We do because we want as low of an IMMEDIATE cost as possible. However, we don’t consider later costs–i.e. a new set of Christmas lights EVERY YEAR!!!
Garfield comic: Come join us-----In our annual holiday seach-----For the one light in the string that makes all the others go out.
Vote Independent or Vote For the Same
There are no king bees.
The GM union made out like bandits.
You don’t understand the system. The people who do the outsourcing work for the people who work for the people who work for the people who get the multimillion dollar bonuses.
China crap hates you back.
Have you ever worked at a Subway sandwich shop? Small business, no health insurance. No one requires an employer to provide health insurance.
Im thinking …Keep your lights to a minimum…its a monopolized conspiracy. Solar power is heaven sent
Please all take note this is not me saying these things, in spite of the similarity of our user names.
Since the board software (probably written in China) won’t allow me to reply to specific messages…
Re the Irish: ever wonder why it seems every police or fire department has a bagpipe band? It’s because in the 19th century these were extremely dangerous jobs, and so were often assigned to the Irish immigrants (who were, after all, considered sub-human and disposable). The jobs meant a lot of funerals, and the Irish played pipes at funerals, so in short order bagpipes became associated with police and firemen.
Re Wal*Mart, or Walmart as they now call themselves: the company became rich because of three innovations: effective use of computers to manage inventory across a huge network of stores; opening up China as a cheap-labor supplier; and figuring out the absolute lowest cost/quality that the customer would still buy. Walmart is a master of “satisficing”–making a product that’s just barely good enough, at the absolute cheapest cost. I sometimes wonder if the development of US-China trade would have been different if China’s major US trading partner were somebody who cared about quality as well as absolute minimum price.
Re series-connected bulbs: Series-connected Christmas lights actually have a clever little shunt in them, so that if one bulb burns out the others in the string remain connected. It works like this: suppose there are sixty bulbs in the string. Then each one gets two volts. When one burns out, the voltage across that bulb jumps up to 120 volts (because it’s the high-resistance element in the string). That’s enough to melt the shunt, reducing its resistance to zero and turning it into the equivalent of a piece of wire. And so, each of the remaining 59 bulbs now sees 2.034 volts and the lights continue to work. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work… though sometimes the shunts don’t fire correctly.
Well put; as long as someone pays the premiums without questions, doctors and hospitals have every incentive to load on every imaginable service and prescribe every imaginable drug, whether needed or not. It’s like a sales manager increasing his sales, the main basis for his promotion.
Years ago they made movie with Peter Sellers, called “Were Does It Hurt?”. It takes place in a mythical California hospital called “Vista View”, which only takes patients with a good health insurance plan. The poor guy, the main character, even has a perfectly good appendix removed courtesy of his Health Plan, of course.
Comparing most developed countries, the average cost per person per year in health care is about $6000-$7000 per year. Exceptions are Japan with only $3500 per year (a mix of oriental and Western medicine and Toyota style lean management) and the US, which spends more than 3 times as much as Japan and nearly twice as much as Europe, Australia and Canada, and still leaves 30 million wihtout coverage.
In Sweden health care is carefully applied through the state, and unecessary procdures are not paid for. Everyone is covered without discrimation; but if you want a completely private hospital room, you pay extra.
In none of the countries mentioned are health care premiums mentioned as a barrier to starting up business. The French are are far less entrepreneurial than Americans, but that has nothing to do with healthcare.
In terms of life expectancy, Japan, with the lowest per capita expenditure, has the longest life, followed by Canada and France. Americans, with the highest outlay, have the lowest life expectancy of all developed countries. Beer swilling Germans eating rich food and driving fast, live longer than Americans. (I’m calling Russia not a developed country; its male life expectancey is only 56 years, on par with Nigeria.)
In spite of Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko”, Cubans do not have good medcial care; it’s free but there is not much of it, mainly because the country is dirt poor and can’t afford drugs and other medcial supplies.
If you go there as a tourist, load up with anything medical (ointment, bandages, etc.) Even if you don’t need it you can sell it or give it away before you leave.
I’m still not understanding why Levis went to China. Weren’t they making enough money as it was? Couldn’t they make them in the Appalachian mountains?
- You can reply to specific posts. There’s a reply button on each post.
- The shunts, in my experience, almost never work.
- I did the Wal-Mart and light rants in the same post and followed one up.
With such things as jeans, the advertising, distribution, and other marketing costs dwarf the actual labor cost going into the product.
I have 2 pairs of Levi jeans, non made in the US, but a very low wage country.
I also have Carhart and Wrangler jeans, made in Mexico, Bangledesh and the Phillipines.
Textiles are the easiest thing to transfer overseas, since nearly all women know how to sew, and it’s low technology. The jeans come in by the boatload from overseas, and the rest of the value added chain still takes place in the US. Stuff made in Mexico and Central America is ususally made from US made denim material, so the only job loss is in the manufacturing process.
Just go through your closet and and read the labels in the neck of shirts and jackets and the top ban of the pants. I have 4 “Arnold Palmer” signature shirts, but they are all made in China.
My Life brand underwear from Walmart is made in Honduras, from imported American cotton material. The capital cost of setting up weaving plants would be too much for Honduran business men.
Like agriculture, jobs in manufacturing will gradually become a smaller and smaller part of the total economy. There is a strategic reason to retain high quality manufacturing, howver. If the country ever goes on a war footing, it would be difficult to rely on foreign suppliers to equip the armed forces.