This blog printed on 100% recycled electrons.
If Madison does build a new gym, maybe we could hire these Chinese guys who built the 15-story Ark Hotel in Changsha last summer in six days:
Pre-fab parts make building like playing with big Legos. The Chinese say no one was injured on the job site, either. Wow!
RIP Quincy Jones
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Probably one of the greatest music producers EVER! I have to tell you, I
have been beside myself, I get it, he was old, but everything you listened
to deca...
8 hours ago
Sure, but wait until that Chinese steel collapses in a few years due to quality control issues and non-steel fillers, or maybe the Chinese sheetrock eats away at their wiring and plumbing and causes everyone in the building to get bloody noses and illness.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen a country who wants to be a capitalistic productive player that has such unethical, harmful manufacturing standards in everything they produce...Dog Food, Children's Toys, Sheetrock, Steel, Vitamins, Prescription Drugs and so much more. Complete disregard for people, their health and the future. China is all about "money now" at any expense. Even though China owns a large portion of our country's debt, I avoid Chinese made products whenever possible.
That's o.k., Rod: we don't build our gyms to serve our needs for more than a few years before deciding we need a new one.
ReplyDeleteWhen did we build a new high school gym? 1965? Oh you meant the middle school gym... that one that was built for the middle school, not the high school, you had me confused there.
ReplyDeleteAgain you and those Noem like truths.
Matt Groce
I've never been a fan of hyperbole. No, the remodel would not happen in two days...even in China.
ReplyDeleteI assume that the local elected officials are much more informed and aware of the high school's problems than the average voter on the street. I encourage EVERYONE to call the high school and go through the tour and actively look and listen. Invest the time to become more educated of the problems with the school before you vote.
I want the voters to think about one thing: we may never see such favorable financing again. Interest rates can't go much lower than they are right now. We get more bang for our buck NOW.
A year ago, our family started the search for a newer, used vehicle. There was a need but I chose to put off any purchase to the future. Surprise, this Fall, prices have risen 25-30% for the same vehicles compared to last year. I should bought last year and been able to enjoy the benefits of a newer vehicle at a lower payment. I now have 30,000 more miles on my van AND prices are now farther out of my comfort zone for what I want to buy. My need is greater than before and it's going to cost me significantly more money to get less. How smart am I?
Next citizen tour 11-16 at 9:30 am. See you there. FYI: I've seen a lot of good deals on minivans and just bought one. Where are you looking? Think it through and make the right decision.
ReplyDeleteActually Rod, that is exactly how the free markets worked in the US until we started regulating everything.
ReplyDeleteYou need to look at China as though they are going through an industrial revolution much like that of the west. They will improve over time.
Tony, I hate to disagree, but the Chinese are smart people. They know better than to lace dog food, vitamins and children's toy paint with toxic chemicals as fillers, things that can harm or kill people. They knew their sheetrock would be inferior when they used toxic fillers that would cause people to get sick and rot wiring and plumbing in the house or office building. When the US was going through its industrial revolution the whole world was learning. There was pride of workmanship, a desire for quality and much less technical and chemical knowledge than the Chinese have today. China purposely creates dangerous, inferior products out of greed and that's unacceptable in modern society.
ReplyDeleteRod may be on to something here, Cory. The school board could demand that no products from China be used in the project or by the contractors. This way they would have to increase the cost by 50 or 60 percent and no one would vote for it :-).
ReplyDeleteSeriously though Rod, The Chinese have been making dramatic inroads into increased quality,many of the products that I sell are made by US companies that have closed up shop here and transferred production to China, for years there were quality problems ( growing pains) but now those products are actually of higher quality than they were when they were produced here, and I really don't like saying that but it is true.Anyway if your claim that China purposely makes inferior and dangerous products is true then none of us, yourself included, should sleep soundly tonight,because our homes and garages are filled with the stuff.
Building dangerous, inferior products out of greed... I think that's a universal human phenomenon, not exclusive to the Chinese. We aren't uniquely enlightened when it comes to money and respect for consumers.
ReplyDeleteMatt, did we not build the middle school with the intent of hosting HS events? And do we really need such a facility when there's a bigger, better facility just three blocks away?
Barry, news media just announced another Chinese recall...This time it is those eco-friendly reunsable shopping bags. It appears the Chinese are producing these bags and adding lead to them as illegal filler. Lead affects our children, our water, our brains and the Chinese know this, yet they continue to blatantly produce harmful products because the Chinese are hungry for dollars with no moral compass. Lead based paint in children's toys, deadly chemicals in pet food, illegal ingredients in vitamins...There's no end to their disregard for human health in pursuit of the dollar. Let's hope they wake up soon.
ReplyDelete...interesting that the major complaint about the Chinese here is that they are behaving like pirate capitalists with insufficient government regulation of industry, not that they are godless communists imposing government control on everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to be clear, I'm no apologist for Chinese greed and shoddy workmanship. But we can find plenty of examples of American businessmen doing the same thing. Consider our food industry: Richard Millner's polluting and bankrupt Veblen dairies, Jack DeCoster's poison eggs from Iowa, contaminated beef in California.... Capitalists on both sides of the Pacific produce unhealthy products and require government oversight.
ReplyDeleteNow, how about building those new additions to the school in under a week?
Rod . For sure I am not defending unethical business practices, but it is hyperbole to paint with such a wide brush( even the brush will be made in China). Making a statement like "China purposely makes inferior and dangerous products" because of some unscrupulous businessmen is like saying that The US purposely produces inferior and dangerous food because of E-coli and salmonella or even two cases of mad cow that made Japan embargo our beef. It is pure exaggeration.
ReplyDeleteCertainly the American companies that have moved their production to China have some responsibility for this as well. When Mattel's toys show up with lead and Hill's dog food shows up poisoned because both of these companies have decided to outsource to increase profits, are they not equally responsible for these calamities. If I am having a Chinese company make my widget it is ultimately my responsibility to make sure that that widget is not produced in a manner that will harm someone. China as well should crackdown hard on bad ethics and in some cases they have, such as the melamine in baby formula scandal, those responsible were slated for execution. China's economy has been growing at an outstanding pace and there will be bad people that emerge to take advantage of this. We need to be vigilante and hold corporations who outsource responsible for their products, because sadly it will be very difficult to buy childrens toys for Christmas this year that are not "Made in China"
Cory, I don't think that the Madison School Board is out to waste your tax dollars. The voters elected them to make the decisions that are wise and prudent to the education of our children.
ReplyDeleteIs it not reasonable that a remodel designed to bring up the school to current fire code and accessibility standards and that takes away the current gym space for band and chorus instruction replaces that gym space with something better than we have now?
The best thing voters can do is go on a tour, really listen and then make up their minds. I would like to commend the school administration for their communication efforts on the remodel. If you want to set up a tour for yourself or a group, call the high school. I wasn't aware of all of the issues with the current building until I asked questions. I had the mindset that the building wasn't that old, but I then remembered that high school was 30 years ago for me. Things do change.
Took the tour and this cheapskate will probably vote yes. Knowlton is a good communicator who impressed the crowd (28 of us). No Madville Times readers were present, so I'll tell you, the renovations seem sound. Not sold on a 2-year vocational food program called Prostart. Nobody knows what they want to do when they're a Junior in HS. Other than that, the school obviously needs updating. Time to do something decent that is a clear benefit to the community. This seems like that to me.
ReplyDelete