Thoughts on Russia?

Cory said:
They do own us with debt good % or not. And they absolutely hate when we fuck with other nations.
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It has been apparent recently that you and I vary greatly in our political views, but this comment here needs a lesson.

Holding a debt you can not collect is NOT a position of power. The old saying is "If you owe the bank 10,000 you cant pay you have a problem. If you owe the bank 10,000,000 you cant pay the bank has a problem."

Congrats China owns US debt....if we decide to default how do you propose they collect? Foreclose on Washington? I mean shit at worst we give them California (J/K)
 
Stop shipping us everything Ron , we produce NOTHING.

If China is to cut us off in 10 years , at this rate of imports increasing, our economy will crash.

I understand your point.
 
Cory said:
Stop shipping us everything Ron , we produce NOTHING.

If China is to cut us off in 10 years , at this rate of imports increasing, our economy will crash.

I understand your point.
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If China stops producing stuff, where will we get our American flags? Betsy Ross stopped making them years ago.
 
Cory said:
Stop shipping us everything Ron , we produce NOTHING.

If China is to cut us off in 10 years , at this rate of imports increasing, our economy will crash.

I understand your point.
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Here is the problem with your logic.
Americans still engineer the machinery that makes those products in China by and large. It would take a couple years but we could build factories and we could employ workers to build stuff. They can not buy the goods they produce...the average middle class in China shares a house between 2-3 families. I know. I spent 6 weeks there a few years back.

When my former company built a plant there villagers came from as far as 100 miles to assist in the construction of the plant, for 2 years with no pay. In hopes that they impressed upon the plant owners enough to employ them for pay when the plant was finished.

Besides what is China going to do beat us to death with Ipads?
 
Cory said:
They are moving CAT and Boeing to china..like I said in 10 years.
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See this type of comment, its just fear mongering.

Lets address these two specifically first. Yes CAT has Chinese manufacturing plants they have for 10 years.
CAT has over 110 manufacturing plants. 50+ are in the US and the last 2 they built were in the US. In addition to China CAT has plants in: Australia, Belgium, Brazil,Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Sweden

Likewise in China you will find Cummins, Boeing, ALCOA, GE, etc etc etc.
However lets also remember that in the last 3 years alone CAT has built/staffed a large manufacturing plant in SC as has Boeing... BTW Honda just built a huge manufacturing facility in NC a couple years ago. Should we send those jobs back?

A chinese textile company is building a plant in SC right now that will employ several thousand people.

It's a global enconomy these days. The globe is shrinking. Companies either get with the program or get left behind.

If you want more American manufacturing jobs riddle me this. Why should a production worker in Peoria Illinois be demanded a $92/hr wage by the local union when in SC they had a waiting list of over 1,200 for some 400 jobs to make $15/hr.

China isnt the enemy of American jobs. Corrupt Unions and lazy entitled workers are the enemy of American jobs.
 
BTW...anyone who knows me knows how much it pained me to defend Caterpillar in a public forum...
 
Ron said:
China isnt the enemy of American jobs. Corrupt Unions and lazy entitled workers are the enemy of American jobs.
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I don't think I could agree more.

I used to work for a non-union plant that provided industrial degreasers for the big 3 automotive manufactures, General Dynamics and aerospace clients. I was a college graduate, but worked for my now-ex-in-laws' company because the pay was good. One of my tasks was to change out part washer tanks that were strewn through out the plants. We had an industrial golf cart fitted with two storage tanks and a HUGE pump to pump out the old solution and pump in 30 gallons of fresh stuff. It was an environmentally safe compound of 5 gallons of "soap" to 25 gallons of water. The unions had a fit because they felt that union workers should be doing this work. We were charging $20-30 per unit per month for a once a month service. On average, an auto plant would have 25-30 of these in various areas.

It would take me roughly 10-15 minutes per unit to change out the part washer solution. I had to first unplug the unit from the wall outlet (gfi plug like a hair dryer) lift the basin off the tank and flip it on it's top to access the tank. Vacuum up the 30 gallons of dirty solution, clean the tank and pump in fresh solution. Flip the basin back over and set it on the tank, plug back in, test to make sure the pump is working and clean up the basin a bit. For union workers to do this, they would have required an electrician (because it was plugged into the wall - God forbid the average worker have to deal with an electrical outlet!), a pipefitter (because there is water involved), a millwright (since the basin weighed more then 30 lbs.) and none of those people could be the person who actually uses that part washer (never understood that part). On average, for them to coordinate all these workers and get the task done, they were looking at 1-1.5 hours with a union required smoke break. Assuming an average of $55 an hour for these workers - and that's a REALLY low average even for back then - even the union backed down when presented with how much money they would save having us do it. Didn't stop the union workers from giving me a hard time and filing grievances every once in a while.

I was told once that the best job to have is a union electrician. They are very busy when changing out machines and building new facilities, but for the better part of the year, it's just changing lightbulbs and locking out equipment when a machine needs maintenance. I remember seeing union electricians asleep on a bench with their pager on their chest collecting double time for weekends and triple time for holidays. I knew a couple of 30 something union electricians that were already millionaires because they weren't married and just worked whenever they were asked. They just socked most of it away because they knew the gravy train wouldn't last forever. They did have some NICE toys, though!
 
Ron said:
China isn't the enemy of American jobs. Corrupt Unions and lazy entitled workers are the enemy of American jobs.
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BINGO!!!!!!!

My step dad is a big union man and we have had this very discussion. The union was needed back in the day, but now... they are just spoiled and greedy.

My dad worked at a place called Peerless in Indiana back in the 70's. The union went on strike for more $ and benefits. The company tried to explain that there just wasn't profits to pay what was asked. They were forced to sign and 2 years latter went out of business....
 
Yeah, talk to guys that actually work in china, and you get a very different picture. For one thing, I know a few folks that are moving ops out of China. There are several reasons, but among them are always: industrial espionage (they can't innovate without the Chinese stealing the tech), increasing costs vs other developing countries, and a culture that values saving face over fixing problems. Their culture is very top-down, do exactly what you're told and nothing else. That creates a lot of wasted time when somebody just goes out and does what they're told, without ever asking questions or suggesting that there might be a problem.
 
HAPPY said:
My dad worked at a place called Peerless in Indiana back in the 70's. The union went on strike for more $ and benefits. The company tried to explain that there just wasn't profits to pay what was asked. They were forced to sign and 2 years latter went out of business....
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Hostess. Back when they went bankrupt, I remember reading that the unions had organized it so that different product lines had to be delivered to stores by different drivers. So the same store would get visited by a Hoho truck and a tasty cake truck and a Twinkie truck, even though they were all coming out of the same distributor's warehouse or bakery.
 
^^^ Yup, I remember that. You would think they would learn.
 
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