The Outsourcing of an entire bridge

[ProfJohn]

Are they using something in the bridge that's toxic? What's the difference in that bridge (other than size) vs what we're making now (smaller)? Skyscrapers use steel and concrete....we can't build them here either?

This isn't about regulations or zoning restrictions, it's about cheap labor, period (and maybe an overpriced bridge design).

Don't dismiss the EPA angle so fast.

“Four years ago, there were just steel plates here and lots of orange groves.”

In the US it would take four years just to get EPA approval to build such a facility.

Hell, they started working on this thing 20 years ago! Took them 10 years just to figure out how and where to build the damn thing.

 

[Engineer]

Don't dismiss the EPA angle so fast.

In the US it would take four years just to get EPA approval to build such a facility.

Hell, they started working on this thing 20 years ago! Took them 10 years just to figure out how and where to build the damn thing.

LOL, Hyundai and Kia (huge factories in the US) went from concept to production in under 4 years so I doubt the above claim.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Republicans have done and continue to do the most damage to the country.

It can survive under Democrat rule, it cannot under Republican and that is their plan.

Why do you fail to see that?

Thank you for voting for Bush twice!

 

[Engineer]

Thank you for voting for Bush twice!

IIRC, it was only one time! :hmm:

 

[LegendKiller]

Don't dismiss the EPA angle so fast.

In the US it would take four years just to get EPA approval to build such a facility.

Hell, they started working on this thing 20 years ago! Took them 10 years just to figure out how and where to build the damn thing.

Bullshit. There are plenty of factories built quickly in the US.

 

[senseamp]

Rightwing answers for US competitiveness always get around to how we need to get rid of environmental regulations and minimum wage, turning the US into a third world polluted sh!thole. That's what rightwingers are inspired by. Not by Germany, but by China.

 

[davmat787]

Rightwing answers for US competitiveness always get around to how we need to get rid of environmental regulations and minimum wage, turning the US into a third world polluted sh!thole. That's what rightwingers are inspired by. Not by Germany, but by China.

Why limit your cup of rage to just half when you get served the whole thing regardless? Your partisan douchebaggery is one of the primary reasons of why we have these problems, yet you insist on using them to what? Make yourself feel superior by thinking you are on the side of the just and correct? Or does your partisan hackery allow for a built in excuse for failures by blaming the other side?

What you fail to realize is that for you, there is a mirror image opposite of the extreme right, probably one of your hated tea party members, who merely cancels you out. Where does that get us?

Of course you will not understand this, many others have tried to point this out to you in just the past several days alone. Yet the rage continues unabated.

Just answer this one question please: Do you think that if every Republican was instantly replaced with a Democrat tomorrow, would all of these problems be solved?

 

[BarneyFife]

LOL. The new mantra by the slaves of the elite is the EPA sucks. They don't allow toxins in our water and protect us from chemicals. We should get rid of them because we aren't competitive with China. Yes, Americans are idiots and get what they deserve.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

So we don't make steel in this country anymore? We aren't allowed to weld?

I'll tell my boss tomorrow so we don't weld anything in the shop from this point forward.

Obviously you haven't worked in in steel manufacturing facilities in the US. They face many of the same restraints that coal fired power plants are strapped with by the EPA. Expansion of existing steel plants will be difficult due to environmental concerns/NIMBY's but by all means keep believing that US plants can be built very quickly and skilled laborers can be found/trained while maintaining competitive products.

If everyone in the US went to college, we would have the most educated McDonalds and Walmart employees in the world.

 

[nonlnear]

LOL. The new mantra by the slaves of the elite is the EPA sucks. They don't allow toxins in our water and protect us from chemicals. We should get rid of them because we aren't competitive with China. Yes, Americans are idiots and get what they deserve.

It's hardly a new mantra. However on the flip side it's silly to argue that the EPA doesn't have major effects on which industries are globally competitive. It's a tradeoff. One of the major things that Chinese heavy industry has in their favor is that they have a carte blanche ability to pollute pretty much wherever they want with impunity. China's "economic miracle" is being purchased with the health of their children, and that's not being priced into their bids. It's a macabre "gift" which their government extracts from the people to give to the industrial barons and their buyers.

 

[Engineer]

Obviously you haven't worked in in steel manufacturing facilities in the US. They face many of the same restraints that coal fired power plants are strapped with by the EPA. Expansion of existing steel plants will be difficult due to environmental concerns/NIMBY's but by all means keep believing that US plants can be built very quickly and skilled laborers can be found/trained while maintaining competitive products.

Well, I guess we're just too "regulated" and "stupid" to make anything anymore.:'(



:hmm:

 

[Fenixgoon]

So we don't make steel in this country anymore? We aren't allowed to weld?

I'll tell my boss tomorrow so we don't weld anything in the shop from this point forward.

lol this. one of the biggest blast furnaces in the country outputs 15,000 TONS of iron PER DAY. per day!!!!

 

[Craig234]

Back in the days of far more people in unions, expensive American labor we can't afford, we built the Golden Gate bridge. We built the Hoover Dam, the Empire State building.

Rachel Maddow agreeing in a 20 second video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42705352#42705311

 

[RabidMongoose]

Back in the days of far more people in unions, expensive American labor we can't afford, we built the Golden Gate bridge. We built the Hoover Dam, the Empire State building.

Rachel Maddow agreeing in a 20 second video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42705352#42705311

Craig234 style logic: There are some countries where they can't even have bridges, let alone pay people to build them.

 

[alphatarget1]

You're telling me no other west coast state needs bridges? Besides they wasted money on that bridge any way. Could have built a cheaper and simpler design, and pocketed the money to pay for illegal immigrants' healthcare.

Do you understand how big these bridge deck sections are? Like I mentioned, anything that big will probably need to be transported by water. What do you do when the width+length of the sections are wider than interstate highways?

I just looked up the (relatively) new Tacoma-Narrows bridge that was finished in 2007. I am pretty sure at least some the steel bridge deck sections were manufactured by a Japanese company. It wasn't a big deal back then and it shouldn't be a huge deal now.

 

[Darwin333]

I've said that for years. People talk about how the US is making more stuff than ever before. I've said many times that we bring in components from Mexico, China, (wherever) and do some "value added" final assembly and then stamp "Made in the USA" or "Assembled in the USA" on it. I've watched as USA made components went from 100% to less than 50% in some segments of the US Automotive market. And we wonder why the lower 50% of people have sunk below the threshold of paying income taxes (as their income has been flat or sinking for over a decade as the solid jobs are leaving the country).

Besides, now we have the government and OUR tax dollars going directly to the Chinese and not the very Americans that are paying them.

We see the same thing in solar. There is quite a lot that goes into making and assembling a solar panel. They basically make the entire thing in China and ship it to the US. An American worker then solders two leads on the back of the already made panel (we are talking less than a minutes work) and puts the "assembled in the USA" stamp on it. Putting the stamp on it probably took as long as the "assembly" part but somehow it gets the label.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Sorry Craig:

The Hoover Dam was not union built

 

[rchiu]

Back in the days of far more people in unions, expensive American labor we can't afford, we built the Golden Gate bridge. We built the Hoover Dam, the Empire State building.

Rachel Maddow agreeing in a 20 second video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42705352#42705311

Lol, those projects were done in the 30's when 20+% people were unemployed and oh yeah lots of immigrants workers were available.

Today people would rather stay home and get their unemployment checks and immigrants are getting kicked out of the country.

Bottom line, two choice for American, either pay little and have things outsourced or keep it in house for double the time and cost. (that's an optimistic estimate) If it were up to me, I'd keep it in house and pay more and build up the capability for the long term.

 

[BarneyFife]

Yeah, people are just living it up with $300 per week unemployment checks.

 

[Craig234]

Sorry Craig:

The Hoover Dam was not union built

That's true, just saying big projects were built with American labor in the period unions had a lot more people, 'driving up wages' as the right would say.

As for the Dam, a Union tried to unionize it, sending 11 people to organize. Las Vegas police arrested them. Those were the days! Bring them back - we're headed that way.

Another heart-warming story about the labor practices at the dam:

...Six Companies hired large numbers of workers... peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. "Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was forbidden by the construction contract,while the number of blacks employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets.

 

[Craig234]

We see the same thing in solar. There is quite a lot that goes into making and assembling a solar panel. They basically make the entire thing in China and ship it to the US. An American worker then solders two leads on the back of the already made panel (we are talking less than a minutes work) and puts the "assembled in the USA" stamp on it. Putting the stamp on it probably took as long as the "assembly" part but somehow it gets the label.

Our 'assembled in the USA' laws are that bad? Reminds me of the 'made in the USA' Marianas Islands scandal. Sounds like the laws need fixing.

 

[Nebor]

As for the Dam, a Union tried to unionize it, sending 11 people to organize. Las Vegas police arrested them. Those were the days! Bring them back - we're headed that way.

Good. Collusion, racketeering and organized crime are all illegal.

 

[ProfJohn]

The question no one has asked is whether they COULD have been built in the US.

If so then they should have, extra cost and all. $400 million out of a $6.3 billion bridge isn't that much and the jobs it would have provided would have made it worth it.

 

[Craig234]

The question no one has asked is whether they COULD have been built in the US.

If so then they should have, extra cost and all. $400 million out of a $6.3 billion bridge isn't that much and the jobs it would have provided would have made it worth it.

The funny thing is, if it made a ton of sense to spend that $400 million, and we needed to raise it in taxes, the Republicans sign no new tax pledges blocking the 2/3 needed.

 

[Imp]

Wow... I'm impressed. Shipping your "stimulus" money to another country.

There are an infinite number of ways you can design a bridge. They had to choose one that couldn't be made in the US of A. Wow...