In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:


I agree, but tell that to all the retirees I know that are getting the shaft
from companies with huge unfunded pension liabilities. Expecting the
government to police this is futile since they've been busy stealing from
the SS trust fund for decades.

Actually they haven't. First of all it says "trust fund" but was
never was in any legal sense. For the most part, SS has been funded by
things coming in at about the same time as things going out. In the 80s
Congress noted that that wasn't going to work. So they increased SS
taxes and came up with a "surplus". The problem is that they required by
law that the surplus be in NON-MARKETABLE treasury securities. The exact
same amount of money is there now as would have been if the budget had
been balanced all that time. The exact same amount of money would have
to be raised by the government to pay off the non-marketable securities
WITH interest. It would be a lot easier if the other **** had not taken
place. It would have made a lot more sense if the government had been
able to take the money and lend it out so there was money coming in from
outside the system (about the only dumb thing Dan Moynihan ever said was
when expoused the idea that they had put SS on an actuarially sound
path. The Congress absolutely guts Enron and others for putting all of
the retirement money in Enron stock while doing the functional
equivalent with SS).


And it should be the Feds right to tax them up the ying-yang. I laugh when
I hear people who'll never be rich adamantly defending the tax breaks the
ultra rich have been getting on the premise that if taxed they won't invest.
Who are those who won;t get rich. The IRS stats for years have shown
about 1/3 of each tax quartile moves around during a decade. Some go all
the way from the bottom to the top quartile.. some in the opposite
direction.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On 11/14/2010 8:23 AM, Robert Green wrote:
"Stormin wrote in message
...
I've heard that some US families found Chinese made baby food formulas
to be toxic. With their version of safety and quality standards. Makes
me wonder how they can make so many people. I wonder if they have a
high incidence of illness and mortality?

China's 103rd on the infant mortality list with an infant mortality rate
(deaths/1,000 live births) of 23.0 and an under-five mortality rate
(deaths/1,000 live births)

We come in 33rd with 6.3 and 7.8

The worst places are 194th place Afghanistan with 157.0 and 235.4 and 195th
place "winner" Sierra Leone with 160.3 and 278.1, respectively. There death
rates, especially for children 5 years and younger, is not so much a medical
issue. The high death rate comes from the conficts raging in both
countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mortality_rate

Number one on the UN list (the CIA factbook rankings are slightly different)
is Iceland with figure of 2.9 and 3.9. Japan and the Scandavian countries
also rank quite high (much higher than us!).

The Chinese government executed the CEO's responsible for the melamine
poisoning. It was added to infant formula in order to boost the protein
readings on tests. The formula had been watered down for profit reasons,
and the melamine was supposed to "cover" for the dilution. There are
thousands of Chinese infants now suffering from severe kidney impairment
since melamine forms severe kidney stones and the true scale of the disaster
may not be known for years. Based on my co-worker's experience with
adopting two Chinese girls, they'll be trying to foist a fair number of
those kids on us after sanitizing their medical records to conceal the
poisoning. My friend's little girl got a very "thorough" and *very*
expensive battery of tests done on her by the Chinese adoption doctors, got
a totally clean bill of health and when she got her first US checkup was
found to be infected with Hep C.

We should consider ourselves lucky that they only added melamine to our pet
food, killing our cats and dogs but not our children. Those commies sure
learned the worst ways of capitalism in a very short time. The melamine
crisis is one of but many problems the Chinese have with their food supply
and they have since become much more concerned with making it safer but
they're not having what you would call sterling results. And that's even
AFTER they put the melamine cheaters to death. So much for the deterrent
effect of capital punishment.

--
Bobby G.




I'll throw in the usual disclaimer here about apples and oranges, due to
different countries measuring infant mortality in different ways. Many
countries, even ones with the medical technology available, do NOT take
extraordinary measures to save infants born with major problems, and
they may end up not counted as a live birth. China's numbers are also
likely skewed by their heavy emphasis on abortion for population
control. If a couple knows the baby has severe problems, they may decide
not to use up their allotment, and terminate the pregnancy.

Too bad there is no way to get good numbers by country showing what
percentage of pregnant ladies avail themselves of what medical care IS
available, and/or follow guidelines for how to have a successful
pregnancy. I realize it is anecdotal, but I keep seeing stories in the
paper about children born in clinics where the mother had few or any
prenatal checks, here in USA. And if the mother kept
smoking/drinking/eating junk food while pregnant, that of course makes
it even harder for the newborn to thrive.

And as an added monkey wrench in the numbers, has anyone sliced and
diced them as to average age of the mother while pregnant? All else
being equal, a 20 YO mother has better odds of a healthy kid than one in
her late 30s.

--
aem sends....

"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 08:23:39 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote Re OT Chinese productivity:

We should consider ourselves lucky that they only added melamine to our
pet
food, killing our cats and dogs but not our children. Those commies
sure
learned the worst ways of capitalism in a very short time. The melamine
crisis is one of but many problems the Chinese have with their food
supply
and they have since become much more concerned with making it safer but
they're not having what you would call sterling results. And that's even
AFTER they put the melamine cheaters to death. So much for the deterrent
effect of capital punishment.

The deterrent effect of capital punishment depends on two factors:

1) probably of being caught/convicted.

2) probably of being executed.

Criminologists even argue about those two because when a person is "seeing
red" as many domestic murderers apparently do, they are clearly not thinking
about the consequences of their acts. To me, it's a loophole in the theory
as significant as the discovery that markets do not behave rationally and
people don't always operate (or even understand) what's in their best
interest.

But I agree with your assessment in these cases because they really are
coldly premeditated. I believe that someone calculated the risks of adding
melamine but seriously underestimated the consequences of such adulteration.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that mass-poisoning babies is
about as low as you can get on the scale of human depravity. My belief that
people aren't born monsters makes me want to believe it *had* to be that the
adulterers thought it wasn't as toxic as it turned out to be.

For the melamine scandal the trials/executions where just window
dressing to assure the world that China is on top of the problem. If
the world press had not publicized the problem, the guilty melamine
CEOs would have just received a slap on the wrist.

Ya think? (-: They just put the guy who held up a card protesting the
death of all those kids in jail for 2.5 years so there's clearly evidence to
support the "they'll bury this as fast and deep as they can" theory. I
believe that these things really do clean out the bad actors, at least for a
while. But eventually, the vigilance slips and another round of disasters
occurs.

In China (1) and (2) above are not likely unless the offenders
threaten Chinese marketing.

Not sure of that. They seem to execute people for lots of reasons, and
almost as fast as Texas does. (-:

The marketing endangerment issue is probably something one has to add to the
risk of getting caught and executed, and least in China. A CEO there has to
ask themselves: "Am I ****ing off the government big time?" But that's a
worry of CEO's worldwide. It's just a fatal worry there. Their brand of
capitalism is not ours and one day that will cause some serious friction
between us because like wages and water, ideologies seek their own level.
We're headed in a socialist direction as former socialist embrace
capitalism. At some point, large segments of the populations of both
countries will begin to question the transformation. It's already happened
to the Sovs.

How likely and effective do you think (1) and (2) are for people who
threaten the Chinese power structure?

I long ago realized I can't get into the Chinese mindset. In America, when
something goes horribly wrong, they always tend to go after the little guy
or worker when in so many cases they were just doing what management told
them to do. In China, they cut off the head. I'm for the Chinese way, if
only because it has the side effect of lowering excessive executive
compensation. (-:

It's always about money and power.

I long time ago I read a book that claimed the reason Neanderthal man was
bested by Cro-Magnon because the latter adorned themselves with beads and
tattoos which other CM's thought were "kewl" and wanted. So they learned to
speak and to trade and to create things TO trade. People who collected
shiny seashells in one place began trading with wanderers who had shiny
things peculiar to another place. So commerce may well have caused
civilization in the first place.

It wasn't long, though, before the ability to communicate and cooperate
played into the baser instincts of the CM's because it enabled them develop
and refine weapons to hunt down and eradicate the Neanderthals. Of course,
it could be some genetic susceptibility to disease that did them in, but I
like the tattoo and bead trading hypothesis better. Just watch one kid look
at another kid's new toy. I imagine our ancestors operated with what is now
a five year old's brain - and maybe much less. Lord of the Flies. Some
things haven't changed much in 100,000 years.

--
Bobby G.

"aemeijers" wrote in message

stuff snipped

And as an added monkey wrench in the numbers, has anyone sliced and
diced them as to average age of the mother while pregnant? All else
being equal, a 20 YO mother has better odds of a healthy kid than one in
her late 30s.

Well, most other countries don't give out "crack checks" each month to unwed
mothers in the volume that we do. )-: I read some horrible statistic
somewhere that said crack dealers synchronize their shipments to coincide
with issuance of welfare and other monthly social payouts.

I agree wholeheartedly that the numbers I quoted have an incredible amount
of slop in them, but other countries really are a hell of a lot more
proactive in making sure all women get good prenatal care. I expect they're
discovered that the government ends up supporting babies with birth defects
in the long run so it's in everyone's interest to make sure they're born
healthy. We'll figure it out, eventually.

--
Bobby G.

"Robert Green" wrote
We've bought some tooling from China over the past few years. It is just
as
good quality as the US build, but in 3 weeks (delivered) instead of 12
and
$20,000 instead of $35,000.

Does the time lag represent a backup or lack of capacity in US toolmakers
or
are there so many Chinese machinists and factory floor space available for
the price of one US machinist that they can work work four times as fast?
Fast turnaround is really a competitive advantage because there hasn't
been
a place I've worked that didn't want their specialized *whatever* the day
that they ordered it. (-;

--
Bobby G.

I've not visited the companies, but from what I've been told, they put a lot
of people, each doing a small portion of the job and work more hours per
day. Most of the tool shops here work 8 or 16 hour days. The US shop
sends CAD drawing for approval after two weeks. The shop in China sends
them in two days.

Cost aside, lead time can make the difference between getting an order from
the customer or him going to a competitor.

"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:33:56 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote Re OT Chinese productivity:

We've bought some tooling from China over the past few years. It is just
as
good quality as the US build, but in 3 weeks (delivered) instead of 12 and
$20,000 instead of $35,000.

Just curious. What kind of tooling?

Cast aluminum tooling used for molding plastics. Usually a combination of
castings mounted on plates with machining, knock out pins, cooling lines,
etc.

In article ,
aemeijers wrote:


And as an added monkey wrench in the numbers, has anyone sliced and
diced them as to average age of the mother while pregnant? All else
being equal, a 20 YO mother has better odds of a healthy kid than one in
her late 30s.

I have never got around to officially running the numbers, but at least
among the developed countries there is a pretty good eyeball corelation
between rank in teenage pregnancies and infant mortality (with the US
first in the former and last in the latter).
You also see non-medical societal influences making a large impact
on other medical relationships. For example, a 16 y/o killed by drugs or
in a drive by does more damage to the life expectancy than keeping an 76
y/o geezer alive a couple extra years. If anything, the medical system
is probably doing a great job in seeing the differeneces aren't worse by
saving a good number of high-risk babies. A study a few years ago
corelated the rise of trauma centers and the lowering of the murder rate
because the TCs were turning what formerly would have been murders into
attempted murders or assault.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:


Criminologists even argue about those two because when a person is "seeing
red" as many domestic murderers apparently do, they are clearly not thinking
about the consequences of their acts. To me, it's a loophole in the theory
as significant as the discovery that markets do not behave rationally and
people don't always operate (or even understand) what's in their best
interest.
The best argument any more about the death penalty is the cost of
prosecution.I know of a bunch of prosecutors that won't even consider a
capital case saying that they can't afford it.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On 11/13/2010 12:41 PM, Tony Sivori wrote:
Kurt Ullman wrote:

In ,
Caesar wrote:

Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...hinese-workers
-build-15-story-hotel-in-just-six-days


They did not build it. They ASSEMBLED it, according to the report.
BIG difference.

I agree with you, this is not the amazing feat that it seems to be.

The six days did not include site preparation or foundation work
(referencing Jon Danniken's post, I can only hope they bothered with a
foundation).

I've watched a number of buildings go up and it is always the foundation
work that takes all the time. That seems to take forever, and then the
building blows up.

Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.

Jeff



Work proceeded 24 hours per day. Tough luck for the neighbors, but in a
communist dictatorship no one complains. There was no true "building" (no
measuring, cutting, welding, riveting, or grinding), there was only prefab
assembly. Six cranes were in service, compared to the usual one or two.

It would also be helpful to have China's cheap 1.3 Billion strong labor
pool.

Tony Sivori
Due to spam, I'm filtering all Google Groups posters.

On 11/14/2010 11:23 AM, Jeff Thies wrote:
(snip)
Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.


I know nobody can afford it any more (and in our disposable society
where we routinely blow up 30 YO stadiums nobody wants it), but I LIKE
'overbuilt' buildings. I bet ESB is still standing long after many much
younger buildings are taken down or fall down. The old buildings are
probably overbuilt mainly because they just didn't know how much margin
was needed, where today they can plot the structure to be 105% of what
is needed, and not a penny more.

--
aem sends...

In article ,
Jeff Thies wrote:

Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.

Isn't that the building I saw the documentary of, where one guy was
heating rivets red hot and then throwing them to a "catcher" on another
floor? I'm pretty sure OSHA wouldn't buy off on that plan these days.

On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 11:23:41 -0500, Jeff Thies wrote:

On 11/13/2010 12:41 PM, Tony Sivori wrote:
Kurt Ullman wrote:

In ,
Caesar wrote:

Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...hinese-workers
-build-15-story-hotel-in-just-six-days


They did not build it. They ASSEMBLED it, according to the report.
BIG difference.

I agree with you, this is not the amazing feat that it seems to be.

The six days did not include site preparation or foundation work
(referencing Jon Danniken's post, I can only hope they bothered with a
foundation).

I've watched a number of buildings go up and it is always the foundation
work that takes all the time. That seems to take forever, and then the
building blows up.

Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.

The Hoover Dam is equally amazing and built about the same time. I did take
longer to build (5 years) because it is all foundation. ;-)

On 11/14/2010 11:44 AM, aemeijers wrote:
On 11/14/2010 11:23 AM, Jeff Thies wrote:
(snip)
Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.


I know nobody can afford it any more (and in our disposable society
where we routinely blow up 30 YO stadiums nobody wants it), but I LIKE
'overbuilt' buildings. I bet ESB is still standing long after many much
younger buildings are taken down or fall down. The old buildings are
probably overbuilt mainly because they just didn't know how much margin
was needed, where today they can plot the structure to be 105% of what
is needed, and not a penny more.


Yea, then some little Mexican worker leaves out that one bolt........

TDD

On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:44:31 -0500, aemeijers wrote:

On 11/14/2010 11:23 AM, Jeff Thies wrote:
(snip)
Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.


I know nobody can afford it any more (and in our disposable society
where we routinely blow up 30 YO stadiums nobody wants it), but I LIKE
'overbuilt' buildings. I bet ESB is still standing long after many much
younger buildings are taken down or fall down. The old buildings are
probably overbuilt mainly because they just didn't know how much margin
was needed,

The ESB is overbuilt because it was intended to moor dirigibles.

where today they can plot the structure to be 105% of what
is needed, and not a penny more.

Like the WTC. They even had to reinforce it after it was completed because
they flubbed the calculations.

On 11/14/2010 6:26 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:44:31 -0500, wrote:

On 11/14/2010 11:23 AM, Jeff Thies wrote:
(snip)
Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.


I know nobody can afford it any more (and in our disposable society
where we routinely blow up 30 YO stadiums nobody wants it), but I LIKE
'overbuilt' buildings. I bet ESB is still standing long after many much
younger buildings are taken down or fall down. The old buildings are
probably overbuilt mainly because they just didn't know how much margin
was needed,

The ESB is overbuilt because it was intended to moor dirigibles.

where today they can plot the structure to be 105% of what
is needed, and not a penny more.

Like the WTC. They even had to reinforce it after it was completed because
they flubbed the calculations.

I strongly doubt the use as a mooring tower entered into the design
criteria for the framework. A big balloon doesn't add a lot of load.
ISTR that was mainly hype to get renters to sign up anyway- although
they did try one test-dock there, they pretty much knew the canyon
updrafts would make it impossible as a regular procedure. Zeppelin
company and US Navy weren't idiots- they knew where an airship could be
landed.

--
aem sends...

In article ,
aemeijers wrote:


I strongly doubt the use as a mooring tower entered into the design
criteria for the framework. A big balloon doesn't add a lot of load.
ISTR that was mainly hype to get renters to sign up anyway- although
they did try one test-dock there, they pretty much knew the canyon
updrafts would make it impossible as a regular procedure. Zeppelin
company and US Navy weren't idiots- they knew where an airship could be
landed.

It was, at least according to the history channel built to withstand
the hit of a big plane of the era (don't remember which one right off).
Before the time of radar and great navigational stuff, they were
concerned that a plane might hit it in the fog.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On Nov 13, 8:26*am, Caesar Romano wrote:
Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101112/bs_yblog_upshot/chinese...

Be sure to watch the time-lapse video of the construction. *Amazing.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.


This is very impressive.

American companies wrap so much "process" around every project these
days that most budgets for product or software development, for
example, go only to completing the required process paperwork. Long
before one gets to solder the first wire or write the first line of
code. Then the business screams at how much it cost and "why are the
programmers just starting now?" 3 weeks before promised delivery?
What usually happens is a crappy shoddy product is developed because
all the money for the project was eaten up by the legal and CYA
paperwork.

Somehow I wish American companis just went out like this and did
things again. Believe me I'm in corporate america working in
manufacturing, we dont do **** any more but paperwork. Then
commoditize the most important part, the build, out to India or China
where they dont think, they just follow the specs, which are usually
crappy because the Americans had to spend no time on that either,
because of all the CYA paperwork since Sarbanes Oxley laws came in.

Believe me, Amaerica is up ****'s creek. We've thrown out the baby
with the bathwater. The new leaders of the world in actually doing
things that dont involve a lawer, will be China and India. The next
generation is having it's future stolen as we speak. Govt cant help
anyone because they are in hock to the govt pensions and unions, so
there simply is little money left to do govt projects without printing
up more cash.

China and India are dumbfounded by how much we give away, they would
never do that.

On Nov 14, 12:12*pm, "
wrote:
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 11:23:41 -0500, Jeff Thies wrote:
On 11/13/2010 12:41 PM, Tony Sivori wrote:
Kurt Ullman wrote:

In ,
* Caesar *wrote:

Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...upshot/chinese...
-build-15-story-hotel-in-just-six-days

* * They did not build it. They ASSEMBLED it, according to the report.
BIG difference.

I agree with you, this is not the amazing feat that it seems to be.

The six days did not include site preparation or foundation work
(referencing Jon Danniken's post, I can only hope they bothered with a
foundation).

I've watched a number of buildings go up and it is always the foundation
work that takes all the time. That seems to take forever, and then the
building blows up.

Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.

The Hoover Dam is equally amazing and built about the same time. *I did take
longer to build (5 years) because it is all foundation. *;-)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The Hoover is like a big wedge with the point down, it will always
keep itself ever tighter in the canyon with gravity.

The concrete in the Hoover was still cooling 10 years after it was
poured, and had to be cooled with embedded water tubing during
construction.

Yes there are still many American projects that outshine this little
Chinese hotel, but I still have to wonder if American ability to
actually do work will one day be completely stopped by excessive CYA
requirements, as I see every day.

On 11/14/2010 7:30 PM, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In articlePZidne6ApKzZ4X3RnZ2dnUVZ_tudnZ2d@giganews. com,
wrote:


I strongly doubt the use as a mooring tower entered into the design
criteria for the framework. A big balloon doesn't add a lot of load.
ISTR that was mainly hype to get renters to sign up anyway- although
they did try one test-dock there, they pretty much knew the canyon
updrafts would make it impossible as a regular procedure. Zeppelin
company and US Navy weren't idiots- they knew where an airship could be
landed.

It was, at least according to the history channel built to withstand
the hit of a big plane of the era (don't remember which one right off).
Before the time of radar and great navigational stuff, they were
concerned that a plane might hit it in the fog.


A big (for the day) plane DID hit it in the 40s, and did amazingly
little damage. I'm sure it wouldn't withstand a modern huge plane much
better than WTC did, but ESB is definitely more than a 105% building.

--
aem sends...

--
aem sends...

On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 22:49:46 -0500, aemeijers wrote:

On 11/14/2010 7:30 PM, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In articlePZidne6ApKzZ4X3RnZ2dnUVZ_tudnZ2d@giganews. com,
wrote:


I strongly doubt the use as a mooring tower entered into the design
criteria for the framework. A big balloon doesn't add a lot of load.
ISTR that was mainly hype to get renters to sign up anyway- although
they did try one test-dock there, they pretty much knew the canyon
updrafts would make it impossible as a regular procedure. Zeppelin
company and US Navy weren't idiots- they knew where an airship could be
landed.

It was, at least according to the history channel built to withstand
the hit of a big plane of the era (don't remember which one right off).
Before the time of radar and great navigational stuff, they were
concerned that a plane might hit it in the fog.


A big (for the day) plane DID hit it in the 40s, and did amazingly
little damage. I'm sure it wouldn't withstand a modern huge plane much
better than WTC did, but ESB is definitely more than a 105% building.

I B25, in 1945.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/194...mpirecrash.htm

On 11/14/2010 8:58 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 19:18:09 -0500, wrote:

On 11/14/2010 6:26 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:44:31 -0500, wrote:

On 11/14/2010 11:23 AM, Jeff Thies wrote:
(snip)
Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.


I know nobody can afford it any more (and in our disposable society
where we routinely blow up 30 YO stadiums nobody wants it), but I LIKE
'overbuilt' buildings. I bet ESB is still standing long after many much
younger buildings are taken down or fall down. The old buildings are
probably overbuilt mainly because they just didn't know how much margin
was needed,

The ESB is overbuilt because it was intended to moor dirigibles.

where today they can plot the structure to be 105% of what
is needed, and not a penny more.

Like the WTC. They even had to reinforce it after it was completed because
they flubbed the calculations.

I strongly doubt the use as a mooring tower entered into the design
criteria for the framework. A big balloon doesn't add a lot of load.
ISTR that was mainly hype to get renters to sign up anyway- although
they did try one test-dock there, they pretty much knew the canyon
updrafts would make it impossible as a regular procedure. Zeppelin
company and US Navy weren't idiots- they knew where an airship could be
landed.

They may have known, but it in fact was. Only a 50T load.

From the horse's mouth:
http://www.esbnyc.com/tourism/touris...s_july2000.cfm

Still smells like a real estate developer's con job to me. Features to
be added later are a standard selling point, and often never happen.

--
aem sends...

On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:57:33 -0800 (PST), RickH
wrote Re OT Chinese productivity:

Believe me, Amaerica is up ****'s creek. We've thrown out the baby
with the bathwater. The new leaders of the world in actually doing
things that dont involve a lawer, will be China and India. The next
generation is having it's future stolen as we speak. Govt cant help
anyone because they are in hock to the govt pensions and unions, so
there simply is little money left to do govt projects without printing
up more cash.

And printing more cash is exactly what we are doing now:

"Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy used by some central
banks to increase the supply of money by increasing the excess
reserves of the banking system, generally through buying of the
central government's own bonds to stabilize or raise their prices and
thereby lower long-term interest rates. This policy is usually invoked
when the normal methods to control the money supply have failed, i.e
the bank interest rate, discount rate and/or interbank interest rate
are either at, or close to, zero. It has been termed the electronic
equivalent of simply printing legal tender."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

Remember Jimmy Carter's inflation? You ain't seen nothing yet.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

In article ,
Caesar Romano wrote:



Remember Jimmy Carter's inflation? You ain't seen nothing yet.

IIRC, Japan is entering the 12th year of its "lost decade".

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On Nov 13, 6:26*am, Caesar Romano wrote:
Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101112/bs_yblog_upshot/chinese...

Be sure to watch the time-lapse video of the construction. *Amazing.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

Here is Chinese productivity in the form of population control:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapc...g.fire/?hpt=T2

"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:12:51 -0500, Tony Sivori
wrote Re OT Chinese productivity:

American worker productivity is much higher than Chinese workers.

"U.S. Workers World's Most Productive"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3228735.shtml

So how is it that they are beating the crap out of us?
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

China manipulates it's currency where the US lets theirs float.

A lot of it is corporate greed and taking advantage of a country full of
people that will work for pennies a day.

Unfair tariffs on US goods.

Jim

On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:28:34 -0600, "JimT" wrote
Re OT Chinese productivity:


"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:12:51 -0500, Tony Sivori
wrote Re OT Chinese productivity:

American worker productivity is much higher than Chinese workers.

"U.S. Workers World's Most Productive"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3228735.shtml

So how is it that they are beating the crap out of us?
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

China manipulates it's currency where the US lets theirs float.

The US is manipulating the $ right now by running the printing presses
to "print" 600B$ of new currency right out of thin air. That drives
the value of the $ down on world makes and raises the price of
imported products.

Have you been watching the price of oil and gasoline lately?
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

china doesnt have all those pesky OSHA, minimum wage and other laws
either.

If a worker dies on the job they just replace them.... the country
overflows with available workers

Literal people are valuable, on this planet. In some situations.
However, a more fitting reply might have been "Melanine: It's how they
have so many yellow babies."

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in message
...
I've heard that some US families found Chinese made baby food
formulas
to be toxic. With their version of safety and quality standards.
Makes
me wonder how they can make so many people. I wonder if they have a
high incidence of illness and mortality?

China's 103rd on the infant mortality list with an infant mortality
rate
(deaths/1,000 live births) of 23.0 and an under-five mortality rate
(deaths/1,000 live births)

We come in 33rd with 6.3 and 7.8

The worst places are 194th place Afghanistan with 157.0 and 235.4 and
195th
place "winner" Sierra Leone with 160.3 and 278.1, respectively. There
death
rates, especially for children 5 years and younger, is not so much a
medical
issue. The high death rate comes from the conficts raging in both
countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mortality_rate

Number one on the UN list (the CIA factbook rankings are slightly
different)
is Iceland with figure of 2.9 and 3.9. Japan and the Scandavian
countries
also rank quite high (much higher than us!).

The Chinese government executed the CEO's responsible for the melamine
poisoning. It was added to infant formula in order to boost the
protein
readings on tests. The formula had been watered down for profit
reasons,
and the melamine was supposed to "cover" for the dilution. There are
thousands of Chinese infants now suffering from severe kidney
impairment
since melamine forms severe kidney stones and the true scale of the
disaster
may not be known for years. Based on my co-worker's experience with
adopting two Chinese girls, they'll be trying to foist a fair number
of
those kids on us after sanitizing their medical records to conceal the
poisoning. My friend's little girl got a very "thorough" and *very*
expensive battery of tests done on her by the Chinese adoption
doctors, got
a totally clean bill of health and when she got her first US checkup
was
found to be infected with Hep C.

We should consider ourselves lucky that they only added melamine to
our pet
food, killing our cats and dogs but not our children. Those commies
sure
learned the worst ways of capitalism in a very short time. The
melamine
crisis is one of but many problems the Chinese have with their food
supply
and they have since become much more concerned with making it safer
but
they're not having what you would call sterling results. And that's
even
AFTER they put the melamine cheaters to death. So much for the
deterrent
effect of capital punishment.

--
Bobby G.

I roll my eyes when people talk about Congress (who writes the laws)
being "required by law". They write, and sometimes follow the laws
they write for themselves.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...

taxes and came up with a "surplus". The problem is that they required
by
law that the surplus be in NON-MARKETABLE treasury securities. The
exact
same amount of money is there now as would have been if the budget had
been balanced all that time. The exact same amount of money would have

And, all that law is written by whom?

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...

The best argument any more about the death penalty is the cost of
prosecution.I know of a bunch of prosecutors that won't even consider
a
capital case saying that they can't afford it.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree
is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

Yes, I do remember staflation. Bend over, here it comes again.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Caesar Romano" wrote in message
...


And printing more cash is exactly what we are doing now:

"Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy used by some central
banks to increase the supply of money by increasing the excess
reserves of the banking system, generally through buying of the
central government's own bonds to stabilize or raise their prices and
thereby lower long-term interest rates. This policy is usually invoked
when the normal methods to control the money supply have failed, i.e
the bank interest rate, discount rate and/or interbank interest rate
are either at, or close to, zero. It has been termed the electronic
equivalent of simply printing legal tender."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

Remember Jimmy Carter's inflation? You ain't seen nothing yet.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

In article ,
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:

I roll my eyes when people talk about Congress (who writes the laws)
being "required by law". They write, and sometimes follow the laws
they write for themselves.
We weren't talking about Congress being required to law put them in
non-Marketable securities. We were talking about Congress ordering SS to
put them in non-Marketable securities.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

In article ,
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:

And, all that law is written by whom?

If you look at capital cases, most of the really expensive **** is
constitutionally required according the Supreme Court, the arbiter of
such things.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 23:07:30 -0500, aemeijers wrote:

On 11/14/2010 8:58 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 19:18:09 -0500, wrote:

On 11/14/2010 6:26 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:44:31 -0500, wrote:

On 11/14/2010 11:23 AM, Jeff Thies wrote:
(snip)
Not that I see anyone racing to build, but it is amazing how fast iron
work can go. The way over built Empire State Building took a year or so.
Four and a half floors per week in a building of a much larger foot
print. I find that to be much more impressive.


I know nobody can afford it any more (and in our disposable society
where we routinely blow up 30 YO stadiums nobody wants it), but I LIKE
'overbuilt' buildings. I bet ESB is still standing long after many much
younger buildings are taken down or fall down. The old buildings are
probably overbuilt mainly because they just didn't know how much margin
was needed,

The ESB is overbuilt because it was intended to moor dirigibles.

where today they can plot the structure to be 105% of what
is needed, and not a penny more.

Like the WTC. They even had to reinforce it after it was completed because
they flubbed the calculations.

I strongly doubt the use as a mooring tower entered into the design
criteria for the framework. A big balloon doesn't add a lot of load.
ISTR that was mainly hype to get renters to sign up anyway- although
they did try one test-dock there, they pretty much knew the canyon
updrafts would make it impossible as a regular procedure. Zeppelin
company and US Navy weren't idiots- they knew where an airship could be
landed.

They may have known, but it in fact was. Only a 50T load.

From the horse's mouth:
http://www.esbnyc.com/tourism/touris...s_july2000.cfm

Still smells like a real estate developer's con job to me. Features to
be added later are a standard selling point, and often never happen.

That seems to be the case, except that the building *was* designed to handle
the load; framework and some of the mooring equipment was installed. Dumb
idea, certainly, though Zepplins and dirigibles were dumb ideas in themselves.

On 11/15/2010 4:43 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
Yes, I do remember staflation. Bend over, here it comes again.


I've considered getting a big BOHICA! sign for my office wall, but I
don't think my management would understand, or find it funny if they did.

--
aem sends...

On 11/16/2010 2:11 PM, larry moe 'n curly wrote:
(snip)

Notice that half
our deficits have been due to the GW Bush tax cuts:

A tax cut is no more of a gift to the people it applies to, than a
mugger handing back half the contents of your wallet would be. The
deficits are due to ONE thing- Congress spending too damn much money.
Cut out the duplication, un-neccessary programs, and turf warfare
between agencies and military services, and you could probably cut the
federal non-entitlement budget by 1/3. My favorite example is DoD vs.
the Rest of Fed Gov. Almost every program and function on civilian side
has a mirror image within DoD, even when they could easily be combined.
DoD truly does not regard themselves as part of the Federal Government.

The government needs to learn that It Isn't Their Damn Money, and they
aren't Santa Claus by taking less of it from us subjects, er, citizens.

--
aem sends...

On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:12:35 -0500, aemeijers
wrote Re OT Chinese productivity:

A tax cut is no more of a gift to the people it applies to, than a
mugger handing back half the contents of your wallet would be. The
deficits are due to ONE thing- Congress spending too damn much money.
Cut out the duplication, un-neccessary programs, and turf warfare
between agencies and military services, and you could probably cut the
federal non-entitlement budget by 1/3. My favorite example is DoD vs.
the Rest of Fed Gov. Almost every program and function on civilian side
has a mirror image within DoD, even when they could easily be combined.
DoD truly does not regard themselves as part of the Federal Government.

Go here


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html

for an interactive exercise to see if YOU can fix the budget gap. I
was able to do it easily.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html

for an interactive exercise to see if YOU can fix the budget gap. I
was able to do it easily.

Yup. In about 2 minutes. Why can't the "guys in charge" figure this out? Oh
wait, they're all bought and paid for by corporations.

On Nov 17, 5:14*am, Caesar Romano wrote:
On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:12:35 -0500, aemeijers
wrote Re OT Chinese productivity:

A tax cut is no more of a gift to the people it applies to, than a
mugger handing back half the contents of your wallet would be. The
deficits are due to ONE thing- Congress spending too damn much money.
Cut out the duplication, un-neccessary programs, and turf warfare
between agencies and military services, and you could probably cut the
federal non-entitlement budget by 1/3. My favorite example is DoD vs.
the Rest of Fed Gov. Almost every program and function on civilian side
has a mirror image within DoD, even when they could easily be combined.
DoD truly does not regard themselves as part of the Federal Government.

Go here

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-g...

for an interactive exercise to see if YOU can fix the budget gap. *I
was able to do it easily.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.

When I do a budget for my home I cut the most from the highest expense
and there are no sacred cows. The highest expense is the military so
why would you only cut 218 billion from troop reduction?

In article ,
"h" wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...ficits-graphic
.html

for an interactive exercise to see if YOU can fix the budget gap. I
was able to do it easily.

Yup. In about 2 minutes. Why can't the "guys in charge" figure this out? Oh
wait, they're all bought and paid for by corporations.

Just the GOP. The Dems are bought and paid for by the Unions and
trial lawyers.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke