The Toledo Museum of Art's $30 million Glass Pavilion is a symbol of America's "Glass City," and reflects the legacy of its local glassmakers. A smudge on the image: The pavilion glass was imported from China, the new global powerhouse of the glass industry. No one in the U.S. had the capability to satisfy cutting-edge architectural specifications for the curving pavilion, even though the 2006 job involved techniques advanced decades ago by Toledo inventors: bending and laminating glass. The pavilion features 360 thick glass panels, each up to 13.5 feet tall, eight feet wide and weighing over 1,300 pounds. For years, the West focused on the threat from China's low-tech exporters like clothing and furniture makers. Glass represents how an even more potent challenge has arrived: sophisticated, capital-intensive businesses that boast high-tech expertise. In industries where global demand has shifted to China, the pattern is repeated, from steel to locomotives and turbines to specialized glassworks. Chinese companies that have gorged on growth in the domestic market have managed in just a few years to close the gap on decades of technological innovation in the industrialized West. Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories#ixzz0y4lHW7n6 Yeah, go on and export technological innovation. China says thank you and have a nice day !
Hey! But America has millions of real estate "agents", insurance salespeople, fast-food friers, MBA's, PhD's, lawyers & their attorney cousins. These productive jobs are secure & will never be outsourced to China. WHEN is somebody going to put an end to this? When unemployment reaches 20%???
I once worked at a glass plant. I do not believe the technology is complicated. I remember the factory losing money almost every year. One reason for the losses might be the high labor cost: I believe the plant that I worked at used union labor at about USA $ 26 / hour + retirement pension + retirement medical pension + lots of other benefits. I don't know what employees in a Chinese glass plant are paid, but if they receive the equivalent of USA $ 10 / day and no benefits then the factory might make a lot of money overall.
...begin broken record rant We cannot stop the outflow of jobs and technology. The USA is mandated to export jobs and technology. It is a TREATY!!!!! PLEASE GO AND READ THE WTO - in particular articles 7 and 66. All of the a$$hole politicians in America who say they are going to stop the outflow or are going to "change tax code so the jobs stay here" are FULL OF SH!T!!!!! They would first have to break the treaty. The WTO TREATY is the "law of the land" - the WTO treaty SUPERSEDES the laws passed by Congress!!!! It would have to be broken, before the jobs could "legally" be pulled back here!!!!! Wake up people!!! ONCE AGAIN - FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT SEEM TO READ...READ THE F'ING LINK BELOW!!! http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/techtransfer_e.htm -gastropod ...end broken record rant
noone cares what you guys think, the companies will continue to follow the bottomline = more export of labors to china and other emerging countries + more import of their cheap shit. until the threshold is reached where china is no longer cheap, where they start to have unions and laws to protect their workers, where you cant just "do it" but need to go through a 100 step approval process like in the usa. then the whole cycle will shift again, maybe back to the US, maybe to some other country, we will all be in the graves by then. It took usa roughly 100 years to go from little rules but highly productive/efficient (19th century) to now where it's an expensive bureaucratic mess. China is 19th century usa right now in term of laws/regulation.
I went to a flea market. This guy had an accordian for sale among his other stuff. I checked it out and he was very knowledgable about accordians. He told me that accordians that were previously made in Italy, were now being made in China. Hmnnn, so the Chinese are making accordians and exporting them to Italy. Who'd duh thought? Plus, c'mon, whats the demand for accordians? The fellow said he had repaired a few "Chinese" made accordians and noted the wood shavings, dust, poor construction, etc. China must be into everything and this must be a world wide situation.
I bought a set of Oneida flatware the other day. Probably you can guess where it was made. What do they actually do in Oneida, NY now?