most of them simply worry about their own business, their own research and getting tenure if they don’t already have it. Once that happens they can be fairly worry-free about the job market. They’re also selling education, and they want good grad students they can brag about to their colleagues. Of course, they’re going to tell you there’s a high demand for engineers.

Every one of the profs is smart enough and accomplished enough to produce fine research to maintain their positions. If you yourself don’t know how many engineering graduates are finishing school and then looking hard for jobs (and sometimes waiting tables to make money), then there’s no sense in asking your buddies at Tech. Sounds like you, they, Jay Bookman and Mitt Romney all have the same problem. You are unable to connect with the reality on the street.

Look at the big firms, AMEC and Jacobs for example and see where they are hiring for. It’s the far East and the Middle East. They don’t need us for our own country right now.

The original point I made stands. Bookman was entirely wrong, stating that we need a smarter workforce to improve the economy. It’s just not true at all. What we need is hiring opportunities to encourage entry into the workforce somewhere within the United States.

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Fast and Furious Spending

Sorry, Bro. There are plenty of engineering jobs. I have a BSME and my EIT, and I didn’t have too much trouble. Every engineer from my graduating class that I keep up with has a job somewhere.

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