Thread: Buy American Our government at work

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they dont know where the money is , came from or going. no way in hell can they keep up with anything that large. some of you guys run your own business. i have a hard enough time dealing my little chunk of it. our government is just too figgin big to be effective.

Having been in the education business for 33 years including teaching an upper level (3rd year college) laboratory course, I can tell you that even in college there is a need for basic instruction. I tried to make my lab course 50% use of modern whiz bang equipment and 50% put-it-together experiments. Eventually I was overridden by folks who wanted to use only "modern equipment". Recently I visited the lab in which I taught for over thirty years and by golly my old sign "Make It Work!" was still on the wall! Folks here might be surprised that most Physicists and Physical Chemists have small lathes in their laboratories and make their own electro-optical experiments but you can't do that stuff in high schools because of the well known tendency of teen age students to do dangerous things. I do not know if this is still true but in my Freshman year at what used to be Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University, complete with a Medical School) we all had to take courses in Mechanical Drawing, Basic Machine Shop and Surveying because they knew there would probably be a lot of changes in major in the second year. Even though I did change to Chemistry I used most of those skills (including basic Surveying when adding a wing on my home) later in Physical Chemistry and had to complete four of the five years in the Cooperative Education program with six months of each year in an industrial job. At the time I only entered the CO-OP program so I could pay my way through college but later I realized the value of the practical experience. One of my first jobs was as a Millwright Helper in a large plant and I got to participate in installation of large equipment and major machine shop projects. Later in Physical Chemistry I used mechanical drawing to coordinate with first class machinists to make various special electro-optical devices. At the very least Cooperative Education Programs should be expanded for Science and Engineering programs. I missed out on welding and I see that a lot of folks on this Forum can do some neat things by fabricating their own build projects. Is there a link to a Stossel reply to this problem? Probably this Forum is one of the best examples of the usefulness of basic trade skills in "making stuff". There is a lot to learn and admire on this site.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

business is business . believe it or not there are a lot of small manufactures moving back here. the cost of doing business in china has climbed as shipping has. china will let someone open a factory 2 blocks away and clone your products. look at the new truck they built. it's a damn f150 .

Originally Posted by shine

business is business . believe it or not there are a lot of small manufactures moving back here. the cost of doing business in china has climbed as shipping has. china will let someone open a factory 2 blocks away and clone your products. look at the new truck they built. it's a damn f150 .

Amen, I can personally attest to that. I lived in Shanghai for nine years and when CarrFore opened up their first "supermarket" in 1992, all the locals went crazy and packed the place. Previously they had purchased their groceries from roadside stands. In six months right across the street, a local Chinese "knock off" supermarket opened its doors. Same thing with KFC, after six month two blocks down the same road a local "KFC" opened. The factory I ran made aircon units and we partnered with a local start up company to sell units. During the past twenty years they have opened up several factories and are now the biggest aircon seller in China. Message, make yer money while you can and then move on. Remember guys the local rank and file Chinese are the quintessential capitalists and will flip any foreign company if they think they can make a buck, with the backing of the government. There are more millionaires and billionaires in China now than most of the world combined. Sad fact of life.

Cheers, John, AKA, tin-man
Zhuhai, P.R.C.

[QUOTE=tin-man;456248] There are more millionaires and billionaires in China now than most of the world combined. Sad fact of life.

John - while I appreciate your enthusiasm, you're way off base here. A "millionaire" is not a rare occurrence anymore and I would venture to say that there are several millionaires that post here on a regular basis (value of assets minus liabilities)..

According to Forbes, there are just over 1,200 billionaires in the world, specifically;
United States has 412 billionaires or - 34%
China – 115 - 10%
Russia – 101 - 8%
India – 54 - 4%
Germany – 52 - 4%
Turkey – 38- 3%
Hong Kong – 36 - 3%
United Kingdom – 32 - 3%
Brazil - 30 - 2%

The "rest of the world" has the other 19% is decreasing numbers..


The richest entity in the world is Carlos Slim Helu & family of Mexico - $74B

The US has four of the top ten - representing over 170 billion dollars (Gates - $56B, Buffett - $50B, Ellison - $39.5B and the Walton family - $26.5B)

The "richest" Chinese is Li Ka-shaing (Hong Kong) at 26 billion. That's not chopped liver, but is pales to the total

Total controlled by Chinese "billionaires" is +/- $230B
US billionaires alone control $1,578B

Doesn't make me any happier about the volume of product we import from China nor the fact that the Chinese government owns 37% of our national debt - but real money still lives in America. I'd like to see our government re-write procurement laws to favor more American made goods and services but the unfortunate result of our ultra greedy "entitlement generation" is a boat load of people who have gotten so used to instantaneous gratification that they don't know how to work and they have grown lazy. I'm afraid we've not see the worst of our economic woes as we continue to borrow at the government level.

I'm ranting, but at least it's to my friends!!
Glenn

[QUOTE=glennsexton;456441]

Originally Posted by tin-man

There are more millionaires and billionaires in China now than most of the world combined. Sad fact of life.

John - while I appreciate your enthusiasm, you're way off base here. A "millionaire" is not a rare occurrence anymore and I would venture to say that there are several millionaires that post here on a regular basis (value of assets minus liabilities)..

According to Forbes, there are just over 1,200 billionaires in the world, specifically;
United States has 412 billionaires or - 34%
China – 115 - 10%
Russia – 101 - 8%
India – 54 - 4%
Germany – 52 - 4%
Turkey – 38- 3%
Hong Kong – 36 - 3%
United Kingdom – 32 - 3%
Brazil - 30 - 2%

The "rest of the world" has the other 19% is decreasing numbers..


The richest entity in the world is Carlos Slim Helu & family of Mexico - $74B

The US has four of the top ten - representing over 170 billion dollars (Gates - $56B, Buffett - $50B, Ellison - $39.5B and the Walton family - $26.5B)

The "richest" Chinese is Li Ka-shaing (Hong Kong) at 26 billion. That's not chopped liver, but is pales to the total

Total controlled by Chinese "billionaires" is +/- $230B
US billionaires alone control $1,578B

Doesn't make me any happier about the volume of product we import from China nor the fact that the Chinese government owns 37% of our national debt - but real money still lives in America. I'd like to see our government re-write procurement laws to favor more American made goods and services but the unfortunate result of our ultra greedy "entitlement generation" is a boat load of people who have gotten so used to instantaneous gratification that they don't know how to work and they have grown lazy. I'm afraid we've not see the worst of our economic woes as we continue to borrow at the government level.

I'm ranting, but at least it's to my friends!!
Glenn

No issues Glen my point was made in support of the prior post and while I did not refer to Forbes when I made my comment, China is for sure churning out wealthy people by the day at the expense of foreign funded companies prior relationships. Hyperbole for sure, but sadly based on hard facts regarding being subject to cloning, back yard rip-offs or just plain government backed funding to support development of proprietary designs attained thru less than legal means or just plain reverse-engineering. One thing for sure I am not one of them.

Cheers, John, AKA, tin-man
Zhuhai P.R.C.

I don't want to knock the point of this very interesting thread off course, but .... if I might, I'd like to mention the construction trades and the changes that have taken place in that industry in recent years.

I'm speaking of what I see in my part of the world but I'm sure it applies in other places as well.

People bemoan the fact that Mexican workers have taken over and, in doing so, have denied US workers jobs they should rightfully be getting.

That has to be B.S. in its purest form.

Let me quote Uncle Bob here: "It's like that phrase often attached in the illegal alien discussions; "They're doing the jobs Americans won't do!". That's dead wrong though my expression of it doesn't sound very different, it is vastly different from a motivational point of view. I say, "They're doing jobs that Americans DON"T HAVE to do."

Where I live (Northeast Tarrant County, Texas) the economy has done pretty well when compared to other areas, and it's rare to see anything other than Latinos doing construction work.

Or landscape work.

Or working on highway projects.

You name it. They can and will do it, and believe me, those people are GOOD and getting better! They show up for work as soon as they can see in the morning and don't quit until they can't see in the evening. I have seen them working on rooftop jobs when the temperature is bumping 110 degrees. When I got so dang old and feeble I couldn't do a decent job of caring for my own luxuriant lawn (one acre of red sand on top of solid sandrock and covered with grass burrs) a Mexican man and his wife appeared at my door and asked for my business doing yard work. This is the second year they have been with us and we are very pleased with them.

In case anybody should ask, no. I didn't ask to see a "green card" and I pay them with green money. If people ask me why I didn't find an American couple to do the job, well, the answer is simple. Nobody like that showed up looking for work, but Miguel and Ana did.

So I'm a bad citizen.

After Hurricane Katrina did it's thing, conditions in New Orleans were horrible. Thousands of workers were needed to do a lot of hard and unpleasant manual labor. Who responded? The Mexicans. Many of those folks took a liking to the place and stayed there. Now a lot of New Orleanians are upset because the newcomers are "destroying the genial atmosphere and traditions for which the area is famous".

As a former three-year resident of New Orleans (I still feel a fondness for the place), I'll suggest that a new society with a strong work ethic has come in and is replacing a society without a work ethic.

I have several friends at CHR who know my address and phone number. I ask that they keep that information confidential because if they don't I'll probably be hearing from the New Orleans mafia.

Jim

Big Tracks-----So true

Big Tracks,,its the same down here..People moan on about the Pacific Islanders taking their jobs,,but in reality,they DONT want to do the work the the Islanders do..They think they are above doing dirty manual labor..Well,a great many do,,so the Islanders settle in the cities,and do what they canget their hands on,work hard and reap the benefits..

OK Robin, I gotta ask where are you exactly, Inglewood California or Inglewood elswhere, Pacific Islanders maybe is a clue, but I'm clueless.

Cheers, John AKA, tin-man?

Originally Posted by tin-man

OK Robin, I gotta ask where are you exactly, Inglewood California or Inglewood elswhere, Pacific Islanders maybe is a clue, but I'm clueless.

Cheers, John AKA, tin-man?

Nah,John..Inglewood,Taranaki..In New Zealand..Inglewood is a small town of about 5000 just south of New Plymouth,,same province that Tom Cruise lived in while filming "The Last Samurai"..Google Taranaki,or New Plymouth..

I just finished a welding class at a local community college. The head of the welding program told us that for students who finish the courses and get their certification, he can hook them up with employers who will pay them $14 an hour to start. They will be apprentices at that point with opportunity to move up. Top skilled welders can make 6 figures. But you don't start there. We started with 15 in our evening class and ended up with 9 or 10. We have nearly 20% unemployment in our counties. Classes are cheap and grants or financial aid are available. Yet the classes do not always fill, and those that do never end up that way. The comments about shortage of welders are valid.

Pat

Comm Colleges and welding school grants--

I have always been telling people to take welding classes because the mechanics who can weld will get hired before those who can't---(I'm not talking about a Honda, Toyoda or other CAR DEALERSHIP)

I would love to sign up for a senior course(free tutition)(or these days government grant) just to play with some of that new equipment, but have not, solely to give an oppurtunity to someone else because of limited class sizes(availability of equipment)

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Comm Colleges and welding school grants--

I have always been telling people to take welding classes because the mechanics who can weld will get hired before those who can't---

Jerry -

For two years I worked as an airline district sales manager in the very nice city of Des Moines, Iowa.

I had been wanting to learn gas welding for quite a while so when I read in the paper that the "continuing education" department at the high school was offering acetylene welding, I called and was told that the class was still open.

I paid the fee and went to the first meeting. The instructor was there with the department head who looked like a guy who had never worked at any kind of trade in his life. He said that to be eligible to take the welding course, welding had to be related to the job the prospective student currently had.

Well, welding was in no way relevant to a guy whose job was trying to get fannies in airplane seats.

I stuck up my hand and said something like "are you telling us that if some poor guy is out there washing dishes and wanting to learn a good trade so as to better himself, he can't take the course because welding isn't related to dish washing?"

The instructor laughed but the administrator didn't. He said he would get back to me. At the end of the session I went creeping up to him and apologized for mouthing off. He smiled and said that I had made a good point, and that that prerequisite was no longer in effect.

I took the course but I'm still not a very good welder.

Jim

I know the classes around here don't fill up and like Stu said not all see it through.