Classe move to China

Everyone has a case....
Chinese workers continue to petition for higher wages. They want CARS, not scooters or mopeds. They want Consumer Goods and the standard of living no amount of propoganda and internet-banning can insulate against.

I wish i had the numbers at my fingertips. The gap between Americas highest wage earners and average continues to grow. Huge bonuses seem to be an entitlement not necessarily earned. A company I worked for had 'built in' bonuses and some real sweet benefits. Car allowance? Yep. 1 years severance pay? for sure. And than, in the middle of all the workers having to do more with less, they hire another board member. We could have used that couple million per year to DO something.

I'm not an occupy guy, but sure can see WHY they'd be upset. No jobs, an economy driven into the ditch by greed and arguements in government about higher taxes...and the wealthy.

Buy Chinese made stuff? Wal-Mart is maybe 90% Chinese made. A man just made the news by building a house from ALL AMERICAN sourced materials and labor. Cost maybe 2% more than 'foreign' and was better.
Wait till the Chinese get an idea how much what they make will sell for. They'll want a better wage. At some point there will be NO cheaper labor markets to migrate to. Japan used Korea. I have no idea where my IMac was made.......

Stay tuned.

Publ,
Mao, the largest mass murdered in history tried the 'Great Leap Forward'. Apparently back yard steel mills don't work.

By the time Mao went room tempreture, he was responsible for the deaths of 60 to 70 million Chinese....more than Hitler and Stalin put together, maybe.

The final toll of China's current modernization efforts are yet to be told. The human, environmental and sociatal costs will be incalculable.

Dyn,
I've worked semiconductor manufacturing for decades....in the fab. I've helped make enough ICs and Discrete components to sink a ship. All changes to procedures are vetted and go thru a sign off loop, with the exception of the 'temporary' change which has a few special provisions and has a 24 hour time limit and is used only as an emergency containment or if a specific piece of equipment is down.

But, the REAL question is one of training and quality management system. For example, is the facility in question ISO audited? Are all employees trained and certified in the operations they perform? Are quality records kept? Rework procedures approved and certified? and on and on.

Actually, building a car is a well-known 'art'.
Building it RIGHT? Many things come into play from choice of materials....High Strength steel is a bigger player these days since you can build as strong or stronger with less weight all the way to computer simulations.

All for naught, however, without a proper manufacturing facility and trained workers. An Uncle of mine once bought a car.....American.....and it had a strange noise. Nobody could figure it out. Finally, in an unrelated repair, a COKE BOTTLE was found in a hollow space with a Ha-Ha note. That was the source of the noise.

The man who taught Japan how to make things right is ::: Deming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

Lately, with and after the advent of ISO standards and audits, They are a Quality Managment system, they don't tell you what or how to do it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9000

and perhaps the latest Asian Import:: A system called 6S.

http://www.vitalentusa.com/learn/6s_article.php

It is vital to continue to do more with less.....improve quality and provide a safe workplace.

I'm not about to read this whole thing, but in skimming thru, Fiddler makes a fine point.
Why DIDN'T the alledged healthcare reform include competition across state lines?

Any Constitutional Scholars out there? Wanna talk about the Commerce Clause?

China has some problems of its own. They are also becoming dependent on oil and so are subject to the same robbery-by-oil shiek as the west.
What some see as an 'advantage' by the Chinese in the form of just being able to build what they want without our (US) Enviro rules will eventually come back to bite them. I'd love to know what they plan to do with 50+ reactors worth of waste.