Competition in world markets

There appears to be as much envy, as anything in these posts.

In actually watching the video, it appears that the workers have complete saftey equipment, and the rest of the construction area appears tidy.

Do you have some proof that this job was not done to any safety or building code compliance, or are you making the assumption, because they are "Chinese"?

Shoddy? According to the news, the building is supposed to take a mag 9 earthquake. Good luck having many buildings in the U.S. handle that.

No, I am saying that I do not trust the codes.

__________________
Flaming Xtian
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi


Libertarindependent

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-...6s05-woap.html

Article on Chinese code compliance.

__________________
Flaming Xtian
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi


Libertarindependent

I think the buildings are probably pretty safe, according to the article linked above, these buildings are built to withstand earthquake magnitudes of 7 or 8, which is quite historically acceptable for that area, however the quake that hit was in the 11 range. I am certainly glad our contractors do not skimp or cheat on codes in this country though. If they did, I am sure we would have buildings burning and collapsing in this country too...... Ooopsie, they do, and we do have those catastrophes in this country too.

__________________
"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

The strongest earthquake ever recorded was 9.5 and it occurred in Chile.

__________________
Flaming Xtian
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi


Libertarindependent

Do you have some proof that this job was not done to any safety or building code compliance, or are you making the assumption, because they are "Chinese"?

China has "fairly rigorous building codes that have been in place. The problem is implementation of the codes," says Andrew Smeall, an associate with the Asia Society's US-China Center in New York.

for shame, plowjockey.

__________________
Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

From the article you provided:
"The seismic code for the area substantially underestimated the earthquake strength," said Hong Hao. He said that China's earthquake regulations class this province as equivalent to a 7 on the Mercalli intensity scale, which uses historical information to assess risk of damage from earthquakes. That means there's a 10 percent risk of an earthquake occurring every 50 years of an intensity that would cause negligible damaged. Monday's quake was a 10 or 11 on the Mercalli scale."

__________________
"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

I apoligize for not letting everyone else, do my thinking for me - you go right ahead, by quoting one article

40 years ago, China was in the Communist "dark ages", of mostly peasant farmers. They have certainly come a long way since, but let's bash them because their building practices and code compliance, are still not as "good" as the U.S. How long did it take us, to get our act together?

Oh wait, we haven't yet completely. Anybody remember the "Big dig"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig...dard_materials

My point was that people were bashing a lighweight building going up very quickly, not noticing that it was made from pre-fabricated steel parts, that were being bolted together. This is considered a very acceptable way to build, making the building extremely earthquake resistant. Of course, if a building does not have union bricklayers, or 800 truckloads of concrete, it can't be a good building, right?

Sure they probably had 10 times as many workers on site, so they were probably "showing off". So what?

Werent we basically just "showing off", when we built Mt. Rushmore, or put a man on the moon?

Maybe the real shame, is that the Chinese dare to "show off", where about the only Americans seem to be capable of doing any more is complaining, about how they were "done wrong".

True story: San Francisco grew so fast during the Gold Rush that they didn't have time to build buildings. What some entrepreneurs did was to have stone cut in China and numbered. When it arrived in SF, the buildings were simply slotted together like an erector set. All of the buildings built that way were destroyed in 1906, so no examples still exist.

My understanding is that southern China is growing that fast, so they need to build buildings for millions at warp speed. Millions of Chinese live in huge high rises where there are one set of bathrooms per FLOOR, and they all live together dormitory style. They are just there to sleep and eat, and spend the rest of their time working in factories. It's not a life Americans would envy-even in Detroit in the 1920s, single family houses were the rule.

I doubt American culture will change to allow that until/unless it has to, and we are forced to pay workers 30 cents a day. The only example of worker bee housing that I can think of that still exists of the Tenderloin in San Francisco, which was once home to thousands of young men and women who did the heavy lifting in SF's financial district during the boom years of the 1910s and 1920s, before such things as copiers and computers. It was typical of a single young person to live in a single room, and share bathing facilities with several others. In contrast, the communal facilities in China serve thousands at once.

Today, that area has entire families from SE Asia living in rooms meant for young singles, it's known as "the vertical village" and is common in Little Saigon, which is now considered separate from the larger Tenderloin. Apartment buildings in Detroit from the same time period were much more suburban, featuring grand entrances and lawns.