California Bridge Made in China - WTF

Kyoto, Copenhagan, Cancun, Obama's Bank Bailout.  All were designed for foreign companies.  The only thing the first 3 do not have in common with the last one is that they were not Obama's show.  He just had the lead role.

Oh yeah, this one has got my blood just boiling.

 

I'm not going to try to post now, because I'm too angry to write coherently, but I have registered, and I'll be back when I can discuss calmly

Welcome to JoeUser Redpossum. Glad to have you join the discussion. 

If this gets your blood boiling you may wish to avoid my other thread Inside Job about the banksters and the bailouts unless your medicated.  

Make up your mind.

That one was Dubya's, if you're still naive enough to believe that US presidents are more than fronts for the momentary coalition that got them through an election cycle. Me, I'm tired of blaming the barkers. I want the real decision makers, the board room crowd, hauled into the light of day and held accountable. Here we are, years into a so-called recovery, and the only people doing well (and even doing better) are the folks who were doing damned well when the fiscal fecal matter finally hit the fan.

It's not "foreign companies" that are the problem. It's multinational corporations, which include outfits like GE, Archer-Daniels Midland, and Citi. Sure, outfits like News Corp, Airbus, Sony, and Samsung are part of the problem, but it's not because they're foreign. It's because they are institutions that are the economic equivalent of sociopaths. Organizing around profit for profit's sake will never do well for the mere mortals involved in the endeavors.

Everything is made in Chine and the U.S. only assembles the pieces which is a small portion of the labour pie. Ask anyone that knows about economics (not me) about how many off shoot jobs would be created or benefited from this. No different from an auto plant shutting down can cause a whole town to disappear, one bridge this size would be a major boost to any area having contracts supporting this massive project.

The first line you quoted also states "most of the work" which in government terms could mean 51%.

Which is still a very significant chunk. Of course the thing is partially outsourced. We live in a worldwide economy. If you trace back the production trail on anything far enough, you're going to run into stuff that was made outside the US.

I just don't think it's accurate to characterize this as "China building US bridges".

I take no issue with that. This story not being in the MSM tells me that these MSM corporations are directly linked to the Chinese market and benefiting from not giving these jobs to Americans and hiding these facts from Americans.



That's the worst thing about this sort of political rhetoric, and it seems the nearly everyone is joining the Misleading Bumpersticker Brigade. The basic complaint about the US effectively eliminating large sectors of primary production is lost in the China-is-the-New-Evil-Empire vs. Outsourcing-Is-Always-Evil vs. Free-Trade-Is-God noise.

As far as this bridge deal goes, the main thing that really worries me is that it's the Nth sign that we are well and truly on the way to abandoning basic manufacturing. Cutting costs with some imports is fine in the abstract, but not when it eventually leads to dependence on those imports. At least not for a continent-wide nation that really ought to be able to do better for itself. We need to be prepared for natural and human-made disasters that interrupt ocean transport, not to mention the mess that we'll have if we don't have our energy act together when we really do start feeling the down side of the 'peak oil' thing. 

After doing some more research I have to apologize for an error for the ARRA funding and amend the OP.

California issued bonds to finance the project, and will look to recoup the cost through tolls.

California decided not to apply for federal funding for the project because the “Buy America” provisos would probably have required purchasing more expensive steel and fabrication from United States manufacturers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/global/26bridge.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3&hp 

My mistake was after reading about the bridge I visited the MTC site which stated its funding from ARRA but had not stated that this did not include the bridge. I will try to be more vigilant in the future.

I still don't understand why they would opt out of federal funding to not hire American labour.

The article says why. It's cheaper.

That's only true if you narrow scope to money spent right now. Money is never more than an approximation of value at a single point in time, and the problem myfist0 is working is about the longer term.

Are we better off letting domestic steel production dwindle away to near-nothing? Maybe. If the world gives up industrial warfare real soon now. On the off chance that I won't live to see the end of war as a social habit, I'd prefer to see my tattered excuse for a nation retain the capacity to build our own tanks, planes, boats, and drones with minimal dependence on imports. More importantly, I value jobs over high profits.

Jobs are what the vast majority of us need to survive; steadily rising profits lift far more yachts than they lift houseboats. Profit is a fine form of extra reward for a person or firm doing an excellent job at useful work, but when it is the first motive for important decisions, most of us end up screwed. If I was really smart, I'd have a clever macroeconomic version of "work to live, don't live to work."

I value jobs, too. But on a global scale. In incidents like this, jobs aren't really "disappearing". They're just moving from America to China, and I don't see why Joe Chinese is any less deserving of employment than Joe American.

But, that assumes that a job in America is equal to a job in China. The US has relatively nice labor laws, and China doesn't. So Joe American is probably going to get payed a decent wage and work using machinery that won't be detonating any time soon. In China... probably not as cushy. So there is a very good reason to resist outsourcing, just not the usual one people often trot out.

But then add to that the fact that in theory, the more prosperous China gets, the more reforms will be implemented, so you could actually shut down the sweatshops... by outsourcing to the sweatshops. And that is sort of happening. It's a complicated situation, but the richer parts of China are definitely looking nicer. Or were... the Arab spring appears to have stalled things a bit.

So it's a big, fat mess that I don't think anybody really knows the answer to.



That would be fine by me if people were as free to move around as capital is.

As far as your theory talk goes, well, I'm a trained political theorist and best I can tell your nobody "really knows the answer" point is painfully correct. The one thing I'm sure of is that our tools are using us as much as we use them, and "tools" includes things like trade agreements, corporations, and revolutionary ideologies. Most certainly a profound mess, regardless of one's biases about appropriate height and weight. 

Capital is moving to China because the fucking Commies are easier to work with at this point.  When you try to build a plant, they don't make you do a million dollar impact study, sue your ass to block the construction because the local sewer rat has spots, and then condemn your neighborhood and claim blight before turning your property into a field when the mall they wanted falls through.  Assuming you make it through the shit fest, unions break your company with legally protected extortion you're required to put up with.

 

We're well and truly screwed.  The latest set of banking regulations put another nail in the coffin by giving the government power to seize banks over "risky loans" of an undefined nature.  They'll do something other than buy govt securities and do fully secured loans when hell freezes over.

I fully admit it was begun under Dubya, but the majority of money was paid out by Obama - and the foreign money along with the so called auto bailouts are all Obama.  just payback for his election.  No, Obama bought this turkey and now owns it lock stock and barrel.

Never mind the faces or the initials of the faces.  Those are just distractions.

One thing is for sure, if during an election no one votes at all, someone will still be selected, and the overall direction of this country (and the world for that matter) will continue the pre-defined course in accordance to the Agenda.

Enslaved We Trust.

-.-