What's the Point of Jobs in China? by JEWELSTAITEFAN

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So we get back to my question ... what's the point of jobs ANYWHERE?

It's an interesting question. I hope someone tries to answer it besides me.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

What's the point of jobs ANYWHERE? That's too philosophical for me. Whatever answer I give won't be enough answer.

The salesmen in the book The Soul of A New Machine said the point is money and what money can buy, but all the people that were interesting in the story had much more complex jobs and larger motives than the salesmen. Salesmen, being who they are, find any purpose other than their purpose to be impractical. I would say salesmen have taken over the world since that book was published in 1981. But complaining about motivation of today will make no more difference than complaining about the Conquistadors' greed for gold and silver 500 years ago.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, May 31, 2016 10:31 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

If we COULD get machines to do everything for us, and assuming that we could fix the economic system so that people could avail themselves of the products, we'd probably be like the very wealthy of any era: bereft of meaningful problems to solve and accomplishments to be proud of, we'd be swimming in an endless sea of physical gratifications and shallow interactions.

Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, June 2, 2016 10:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
If we COULD get machines to do everything for us, and assuming that we could fix the economic system so that people could avail themselves of the products, we'd probably be like the very wealthy of any era: bereft of meaningful problems to solve and accomplishments to be proud of, we'd be swimming in an endless sea of physical gratifications and shallow interactions.

Kind of like the Eloi in The Time Machine

SECOND, I can't see the point of answering a question about the point of jobs in any particular place, because in this globalized economy one place can be substituted for another.

Also, it depends on WHOSE purpose you're asking about. Jobs mean different things to financialist (who sees them as a source of profit), to the worker, and to the consumer. And jobs have a greater meaning in general than either of those.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, June 2, 2016 12:40 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
If we COULD get machines to do everything for us, and assuming that we could fix the economic system so that people could avail themselves of the products, we'd probably be like the very wealthy of any era: bereft of meaningful problems to solve and accomplishments to be proud of, we'd be swimming in an endless sea of physical gratifications and shallow interactions.

Kind of like the Eloi in The Time Machine

SECOND, I can't see the point of answering a question about the point of jobs in any particular place, because in this globalized economy one place can be substituted for another.

Also, it depends on WHOSE purpose you're asking about. Jobs mean different things to financialist (who sees them as a source of profit), to the worker, and to the consumer. And jobs have a greater meaning in general than either of those.

Does work have to be Americans’ primary source of status? Should it organize their lives? That is where some of this animosity about "China stealing American jobs" comes from. It is not only about about earning money from factory work.
www.vox.com/2016/6/1/11827024/universal-basic-income

Moving factory production from China to the USA might not mean more permanent, lifetime jobs in the USA. Elon Musk said the world's best automotive factories are still using outmoded and inefficient systems. Tesla’s business is building cars, not increasing employment. “We can make dramatic improvements to the machine that makes the machine. A lot of people will not believe us about this, but I am absolutely convinced this can be accomplished.”
www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-shareholders-20160531-sn
ap-story.html

But Elon Musk could be mistaken. Maybe auto factories will not become much more efficient at using manpower.

It is not so obvious that the USA needs to bully China into moving factory production to the USA to create new jobs:

Unemployment Claims in 2016 Have Set a New Record Low
The Department of Labor announced today that the 4-week moving average of initial unemployment claims was 276,000 in May. "This marks 65 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973."
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/unemployment-claims-2016-have-s
et-new-record-low

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, June 2, 2016 5:24 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Robots are coming for our jobs. So who is going to lose their job?

Partly because we're better at designing these limited AI systems, some experts predict that high-skilled workers will adapt to the technology as a tool, while lower-skill jobs are the ones that will see the most disruption. When the Obama administration studied the issue, it found that as many as 80 percent of jobs currently paying less than $20 an hour might someday be replaced by AI.

"That's over a long period of time, and it's not like you're going to lose 80 percent of jobs and not reemploy those people," Jason Furman, a senior economic advisor to President Obama, said in an interview. "But [even] if you lose 80 percent of jobs and reemploy 90 percent or 95 percent of those people, it's still a big jump up in the structural number not working. So I think it poses a real distributional challenge."

Policymakers will need to come up with inventive ways to meet this looming jobs problem. But the same estimates also hint at a way out: Higher-earning jobs stand to be less negatively affected by automation. Compared to the low-wage jobs, roughly a third of those who earn between $20 and $40 an hour are expected to fall out of work due to robots, according to Furman. And only a sliver of high-paying jobs, about 5 percent, may be subject to robot replacement.

Those numbers might look very different if researchers were truly on the brink of creating sentient AI that can really do all the same things a human can. In this hypothetical scenario, even high-skilled workers might have more reason to fear. But the fact that so much of our AI research right now appears to favor narrow forms of artificial intelligence at least suggests we could be doing a lot worse.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/02/everything-you-th
ink-you-know-about-ai-is-wrong/

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 3, 2016 8:41 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Does work have to be Americans’ primary source of status? Should it organize their lives?

Does work "have" to be American?

No, of course not.

But only if you change the economic system, because under neo-liberalism (the economic structure which promotes socialism for the wealthy and "free-market" capitalism for everyone else) you either work or die.

As KIKI said, if you could manage to distribute the goods manufactured to people without expecting work from them (1) you wouldn't have capitalism and (2) work wouldn't be required. But I don't see any great benefits coming to the non-worker any time in the near future, do you? And I don't see that happening internationally, either. The USA can't keep importing foreign manufactured goods ... and exchanging them for pieces of paper, or bits in a bank account ... forever. At some point, those holders of American dollars are going to EXPECT something in exchange for that currency, and it's not going to be manis and pedis (the great service economy).

Quote:
...'It is not so obvious that the USA needs to bully China into moving factory production to the USA to create new jobs:

Unemployment Claims in 2016 Have Set a New Record Low

Every time someone points to the unemployment figure, I want to put my head thru a wall. The unemployment figure is so manipulated as to be meaningless, because even gainful employment for ONE HOUR in a month counts you as "employed", and if you've stopped looking for a job you're no longer counted as "unemployed". And while the unemployment figure has been warped this way for a long time, internet connectivity has made ultra-temporary jobs ("the gig economy") more prevalent.

Quote:
Partly because we're better at designing these limited AI systems, some experts predict that high-skilled workers will adapt to the technology as a tool, while lower-skill jobs are the ones that will see the most disruption. When the Obama administration studied the issue, it found that as many as 80 percent of jobs currently paying less than $20 an hour might someday be replaced by AI.

The push for automation isn't coming about because of a demand for automation from below, it's coming about because of a demand for profit from above. The job of the "job creators" isn't to create jobs, it' to DESTROY them, and they're been working on that for a long, long time.

Quote:
Policymakers will need to come up with inventive ways to meet this looming jobs problem. But the same estimates also hint at a way out: Higher-earning jobs stand to be less negatively affected by automation. Compared to the low-wage jobs, roughly a third of those who earn between $20 and $40 an hour are expected to fall out of work due to robots, according to Furman. And only a sliver of high-paying jobs, about 5 percent, may be subject to robot replacement.

And if establishment policy-makers think that "the answer" is to give everyone a better education so that "everyone" can get one of those higher-paying jobs, what will happen is that there will be a flood of people competing, which will drive wages down.

We will never be able to think about "jobs" - manufacturing or otherwise- logically until we get rid of capitalism as a model. That's because the job destroyers will continue to destroy jobs, and at the same time insist that only those who work will be able to buy the goods so created. Those two demands are logically contradictory and in the long run will destroy each other. The only reason why they're promoted is because they work very well for the 0.01% who can profit from the system (until it implodes, that is, which is does with regularity).

Automation depends not only on technology but also on a source of EXTERNAL, NON-HUMAN POWER. At one time it was water-wheels which drove the looms and mills of mercantile France, England, and the northeast USA. Now it's electricity.

But given the need to slow down greenhouse gas emissions (another problem we refuse to think about logically) and the abundance of potential human labor, the logical thing to do would be to re-substitute human labor for some automation. KIKI is right: there are some jobs that are too exacting, or where the scale is too large, or the conditions too noxious, to allow human labor. But there are a lot of jobs which can still be returned back to less "efficient" forms of labor. ("Efficiency" is a broken paradigm. Once I realized that, I've dropped it from my common vocabulary.) And there are also jobs which are currently left undone - like environmental restoration, infrastructure repair, and housing rehabilitation/ energy improvement - because there is no "profit" in it.

As long as we're working within the requirement that "somebody" be able to "profit" from work, we will NEVER be able to turn employment to serving the needs of "the commons".

The other thing to consider is the work-week. We COULD also shorten the work-week. If you look at "natural" humans ... people living in tropical to subtropical climates with little technology - close to how humans evolved - you will see that people don't work a 40-hour week, they work significantly fewer hours. I bring this up because I believe that humans have a psychological need to work, to see that they have some sort of agency over their environment, and that if you take that away you make people ill. OTOH, we aren't particularly adapted to endless toil, either... people need to be driven to endless toil with fear and damnation breathing down the backs of their necks.

But, like I said, as long as we constrain our thoughts to systems in which somebody can profit, we'll never be able to think logically about jobs/work.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 3, 2016 2:45 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

And now you're wondering about the cost of bringing those jobs back to the USA. So, tell me, SECOND, what is the cost of NOT having those jobs?

We have all been talking about this for years, predicted it, but refused to admit it because it was 'scifi'
strange looking flag

http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk
Susan Sarandon Fears Hillary Foreign Policy More Than Trump

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 3, 2016 5:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, first of all, I generally don't look at "unemployment" rates because those are subject to the "discouraged worker" phenomenon. As far as manufacturing jobs, the manufacturing sector has clearly decreased since about 2000, the Fed reading the tea leaves is irrelevant.

The real question is "What's the point of jobs ANYWHERE"? I'd rather engage JSF on this first, if possible.

There has been a LOT of traffic in this thread since this post, and I have not been able to catch up until now.
Have I already engaged what you wanted in my reply prior to this one of yours?

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 3, 2016 5:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Do you suppose you could actually address a topic - any topic at all - with facts and logic, and avoid the personal attacks, sgg?

He cannot even stay on topic for more than a few words lately, let alone address it.
The last few months have been a trend for him, before that I recall he was more coherent.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 3, 2016 5:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Apparently this thread about jobs in China for American products and the trade and tariff laws enacted by current and prior administrations has been hijacked because it is all the fault of Trump - who has never held public office.

Denial, much?
Reality impaired?

Okay. Then explain to me.....where do tariffs come from?

they come from the mating of the words Tax and Fee.
Quote:

If they are so bad for the American worker, whom everyone seems to care about, they why oh why are they in place? Really, can't American workers make American products better than anyone else? Then why are American businesses fleeing the country to do their business overseas?
Taxes. It is more reasonable, profitable, practical, business sensible to pay less tazes when allowed to. Paying excessive taxes needlessly when the tax structure favors sending jobs overseas is dumb for bUSiness. Since Obama has made the taxation prohibitively expensive for businesses to keep jobs in America, he has provided incentive and favor to eliminate jobs here and punish the working class, which he hates because he has never known somebody in that class.
Quote:

Why aren't businesses and manufacturers rejecting the notion of taking
their companies to foreign lands?

Is the president forcing them to leave and we don't know about it. Wouldn't that make it an impeachable offense?
Every reasonable person already knew this, and voted against Obamination. Among his many impeachable offenses, this one is not at the top of the list.

Quote:

Inquiring minds want to know.

SGG

You mean Libtards pretend to want to know. If they had minds or really wanted to know, they would have listened to the reasonable people who already explained this before Obamination was elected.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 3, 2016 5:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, first of all, I generally don't look at "unemployment" rates because those are subject to the "discouraged worker" phenomenon. As far as manufacturing jobs, the manufacturing sector has clearly decreased since about 2000, the Fed reading the tea leaves is irrelevant.

The real question is "What's the point of jobs ANYWHERE"? I'd rather engage JSF on this first, if possible.
I saw an article called Why Has Manufacturing Employment Declined? It is from 30 years ago, back when Trump, Hillary and Obama were unimportant. It begins:
“United States manufacturing employment grew little in 1986. Currently at about 19 million workers, it is below the 21 million employed at its peak in 1979. This disappointing performance often is attributed to-” Read it to find out how the sentence ends.
https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/86/12/Manufacturin
g_Dec1986.pdf

I can show you the future story of manufacturing employment with another story that has almost reached its end: farming employment. The USA had 21 million farm workers in 1916, the very same number as 1979’s manufacturing employment. There are now only 1 million farmers and yet we are not starving.
www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/background.aspx

Twenty million farmers have tragically lost their jobs. A way of life is gone. How will farmers support their families now that they are unemployed? President Trump says he can increase the number of hardworking farmers back to 21 million with high tariffs on imported food. But, just maybe, Trump should not.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/86/12/Manufacturin
g_Dec1986.pdf

20 million farmers from 1916 did not lose their jobs, down to the 1 million jobs today. They are dead or resting in bed today.

You forgot to mention all of the comupter and software jobs from 1916 that have been exported.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 3, 2016 8:18 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

20 million farmers from 1916 did not lose their jobs, down to the 1 million jobs today. They are dead or resting in bed today.

You forgot to mention all of the computer and software jobs from 1916 that have been exported.

Fewer farmers every year has been a trend for all your life and farmers' lives, too. Food production is increasing but farm employment is decreasing in the USA. Similarly, factory production is increasing but factory employment is decreasing.

www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2498688,00.asp
This dehumanizing of manufacturing isn't just a trend in America—or even rich Western nations—it's a global phenomenon. It found its way into China, too, where manufacturing output increased by 70 percent between 1996 and 2008 even as manufacturing employment declined by 25 percent over the same period.

Between 1975 and 2011, manufacturing output in the U.S. more than doubled (and that's despite NAFTA and the rise of globalization), while the number of (human) workers employed in manufacturing positions decreased by 31 percent.
http://mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output-vs-jobs-1975

http://myf.red/g/4D0x

Above is a graph from the St. Louis Fed's excellent data portal which shows manufacturing employment in the US (blue), Germany (black) and Japan (red) from 1990 to 2010 (2011 for the US, note 100 = the series average over 1990 to 2010). The data clearly show that each of these three big manufacturing powerhouses have seen about the same proportional decline in manufacturing employment. Claims that Japan or Germany have not seen the same declines in manufacturing employment as the US are watching wiggles not trends.

The wiggles are important as they can represent the effects of policies aimed at reducing the impacts of recessions. But the trend is important as well, and seeing the same trend in manufacturing employment across three of the world's largest economies is pretty strong evidence that there is a single over-whelming dynamic at play - productivity growth in manufacturing.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 4, 2016 12:21 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

One point that your post fails to make, SECOND, is the number of people IN CHINA engaged in manufacturing. Because during that same period of time, that number has grown immensely, as China shifted from a rural to a manufacturing/ export economy. Injecting somewhere in the realm of a hundred million people into the world's manufacturing labor pool is going to affect manufacturing jobs elsewhere.

As far as automation is concerned, automation has been going on for a long time. It's the high-tech alternative to "cheap labor", but with the same goal: greater and greater profit. (And for the financialists' need to get paid back on the loans that he or she has given to the capitalist.) And as long as the average person lives in a "work or die" economy, and as long as TPTB can't figure out how to disburse the results of (automated/ cheap labor) production to people who have no money because they don't have a reasonably-paid "job", "jobs" will still be an ever-shrinking dire necessity for billions of people on the globe.

It's nice to think of a future when a person's ego and self-identification isn't "job" dependent, but currently the focus for most people is survival, not ego gratification.

The question from here is: How do we manage "jobs" in the global economy in a way that isn't self-destructive to the system, destructive to the environment, or destructive to people?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 4, 2016 2:54 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Second

I wanted to point out that Germany VERY SPECIFICALLY and with intent has focused its jobs creation in three different directions: cutting edge technology, skilled trades, and crafts; and has very specifically outsourced its standard bulk manufacturing to China; both directions by policy and specific intention.

I suspect that Japan fell into the doldrums because - as an island nation without significant natural resources - Japan configured itself as an export manufacturing economy, exporting primarily to the US. But after US trade shifted away from Japan to - again - China, Japan's manufacturing decreased.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 4, 2016 3:11 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

But to get back to the question of jobs -

If you look at certain pets, or animals confined in small cages in a zoo, when they're deprived of their 'jobs' - roaming, foraging, hunting, establishing territories, etc - they become pathological and exhibit all sorts of self-destructive and/or repetitive behaviors.
If you look at highly social animals - parrots, elephants, orcas, etc - when they're deprived of their normal societies they also become pathological and exhibit all sorts of self-destructive and/or repetitive behaviors.
I don't believe humans are any different from animals, and so, deprived of meaningful survival tasks and social inputs, we become pathological. Unfortunately our society is filled with 'junk food' work, 'junk food' interactions, and junk food.

In your post your link posited a society that wasn't based on the meaning of 'jobholder' status, and it then failed to realize or even posit what that society could be.
I suggest you read U K Le Guin's 'The Dispossessed' for one imagining of a world where the basics are met by common effort while your 'job' - your calling, that task you are drawn to do - is something discovered individually.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 4, 2016 4:10 PM

The fracking bubble?

Fracking can return in force whenever the price of oil increases.
The costs of fracking are fairly low, and become profitable as soon as oil prices rise again. Otherwise the oil prices can stay at current rates until oil dries up.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 4, 2016 4:23 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
But to get back to the question of jobs -

I suggest you read U K Le Guin's 'The Dispossessed' for one imagining of a world where the basics are met by common effort while your 'job' - your calling, that task you are drawn to do - is something discovered individually.

I found (and maybe you would, too) more about American factory workers and their dissatisfactions from Ten Thousand Working Days [1978] by Robert Schrank than from The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia [1974] by Ursula K. Le Guin. www.amazon.com/Ten-Thousand-Working-Days-Press/dp/0262690640/

I forgot to mention that the real Schrank was raised by anarchists, as was the fictional Shevek from Dispossessed.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 10:34 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, what's your point?

It seems to be that automation is inevitable and good, and that the economy (and people) will adjust to the level of automation in their lifetime.

Is that your point?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 10:34 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

The dratted double!

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 3:44 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, anyway, getting back to the point I was making about a society without 'jobs' as we know them, neither second's link nor second's recommended book envision what that possibility would look like. One explores the concept of a guaranteed minimal stipend and explores the difference between retirement and unemployment; however they are all in the context of a society based on 'jobs'. The other explores the positives and negatives of working a 'job'.

To explore what a society without 'jobs' as we know them could be, I mentioned three things: confined wild animals deprived of their instinctual 'jobs'; the wealthy class of any age (because their survival was provided for and a 'job' was never at any time expected); and The Dispossessed by U K Le Guin, as thought experiment of a society without 'jobs'.

I'd be happy to continue this line of thinking.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 4:26 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Today, Switzerland voted against ending poverty and against a world without work:
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060
Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for all.

Final results from Sunday's referendum showed that nearly 77% opposed the plan, with only 23% backing it.

The proposal had called for adults to be paid an unconditional monthly income, whether they worked or not.

The supporters camp had suggested a monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs (£1,755; $2,555) for adults and also SFr625 for each child.

The amounts reflected the high cost of living in Switzerland. It is not clear how the plan would have affected people on higher salaries.

The supporters had also argued that since work was increasingly automated, fewer jobs were available for workers.

Switzerland is the first country to hold such a vote.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 4:45 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

The global economy is still jobs-based. As a member of the global economy, Switzerland still exists in competition with that economy, which demands maximizing profits. Also, Switzerland has a long-standing Protestant work-ethic of industriousness, even tho only about 25% of their GDP is due to manufacturing. (An astounding 11% of their GDP is due just to banking, which doesn't require work per se.) If the vote were to take place in some other culture with less of that mindset, I wonder how it would turn out.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 4:51 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, what's your point?

It seems to be that automation is inevitable and good, and that the economy (and people) will adjust to the level of automation in their lifetime.

Is that your point?

You can draw your own conclusions. I think nothing is inevitable and nothing ever happens until somebody makes it happen. Here is a story about a seamless steel pipe factory opening in 2017 in Texas that would typically employ 1,200, but this factory will only need 600. What made that happen? $1,800,000,000 and tariffs and Italians.

While the new pipe mill will add 600 jobs next year, Tenaris has already cut 540 elsewhere in the Houston area. Tenaris mothballed its Texas Arai facility in northwestern Houston this year after cutting about 300 jobs. Last year, Tenaris did the same at its Conroe plant while eliminating 240 positions.

So the net gain in jobs will be 600 – 540 = 60 after expending $1,800,000,000. This only applies to steel pipe, but, once again, you can draw whatever conclusions please you about how many American jobs will be created by building factories in the USA for products that can be imported.

www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Tenaris-spending-1-8-billion
-on-pipe-plant-amid-7963028.php

Tenaris spending $1.8 billion on pipe plant amid oil slump
By Jordan Blum

A corporation with roots in three foreign countries is making a $1.8 billion bet on building a steel pipe mill at a time when the oil patch is littered with idle equipment.

Tenaris' mill 70 miles southwest of Houston plans to produce seamless pipe, tubing and casing for oil and gas wells in the U.S., where the rig count has dropped to 404 from 1,930 at its peak in October 2014.

The Bay City mill will employ 600 when it opens next summer.

"It will be the latest and most advanced manufacturing facility in our industry in the world," said Germán Curá, the North American president of Tenaris. "When and if the activity rebounds, and we believe that it will, we'll be ready."

Tenaris announced the project in 2013 when oil prices were booming. Analysts who follow the company, however, do not believe it suffers from bad timing.

"It's actually incredibly well timed," said Michael LaMotte, an oil field services analyst in Dallas for Guggenheim Securities.

A look at the mill

$1.8 billion Total project cost

600,000 tons The annual steel pipe production capacity

1.2 million Square footage of the mill, not counting ancillary facilities

44 millionSquare footage of Tenaris' Bay City property

600Tenaris' anticipated Bay City employee count when the mill opens next year

1,400The average number of workers during construction, including 160 permanent Tenaris workers

$6 million: Project grant approved by former Gov. Rick Perry from the state's Texas Enterprise Fund

$1.3 million The amount invested locally by Tenaris in education, including more than $400,000 in scholarships since 2013

$10 million The amount spent by Tenaris with Matagorda County vendors and contractors

95% The percentage of waste materials at the site that Tenaris says it will recycle

Oil producers will need to drill a lot more wells beginning as soon as 2017 just to keep U.S. oil production going at current levels, LaMotte said. Tenaris' mill will skip the bust and open right when the industry likely is returning, he said.

A different world

Drive just past the outskirts of small Bay City, and the seemingly otherworldly bright purple, green and blue hues of the massive pipe mill spring out of nowhere.

Tenaris' vivid logo colors painted on the sides of the mill make it stand out from a typical manufacturing plant.

But that's kind of the point for a Luxembourg-based global company with Argentinian and Italian roots that's trying to revolutionize the industry, Curá said. After all, during the height of the shale oil boom, 50 percent of all well piping was imported from Asia and other parts of the world.

"The intent is to change how the industry works in a much more effective way, but also to drastically substitute for the imports that are coming into our market," said Curá, a native Argentinian who obtained U.S. citizenship five years ago.

Nick Green, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in London, sees the project as a shrewd strategic move to outmaneuver competitors.

'Key weapon'

"They could have deferred opening of the plant. Instead, when it comes on in 2017 it will be a key weapon in their bid to gain market share," Green said.

The U.S. oil industry previously peaked decades ago and relied on pipe mills largely built during the World War II era. The recent shale boom increased the reliance on imports and outdated domestic mills, Curá said.

The new mill will produce piping twice as efficiently as industry standards, in part by using much more robotics automation, he said, moving the steel from one station to the next.

"Manufacturing in America is feasible, and it is viable if it's well planned and it has the proper degree of automation," Curá said.

Most of the employees will work in the control room, in adjacent satellite buildings or below the manufacturing floor. The production will occur on the equivalent of the second or third story so workers can more easily access the equipment from below for maintenance.

"There will be almost no people on the floor," he said. "This is a fully automated process."

The mill is built a taller-than-normal eight floors high in order to improve air flow and create a cooler, less sweltering work environment in a facility where steel is heated to almost 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. It's more expensive but makes long-term economic sense, he said. Curá brags that the project quickly received Environmental Protection Agency permitting with just a "minor source of emissions" label.

Cut out the middleman

The proximity of the mill in Texas is intentionally designed to cut out the middleman, or pipe distribution companies, and directly service the rigs in the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale and as far north as Alaska. Tenaris touts its "Rig Direct" system of supplying pipe to match the exact needs of its customers just when the products are required in the field to avoid redundant storage, maintenance and inspection costs.

Each piece of pipe has a barcode equivalent that lets customers track its age and exact specifications using scanners or their mobile phones, Curá said.

The other key factor is the anticipated decrease in pipe imports. There's a pending trade case with the Commerce Department involving the alleged illegal dumping of steel and pipes into U.S. markets. The main alleged offender is South Korea, and Curá expects a final ruling next spring.

"There will be less foreign pipe available because of tariffs," LaMotte said.

And Tenaris stands to become a unique beneficiary, LaMotte added. The only comparable U.S. plant is Vallourec's 4-year-old pipe mill in Youngstown, Ohio, but its location better serves the Marcellus and Utica shale regions in the Northeast, he said.

Tenaris' rapid rise

Tenaris was virtually unheard of in Texas until about 10 years ago when it bought St. Louis-based Maverick Tube Corp. and Houston-based Hydril Co. for a combined $5 billion.

The company located its North American headquarters in Houston's Galleria area and, in 2014, bought the 11-story building it occupied. In short order, Tenaris grew from about 50 Houston employees to more than 2,000.

Tenaris was only incorporated 14 years ago in Luxembourg - partly for tax purposes - but its history dates back to World War II.

During the war, Italian businessman Agostino Rocca backed off of his initial support of Benito Mussolini, and in 1945 he founded Techint, or the Technical International Co. He moved to Argentina, and the business took off in South America and, eventually, globally. Rocca's grandson, Paolo, is the current CEO of Tenaris and Techint, which now operates as a holding company, over the umbrella Tenaris brand.

Focus on a niche

LaMotte credits Tenaris with becoming a global leader in steel chemistry quality, manufacturing technology and logistics in a relatively short time frame by focusing on a key niche within the broader steel sector.

"Tenaris made the strategic decision to focus on energy almost exclusively," he said.

But that focus made Tenaris susceptible to the oil bust. While the new pipe mill will add 600 jobs next year, Tenaris has cut more than 500 elsewhere in the Houston area.

Tenaris mothballed its Texas Arai facility in northwestern Houston this year after cutting about 300 jobs. Last year, Tenaris did the same at its Conroe plant while eliminating 240 positions.

The job cuts are unfortunate but necessary when the product demand goes away, Curá said. After all, the number of rigs drilling for oil and gas in the U.S. has plummeted over the past two years.

Curá insists the Texas Arai and Conroe plants weren't closed but temporarily shuttered.

The jobs will come back with the industry.

"We did it once before, and we'll do it again," he said.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 6:51 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
The global economy is still jobs-based. As a member of the global economy, Switzerland still exists in competition with that economy, which demands maximizing profits. Also, Switzerland has a long-standing Protestant work-ethic of industriousness, even tho only about 25% of their GDP is due to manufacturing. (An astounding 11% of their GDP is due just to banking, which doesn't require work per se.) If the vote were to take place in some other culture with less of that mindset, I wonder how it would turn out.

I think the vote for an Unconditional Basic Income would fail everywhere on Earth. But eventually it will become reality. We just have to wait for the robot revolution to evolve to the point where lots of middle-class white people are permanently put out of work. Then it swiftly will go from pet unicorn to "duh."

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 7:06 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

It'll be harder than you think. The entire economy is based on the transfer of money in return for work performed. Unless that money is transferred in some other way, there'll be no money moved away from the corporations that own the means of production back to the people (or the government that might act as an intermediary). Hence, they'll be no money to pay the stipend.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 5, 2016 11:22 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
It'll be harder than you think. The entire economy is based on the transfer of money in return for work performed. Unless that money is transferred in some other way, there'll be no money moved away from the corporations that own the means of production back to the people (or the government that might act as an intermediary). Hence, they'll be no money to pay the stipend.

No money, you say?

The money could come from a progressive annual tax on capital as suggested seriously by Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014). The capital tax schedule would be 1 percent on fortunes between 1 and 5 million euros, 2 percent between 5 and 10 million euros, and as high as 5 or 10 percent for fortunes of several hundred million or several billion euros.

But Thomas Piketty has even loftier goals. He wrote:

Quote:
I see economics as a subdiscipline of the social sciences, alongside history, sociology, anthropology, and political science. I hope that this book has given the reader an idea of what I mean by that. I dislike the expression “economic science,” which strikes me as terribly arrogant because it suggests that economics has attained a higher scientific status than the other social sciences. I much prefer the expression “political economy,” which may seem rather old-fashioned but to my mind conveys the only thing that sets economics apart from the other social sciences: its political, normative, and moral purpose.

From the outset, political economy sought to study scientifically, or at any rate rationally, systematically, and methodically, the ideal role of the state in the economic and social organization of a country. The question it asked was: What public policies and institutions bring us closer to an ideal society? This unabashed aspiration to study good and evil, about which every citizen is an expert, may make some readers smile. To be sure, it is an aspiration that often goes unfulfilled. But it is also a necessary, indeed indispensable, goal, because it is all too easy for social scientists to remove themselves from public debate and political confrontation and content themselves with the role of commentators on or demolishers of the views and data of others. Social scientists, like all intellectuals and all citizens, ought to participate in public debate. They cannot be content to invoke grand but abstract principles such as justice, democracy, and world peace. They must make choices and take stands in regard to specific institutions and policies, whether it be the social state, the tax system, or the public debt. Everyone is political in his or her own way. The world is not divided between a political elite on one side and, on the other, an army of commentators and spectators whose only responsibility is to drop a ballot in a ballot box once every four or five years.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, June 6, 2016 8:02 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

As I posted further up, you have to reinvent the economy when production is no longer the conduit by which resources are redistributed to people for their survival. So Piketty proposes a tax not based on transfer of money as income or sales, but on existing static wealth, just because. It's interesting that he believes the entire planetful of people can survive on 5 -10% redistribution of accumulated wealth. Did he provide calculations for that? And, if (roughly) true - man what a raw deal us idiots scratch that suckers scratch that people have been willingly duped into.

"They cannot be content to invoke grand but abstract principles such as justice, democracy, and world peace."

Useless words used to beguile people into a bad deal, along with 'market principles', 'freedom' and other religious tenets. If someone has to resort to those words in the absence of a concrete demonstration of how the effect they claim is generated from the cause they're shilling, you'd better watch your wallet ... and your back.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, June 7, 2016 7:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So we get back to my question ... what's the point of jobs ANYWHERE?

It's an interesting question. I hope someone tries to answer it besides me.

Not all jobs are readily automated.
Would you rather be greeted and served by a person when you order your meal, or have the recycler on Star Trek provide you with sustenance? Sure, that is a service job, not a technical job.

But jobs anywhere are for people to perform a task for a cheaper rate than whatever a machine would cost to do the same task.
Once labor rates become overblown, then the installation of a machine to replace the greedy worker makes it automatically more efficient for the company or owner to continue using the machine - the great expense is the changeover, the initial outlay.

The U. S. Postal Service has several unions, one of them the largest in the world. 3 are NALC, APWU, NMU. There is great savings derived from automation and processing equipment. But contract agreements require that before purchasing new equipment or converting an operation from manual labor to automation, the Postal Service prove that the automation will have a total expense (cost of equipment, parts, maintenance, mechanics, operators, programmers, computers and peripherals, etc) of less than 80% of the cost of keeping the operation manual. One might think of this as incentive for the machine makers to make their units more efficient, and the union workers to also work somewhat efficient ("work smarter, not harder") to keep their jobs. But the unions oppose the installation of the machines, and support this by directing their workers to work SLOWER, more OBTRUSIVE, LESS efficient - which then makes the argument and equation for replacing them with machines even stronger.

I did not intend that to be too long-winded, but hope it provides one example of how the balance between jobs and automation, producing pay vs. paying for goods, can be attempted.

When the labor expenses became too onerous, jobs were moved outside the country of unionists. But the savings in manual labor rates becomes minimal when both sides of the border are using automation, not using cheap labor on one side of the border and automation on the other.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, June 8, 2016 2:31 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

When the profit demands became too onerous

iPhone 6s Plus costs Apple an estimated $236 to make and assemble, roughly a third of the $749 retail price it asks for the new smartphone.
How much does Nike actually spend on a pair of sneakers that retails for $100? About $28.50.
The under a dollar pair (of jeans) will hit retail stores for $20.00 and up and will be sold en masse meaning high profits.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, June 8, 2016 7:41 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Not as glamorous as the iPhone, but I saw an article this morning about the long political battle to manufacture shoes in America. To me, the article suggests how difficult it is to pass legislation forcing Made In America.
www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-06/new-balance-close-to-wi
n-in-buy-america-foot-race-for-military

New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc. is close to winning an almost decade-long marathon: A buy-American provision in the massive defense policy bill the Senate will debate this week could force the Pentagon to purchase the company’s sneakers for new military recruits.

Currently, the Pentagon issues about $15 million in vouchers a year, covering 225,000 to 250,000 pairs of athletic shoes, New Balance estimates. If the provision survives in the final version of the fiscal 2017 defense authorization bill and recruits are required to wear American-made apparel, the vouchers could no longer be used for shoes made overseas by Nike Inc. and other companies.

Boston-based New Balance long has lobbied the government to follow the letter of a 1941 law that it perceives as requiring made-in-the-U.S.A. attire for soldiers. That means providing U.S.-made athletic footwear instead of giving recruits allowances to shop for the shoes they prefer.

The Pentagon and the White House oppose the new provision, contending that costs could rise and new recruits could be injured if they are wearing shoes that don’t fit them well.

See the article for the details of who in Congress is for Made In America New Balance shoes and what they say to justify their votes.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, June 8, 2016 9:41 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

As you say, SECOND, nothing happens until somebody MAKES it happen.

Given the huge profit incentive to manufacture abroad, in cheap-labor locations, manufacturing in the USA won't happen unless somebody MAKES it happen.

The only difficulty in the way of manufacturing at home is the one that you keep pointing out... corporations which are used to making huge profits don't want to give that up. But where is it in the national interest that we should do what corporations desire?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, June 8, 2016 1:28 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
As you say, SECOND, nothing happens until somebody MAKES it happen.

But where is it in the national interest that we should do what corporations desire?

The US Constitution, which set a Congress in place, doesn't look after the national interest. Congress looks after the interests of whichever of the 50 states that have banded together to look after their states' interests. And for every gorram issue it could be a different group of states banded together. Agricultural states controlling wherever possible agricultural issues and manufacturing states controlling manufacturing and banking or oil controlled by whichever states are on top of banking or oil. The US Constitution deliberately created a big mess with congressmen looking after me-me-me and my state, never the national interest.
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/14/how-congress-became
-more-partisan-over-time-in-four-charts

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, June 9, 2016 8:56 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Congress looks after the interests of whichever of the 50 states that have banded together to look after their states' interests.

Not quite true.

The President, as Commander in Chief, can order troops into combat without Congress declaring war.

The President also has significant authority in matters of foreign policy and trade relations. It's the President (and his staff) who negotiate alliance, partnerships, and trade deals, and while Congress ultimately has to vote on them they have almost never voted against a deal that the President has made.

Unfortunately, the Presidency has been bought and paid for by the 0.01%. So the President looks after the interests of the 0.01%.

Congress SHOULD be looking after the interests of its various member states, but Congress has ALSO been bought and paid for by the 0.01% so it's really looking after the interests of the wealthy.

So ... aside from the President and Congress looking after the interests of the USA (which isn't about to happen any time soon) ... who IS looking after the interests of the USA?

And what are those interests anyway?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 10, 2016 7:51 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Unfortunately, the Presidency has been bought and paid for by the 0.01%. So the President looks after the interests of the 0.01%.

Congress SHOULD be looking after the interests of its various member states, but Congress has ALSO been bought and paid for by the 0.01% so it's really looking after the interests of the wealthy.

Here is an excellent example about how the "National Interest" is decided by government from today's Houston Chronicle article about rocket engines manufactured in Russia. It is a very unstable decision making process. SpaceX (actually Elon Musk, multi-billionaire ) says he can build those engines in the USA. NASA says let's not get hasty about destroying our relationship with Russia just to please Musk and move a few jobs to Musk's factory.

So which side is looking after the "national interest"? Is the multi-billionaire looking after the best interests of America by banning import of the RD-180? Or is NASA and the Pentagon looking after the best interests by continuing to buy the RD-180?

www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/us/article/Shots-over-Russian-r
ocket-engine-could-hit-NASA-7974043.php
Rocket battle could hit NASA
Proposed curbs on Russian-made engines debated
By Kevin Diaz

WASHINGTON — A fight over the use of Russian rocket engines to launch U.S. military satellites has ignited a lobbying battle in Congress among a handful of commercial space industry giants, sparking concerns in Houston about the potential fallout for NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

The controversy, involving hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts, rose Thursday as lawmakers scrambled to put the finishing touches on a sweeping $602 billion defense bill.

President Barack Obama, citing national security concerns over restricting the Russian engines, has threatened to veto the entire bill, which includes other controversial provisions for registering women for the draft and closing the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Fueling a debate over American dependence on the popular RD-180 engine are rising geopolitical tensions over the Ukraine. At the same time, a group of Houston business leaders has joined some aerospace industry officials in warning about the potential costs of banning the Russian-made rockets too quickly.

Among them is Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, who has warned of “far-reaching, negative effects” of efforts in Congress to cut the number of Russian rockets the Pentagon can use to fly satellites to space.

“We urge you to strongly consider the consequences of blocking access to the RD-180 for political reasons before a reliable and affordable domestic alternative is available years from now,” Mitchell wrote to Texas U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. “Prematurely ending the use of the RD-180 would also have far-reaching negative impact to the space industry, which employs 14,000 highly technical skilled people in the Houston area.”

Although the proposed restrictions apply only to the military, some officials worry that they could increase costs for NASA’s commercial crew and cargo shipments for the International Space Station, which rely on Atlas V rockets powered by RD-180 engines.

“With the military out of the picture, a sharp drop in Atlas V launches overall may make overhead costs for NASA use prohibitive,” Mitchell said. “This could undermine NASA planning for the next decade.”

Opponents of the RD-180, led by Arizona Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, say there would be no impact on NASA, thanks to new rockets being developed by SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. that has served as the Pentagon’s main launch provider.

However, questions remain about how quickly those new rocket engines can be made available, and the increased costs of currently available U.S. heavy-launch alternatives to the Atlas V, which have been estimated in the billions.

Amid a lobbying battle between SpaceX and ULA for the new spy and defense satellite business, NASA appears to be trying to keep its head down, keeping mostly to generalities about the need to eventually phase out the RD-180.

Cornyn and Cruz also have treaded cautiously into an issue that raises national security concerns on both sides.

A spokesman for Cornyn said he is “evaluating the proposals,” and “committed to ensuring the Defense Department and NASA have the necessary resources to continue accessing space.” Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

A bill passed by the House last month grants Denver-based ULA up to 18 Russian-made engines for national security launches over the next five years. Senate language pushed by McCain would cut that number to nine. Amendments filed by senators from Colorado and Alabama, home to ULA facilities, have sought to remove that language.

Raising the stakes, McCain, in what has become a personal duel with Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, has sought to block the Pentagon from signing launch contracts with any Russian space company officials under U.S. sanctions, some with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Echoing concerns about NASA’s reliance on Russia to get American astronauts to the space station, McCain called for an eventual ban on imports of the RD-180.

ULA and its backers have argued for a more cautious transition away from the Russian-made rockets.

“Nobody in this chamber wants to continue the status quo,” said Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, pushing for a measure that would allow the Pentagon to use the Russian engines through 2022. “But we cannot leave the security of this country blind to capacities we would lose.”

Pentagon officials have testified that current alternative launch vehicles, including ULA’s Delta IV and SpaceX’s new Falcon 9, are too expensive or unworkable for the near term.

ULA, which has an $800 million a year contract with the Air Force to ferry national security satellites into space, argues that until a replacement is found, the Atlas V remains the most effective launch vehicle for NASA and the military.

Both space companies are major players in Washington. ULA, a venture of two longtime defense contractors, spent nearly $1.5 million lobbying Congress last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. SpaceX has yet to report significant lobbying expenses, though the company made nearly $320,000 in federal political contributions in the last two-year election cycle.

SpaceX spokesman John Taylor declined to talk on the record for this article. Behind the scenes, California-based SpaceX, led by business entrepreneur Elon Musk, has backed efforts to limit ULA’s continued reliance on the RD-180.

SpaceX and its backers also dismiss any impact on NASA, arguing that the civilian agency has fixed-price contracts for its launch hardware, meaning ULA, not taxpayers, would have to absorb any increased costs from dropping the RD-180. kevin.diaz@chron.com https://twitter.com/DiazChron

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 10, 2016 8:35 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Here is an excellent example about how the "National Interest" is decided by government from today's Houston Chronicle article about rocket engines manufactured in Russia. It is a very unstable decision making process. SpaceX (actually Elon Musk, multi-billionaire ) says he can build those engines in the USA. NASA says let's not get hasty about destroying our relationship with Russia just to please Musk and move a few jobs to Musk's factory.

So which side is looking after the "national interest"? Is the multi-billionaire looking after the best interests of America by banning import of the RD-180? Or is NASA and the Pentagon looking after the best interests by continuing to buy the RD-180?

NEITHER

The REAL interests of the USA would have us capable of manufacturing everything of military, scientific, and infrastructural significance here, at home. And there's more I would add, but that properly belongs in the "What's YOUR platform" thread.

Elon Musk, for all of his money and brains, is an idiot outside of his specific money-making niche. He's not a "technology" expert any more than a physicist is a "biology" expert. His car-making venture wouldn't be making money except for government subsidies, and his rocket-launching venture is energetically ridiculous- you have to loft more than twice the amount of fuel than with a one-way launch. The only purpose that his space vehicle is good for is space tourism. It's not meant for heavy-duty satellite, space station, or exploration launches.

And I think the fault goes back to wealthy Republicans who, after Roosevelt, and stinging from the 90% tax rates that were imposed on the wealthy in the 1940s and 1950s, sought to dismember "government" by portraying it as "evil".

Now, between the twin onslaughts of destroying the parts of government which looked after the common good, and buying off the rest, there are NO agents who are looking after "American interests".

The conundrum that you presented (and there was just an article in the WSJ about chip-making and the Pentagon, which was exactly the same) is the result of decades of wealthy businessmen successfully representing THEIR interests at the expense of the general (and long-term) good, and the success of this money-fueled plan coming home to roost.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 10, 2016 9:14 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The conundrum that you presented (and there was just an article in the WSJ about chip-making and the Pentagon, which was exactly the same) is the result of decades of wealthy businessmen successfully representing THEIR interests, and this policy coming home to roost.

I'd say that it has always been this way, from the very beginning. There was never a golden age of high-minded Congressmen, even back when Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. It has always been people with oversized personalities making decisions based on anything but "National Interest".

I could be wrong, but you will have to prove it. Give many names and many decisions where Congressmen did NOT vote for what was their own self-interest. You have over two hundred years of American history to choose from for your very numerous examples of high-minded decision-making by Congress and the President. I don't think you will find two hundred examples in two hundred years out of all the millions of decisions made.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, June 22, 2016 8:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
As you say, SECOND, nothing happens until somebody MAKES it happen.

Given the huge profit incentive to manufacture abroad, in cheap-labor locations, manufacturing in the USA won't happen unless somebody MAKES it happen.

The only difficulty in the way of manufacturing at home is the one that you keep pointing out... corporations which are used to making huge profits don't want to give that up. But where is it in the national interest that we should do what corporations desire?

Not strictly in the way you are stating it, but in general terms supporting Free Enterprise and a Free Economy allows the economy to strengthen, thereby producing economic power for the nation's leaders to wield (or pretend to).

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 24, 2016 8:08 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Not strictly in the way you are stating it, but in general terms supporting Free Enterprise and a Free Economy allows the economy to strengthen, thereby producing economic power for the nation's leaders to wield (or pretend to).

What is "Free Enterprise"?
What is a "Free Economy"?
How do they produce economic power?

... and while we're at it ....

What is economic power?

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, June 26, 2016 2:23 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Not strictly in the way you are stating it, but in general terms supporting Free Enterprise and a Free Economy allows the economy to strengthen, thereby producing economic power for the nation's leaders to wield (or pretend to). - JSF

What is "Free Enterprise"?
What is a "Free Economy"?
How do they produce economic power?
... and while we're at it ....
What is economic power?- SIGNY

Ok, let me sharpen the question. Some people believe that "free enterprise" means that ONLY MONEY should determine policy, since "markets" achieve the best outcomes. In other words, people with money, making strictly financial decisions, should do whatever they want.

Is that what you mean by "free": Free of all constraint?

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, June 30, 2016 7:16 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Not strictly in the way you are stating it, but in general terms supporting Free Enterprise and a Free Economy allows the economy to strengthen, thereby producing economic power for the nation's leaders to wield (or pretend to). - JSF

What is "Free Enterprise"?
What is a "Free Economy"?
How do they produce economic power?
... and while we're at it ....
What is economic power?- SIGNY

Ok, let me sharpen the question. Some people believe that "free enterprise" means that ONLY MONEY should determine policy, since "markets" achieve the best outcomes. In other words, people with money, making strictly financial decisions, should do whatever they want. Is that what you mean by "free": Free of all constraint?- SIGNY

Or, if not free of ALL constraint, what constraints would you keep?

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 5, 2016 8:24 PM