Chinese factory video - OSHA would croak

[GodOfRhythm]

I know someone who relocated his small local diamond cutting disk factory to China, it is now a gigantic plant, for only about the same kind of money he had invested in it here (though the margins have gone up considerably in the mean time) He goes on several business trips a year there and I might actually go teach English at a Chinese school for a couple of months next year. But anyways, he visited a textile (clothes) factory there, it had a production line coming off, splitting into two, one of them were just straight into the box for a Belgian clothing company "JBC", which is a pretty cheap clothing store chain here.

The EXACT same shirts, which went onto the other line were just stamped with a NIKE logo first and then went into the box, they sold for $25 more over here...

[Harry Krisna]

^Well in the US you don't have factories in the middle of heavily populated areas.

WHAT?!?!?! You don't live here do you?...:ROTF:

[buzzsaww]

get off the soapbox

Hmmm, let's see. what were thing slike before the unions in the US?

Hey, I've had problems with my union, they almost cost me my job once (I was willing to take a paycut, they told management it was unacceptable), but I'm not blind to the fact that things were bad here before the unions. Very bad, as in gun pointing at your head as you worked bad.

[sk8boardbob2]

WHAT?!?!?! You don't live here do you?...:ROTF:

Last time I checked there weren't tire factories in the middle of Manhattan...

[Cleveland Metal]

Most major cities have all sorts of heavy industry. Tire factories are easily among them. Some of the biggest are in a town 23 miles away. BFGoodrich, Goodyear etc..

In Cleveland, I live near steel plants, major chemical refineries, electric generation plants, companies that have been shut down over radioactive stuff, all sorts of ill shit. List goes on.

[fett]

I was going to throw in the "Tire" one. I think they are still there. But, those MF stole our steel. I don't wish bad on any counrty that beats us into the ground. I just feel sorry for the kid that listens to his granddad, or even his father, that tell's him what they had that "Made" the middle-class. It's gone. And it will never come back.

[442w30]

Houston and its Metro area is one Giant Chemical Plant - although the city is slightly "to the side" of the chem plants.

We have limestone quarries and Granite quarries in the middle of Austin/Marble Falls/ and if they aren't shut down now, San Antonio.

Downtown Dallas and Houston have crack factories.
The outskirts of Austin have the worlds finest meth labs
Plano is known for its H.

Arkansas, West Virginia and Louisianna make toothless people.

[buzzsaww]

Denver has an oil refinery right smack in the middle of it

[GodOfRhythm]

About 30 clicks east from here is where a gigantic area full of petrochemical and chemical refineries start. It's pretty freaky. All the people in the (BIG!) area get visited once a year and they get pills.

"If something goes wrong or you see something on the news or whatever; TAKE THIS PILL"

"If you have these and these and these symptoms: TAKE THIS PILL INSTEAD"

I couldn't believe it when I first heard it. I mean that is some disturbing stuff. I bet one of those pills is just a cyanide capsule, so people can die a quick death or don't get horribly mutated into Sigourney Weaver look-a-likes.

[AK47]

Whats so capitalist about slave labor it destroys capitalism as far as I am concerned. Why invade the USA when you can fill it with crap?

[Extant]

Whats so capitalist about slave labor it destroys capitalism as far as I am concerned. Why invade the USA when you can fill it with crap?

Well, you people are buying it.

Can you imagine how much people would complain if cheap offshore labor wasn't available and the prices for everything went up?

[GodOfRhythm]

Whats so capitalist about slave labor it destroys capitalism as far as I am concerned. Why invade the USA when you can fill it with crap?

It's capitalist in our current model of the world. Companies are able to produce in low-wage countries, for offset on mostly Western markets. Making production and finances private (as is Capitalism) actually encourages inequality and slave-labor. Marx anyone?

Can you imagine how much people would complain if cheap offshore labor wasn't available and the prices for everything went up?

Exactly! The day the notion of "a union" or a minimal wage gets foothold in China, India and various African countries is the day we'll all be screwed. I can't exactly say I condone exploiting people over there to make cheap goods, but at the end of the day I live here, in the good old West and my life's pretty good, and to be honest I can't really say I give 2 damns about what's happening over there. As long as I get my TV's, shoes and clothes for a reasonable price. Most other people "over here", if asked, would be the same.

[Cleveland Metal]

Sure we want cheap products. How could we not.

However, if you come from an area that was a predominantly a manufacturing economy here, you're now out of work or forced to work service industry. Doing things like making/delivering pizza, working fast food or restaurants, bars, stores in shopping malls. And most of that work has so many people wanting to that, so give you less than fulltime, and no benefits. We're the working poor. Most people here I know a paycheck away from homeless and no medical care.

If you're lucky, you'll be one of the people that are in construction, or some industry that can't be sourced out. And they also try their best to screw you out of any solid retirement or med benefits.

The American economy in MANY places is pretty much laid to waste, I don't care how great they "say" it is going. It just isn't in many places.

We used to have a strong local economy, now we're the the poorest big city in the USA. Mostly because the big manufacturing is outsourced. I realize much of it is from unions driving costs through the roof. Yeah, guys working machines getting paid $30 something an hour is nuts... But enough to make a decenty living isn't asking too much.

Most stuff here now that isn't higher tech, is minimum wage. And really, there isn't much high tech stuff here. My friend is a electrical design engineer and there are only a few states he can really get work doing what he knows.

[El_Kabong]

they are poisoning everyone! Not only themselves. I heard on the news, there are coal burning power plants cropping up on average one per day!

Actually, the US uses the most power per capita on the planet. The US is expected to combust 2516 million tonnes of coal by 2040, which is more than 1/6th of the total estimate for the entire planet to be used for producing thermal energy.

When burning coal, electrostatic precipotators, (air filters), make sure that 99. 4 percent of the ash is neutralised before it escapes into the atmosphere. This byproduct is then sold to the cement industry. So you can come out from under your bed, now.

You didn't honestly believe that all of the coal mined in Kentucky and Tenn. was only for making sippin' whisky did you?

[danastas]

Actually, the US uses the most power per capita on the planet. The US is expected to combust 2516 million tonnes of coal by 2040, which is more than 1/6th of the total estimate for the entire planet to be used for producing thermal energy.

When burning coal, electrostatic precipotators, (air filters), make sure that 99. 4 percent of the ash is neutralised before it escapes into the atmosphere. This byproduct is then sold to the cement industry. So you can come out from under your bed, now.

You didn't honestly believe that all of the coal mined in Kentucky and Tenn. was only for making sippin' whisky did you?

The coal residue also goes in wheat gluten. Then we eat it. Yum.