"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"James" wrote in message
...

"jdwcomputer" wrote in message
oups.com...
What is a coldframe?


Here is the one I bought. Pretty simple.

http://tinyurl.com/bbpx8



If it's made where most of Harbor Freight's stuff is made......support
your
local dictator!

The New York Times
December 31, 2005
Rule by Law
In Worker's Death, View of China's Harsh Justice
By JIM YARDLEY

snip

If you want to examine the circumstances for fairness surrounding every
consumer item , you will most likely starve.

The globalisation concept benefits the consumer, provides economic benefit
to third world countries and others wanting to improve their trade. That's
why the outsourcing takes place. It's been happening ever since the end of
the civil war. The problem is that the American worker takes it on the chin
and is left to hs own devices for a different living. That's not pretty
either but it's the way things work these days.

The NY Times and some of the other media love these "misery" stories and
present them much like they did from the ghetto misery stories of 40 years
ago.

"James" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"James" wrote in message
...

"jdwcomputer" wrote in message
oups.com...
What is a coldframe?


Here is the one I bought. Pretty simple.

http://tinyurl.com/bbpx8



If it's made where most of Harbor Freight's stuff is made......support
your
local dictator!

The New York Times
December 31, 2005
Rule by Law
In Worker's Death, View of China's Harsh Justice
By JIM YARDLEY

snip

If you want to examine the circumstances for fairness surrounding every
consumer item , you will most likely starve.

The globalisation concept benefits the consumer, provides economic benefit
to third world countries and others wanting to improve their trade. That's
why the outsourcing takes place. It's been happening ever since the end of
the civil war. The problem is that the American worker takes it on the
chin
and is left to hs own devices for a different living. That's not pretty
either but it's the way things work these days.

The NY Times and some of the other media love these "misery" stories and
present them much like they did from the ghetto misery stories of 40 years
ago.

Very few Chinese citizens benefit significantly from the factories which
make the goods that end up here.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"James" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"James" wrote in message
...

"jdwcomputer" wrote in message
oups.com...
What is a coldframe?


Here is the one I bought. Pretty simple.

http://tinyurl.com/bbpx8



If it's made where most of Harbor Freight's stuff is made......support
your
local dictator!

The New York Times
December 31, 2005
Rule by Law
In Worker's Death, View of China's Harsh Justice
By JIM YARDLEY

snip

If you want to examine the circumstances for fairness surrounding every
consumer item , you will most likely starve.

The globalisation concept benefits the consumer, provides economic
benefit
to third world countries and others wanting to improve their trade.
That's
why the outsourcing takes place. It's been happening ever since the end
of
the civil war. The problem is that the American worker takes it on the
chin
and is left to hs own devices for a different living. That's not pretty
either but it's the way things work these days.

The NY Times and some of the other media love these "misery" stories and
present them much like they did from the ghetto misery stories of 40
years
ago.

Very few Chinese citizens benefit significantly from the factories which
make the goods that end up here.


You are mistaken. All of China is benefiting significantly from their
growing economy, including factory workers. You have to look at the big
picture rather than some poor schmuck who got a bad deal of the cards. I
suggest an economics book.

If you had ever read an economics textbook, James, you'd realize that "a
rising tide lifts all boats" is a myth. Bush claimed that returning taxes to
the wealthy in this country would have that effect here - instead,
statistics show that the middle class and lower classes in the US have seen
a substantial decline in wages relative to inflation in the past 5 years,
while the wealth of the upper class here has skyrocketed in that period,
Interestingly, you cite no evidence for your claim that all citizens of
China has benefitted from its economic growth - because such evidence
doesn't exist. China has a rapidly expanding upper class, whose standard of
living is beginning to match its counterparts in the West - but it has a
tiny middle class. In the long term, only countries in which the middle
class is the largest class can be said to have healthy economies. The
majority of people in China remain desperately poor. Many factories are run
as sweat shops with wages held down because government officials forbid
unionization attempts. How many thousands of Chinese die every year in coal
mining accidents? True unemployment is estimated by many China experts at
15% or higher (in other words, equal to the entire workforce of the United
States). Rural people leave their farm villages to try to find work in the
big cities, but usually fail and live in shantytowns on the outskirts,
surviving by begging and picking through garbage.
The only way this situation would ever change (and I'm not optimistic) would
be if the developed world insisted on fair labor standards and wages before
it would do business with China. But most of us prefer to hide our heads in
the sand, because we're able to buy some sort of advertised junk for $10
cheaper if we don't rock the boat too much.
"James" wrote in message You are mistaken. All of
China is benefiting significantly from their
growing economy, including factory workers. You have to look at the big
picture rather than some poor schmuck who got a bad deal of the cards. I
suggest an economics book.

"presley" wrote in message
...

Many factories are run as sweat shops with wages held down because
government officials forbid unionization attempts.

"Forbid" is a mild word for it. Suggest "union" and it's likely you'll find
yourself in jail by the end of the day.


The only way this situation would ever change (and I'm not optimistic)
would be if the developed world insisted on fair labor standards and wages
before it would do business with China. But most of us prefer to hide our
heads in the sand, because we're able to buy some sort of advertised junk
for $10 cheaper if we don't rock the boat too much.

If prices on Chinese goods rose significantly due to wages becoming more
like ours, there would be financial catastrophe here. The Wal Mart economy
supports small towns which would've otherwise vanished for lack of jobs.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
"presley" wrote in message
...

Many factories are run as sweat shops with wages held down because
government officials forbid unionization attempts.

"Forbid" is a mild word for it. Suggest "union" and it's likely you'll
find
yourself in jail by the end of the day.


The only way this situation would ever change (and I'm not optimistic)
would be if the developed world insisted on fair labor standards and
wages
before it would do business with China. But most of us prefer to hide
our
heads in the sand, because we're able to buy some sort of advertised
junk
for $10 cheaper if we don't rock the boat too much.

If prices on Chinese goods rose significantly due to wages becoming more
like ours, there would be financial catastrophe here.

How come? It would mean less outsourcing to China and business would start
looking elsewhere.

"James" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
"presley" wrote in message
...

Many factories are run as sweat shops with wages held down because
government officials forbid unionization attempts.

"Forbid" is a mild word for it. Suggest "union" and it's likely you'll
find
yourself in jail by the end of the day.


The only way this situation would ever change (and I'm not optimistic)
would be if the developed world insisted on fair labor standards and
wages
before it would do business with China. But most of us prefer to hide
our
heads in the sand, because we're able to buy some sort of advertised
junk
for $10 cheaper if we don't rock the boat too much.

If prices on Chinese goods rose significantly due to wages becoming more
like ours, there would be financial catastrophe here.

How come? It would mean less outsourcing to China and business would start
looking elsewhere.

Hmm. Where? You don't simply up & move your t-shirt operation to another
country in a week.

I think it's handy to be able to discount what a lousy place China is in
terms of human rights, because it enables people to pretend everything's
fine. Then, they can get back to doing whatever it is they prefer to
thinking. Nose picking, watching Oprah, etc.

"presley" wrote in message
...
If you had ever read an economics textbook, James, you'd realize that "a
rising tide lifts all boats" is a myth. Bush claimed that returning taxes
to
the wealthy in this country would have that effect here - instead,
statistics show that the middle class and lower classes in the US have
seen
a substantial decline in wages relative to inflation in the past 5 years,
while the wealth of the upper class here has skyrocketed in that period,
Interestingly, you cite no evidence for your claim that all citizens of
China has benefitted from its economic growth - because such evidence
doesn't exist. China has a rapidly expanding upper class, whose standard
of
living is beginning to match its counterparts in the West - but it has a
tiny middle class. In the long term, only countries in which the middle
class is the largest class can be said to have healthy economies. The
majority of people in China remain desperately poor. Many factories are
run
as sweat shops with wages held down because government officials forbid
unionization attempts. How many thousands of Chinese die every year in
coal
mining accidents? True unemployment is estimated by many China experts at
15% or higher (in other words, equal to the entire workforce of the United
States). Rural people leave their farm villages to try to find work in
the
big cities, but usually fail and live in shantytowns on the outskirts,
surviving by begging and picking through garbage.
The only way this situation would ever change (and I'm not optimistic)
would
be if the developed world insisted on fair labor standards and wages
before
it would do business with China. But most of us prefer to hide our heads
in
the sand, because we're able to buy some sort of advertised junk for $10
cheaper if we don't rock the boat too much.

You've mixed a lot of apples and oranges there. Every Chinese citizen has
benefitted from China's improved economy in one way or another. Every new
road, every communication improvement, every project in some way benefits
the Chinese. You apparently think there should be a classless society but
there are always the privileged. I don't know what any of what you said has
to do with coal mining accidents. China is still a socialist country and
they do it any way they want but I doubt pulling the plug on trade with
China would be any kind of good thing. I don't know of any communist
governments that allowed unions.

As to junk products, you need to do some homework. Would you buy a pair of
pliers made in the USA for $12 or would you buy the same pliers with the
same exact specifications from China for $3. Hint. They won't make those
pliers in the USA for very much longer. The fact is simple. Business goes
where labor is cheaper in order to lower the price to the consumer. That is
the nature of the beast of outsourcing.

China can take care of their own social structure without any help but the
west still pushes for better human rights as they should. The fact that it
is changing at all can only be good for them IMO. The government will change
in time but don't look for any classless society. Socialism has demonstrated
that it's no utopian system.

"James" wrote in message
China can take care of their own social structure without any help but the
west still pushes for better human rights as they should. The fact that it
is changing at all can only be good for them IMO. The government will
change
in time but don't look for any classless society. Socialism has
demonstrated
that it's no utopian system.

Did I say anywhere that I hoped for a classless society? I said that only
societies in which the middle class representated the majority of the people
could be termed healthy societies, since, as the majority, they can then
begin to wield some political power. ANYTHING else goes by another term -
oligarchy. (I'm not sure that word appears in your economic textbook, but it
means "rule by a favored few"). Often it takes the form of plutocracy "Rule
by the rich". It seems to me that EVERY single action, political and
economic, by the Chinese government, is dedicated towards creating and
sustaining an oligarchy.
I'm fascinated by the sentence above: "China can take care of their own
social structure without any help". Well, by golly, Tianamen Square proved
that correct, didn't it? Since when did authoritarian crackdown on all
dissent, and using government forces to prevent people from agitating for
higher wages and better work standards (referencing my coal mining accident
sentence which so discombobulated you) translate into "taking care of their
own social structure"? I would translate those actions as "dictating their
own social strucure".
Did the millions of people displaced by the building of the three gorges dam
benefit from it? Does the building of a railroad to service slave-wage
factories somewhere benefit the workers? You made a sweeping pie-in-the-sky
statement about how improved trade benefits every Chinese person. Where's
your evidence?
I don't deny that it COULD....I'm just saying that pretty definitively,
it's NOT.

"presley" wrote in message
...

"James" wrote in message
China can take care of their own social structure without any help but
the
west still pushes for better human rights as they should. The fact that
it
is changing at all can only be good for them IMO. The government will
change
in time but don't look for any classless society. Socialism has
demonstrated
that it's no utopian system.

Did I say anywhere that I hoped for a classless society? I said that only
societies in which the middle class representated the majority of the
people
could be termed healthy societies, since, as the majority, they can then
begin to wield some political power. ANYTHING else goes by another term -
oligarchy. (I'm not sure that word appears in your economic textbook, but
it
means "rule by a favored few"). Often it takes the form of plutocracy
"Rule
by the rich". It seems to me that EVERY single action, political and
economic, by the Chinese government, is dedicated towards creating and
sustaining an oligarchy.
I'm fascinated by the sentence above: "China can take care of their
own
social structure without any help". Well, by golly, Tianamen Square
proved
that correct, didn't it? Since when did authoritarian crackdown on all
dissent, and using government forces to prevent people from agitating for
higher wages and better work standards (referencing my coal mining
accident
sentence which so discombobulated you) translate into "taking care of
their
own social structure"? I would translate those actions as "dictating their
own social strucure".
Did the millions of people displaced by the building of the three gorges
dam
benefit from it? Does the building of a railroad to service slave-wage
factories somewhere benefit the workers? You made a sweeping
pie-in-the-sky
statement about how improved trade benefits every Chinese person. Where's
your evidence?
I don't deny that it COULD....I'm just saying that pretty
definitively,
it's NOT.


See above reply to Persephone. You should take your thoughts to a political
newsgroup.

"James" wrote in message
...


China can take care of their own social structure without any help but the
west still pushes for better human rights as they should.

Here's another example of China taking care of its own social structu

An article we can read here, about our political system. You could google
for it, or go directly to the web site.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/po...gewanted=print

Small chunk of article - get all the way past it:
Photograph Shows Lobbyist at Bush Meeting With Legislators
By PHILIP SHENON and LOWELL BERGMAN
WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 - After weeks in which the White House has declined to
release pictures of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced
lobbyist, the first photograph to be published of the two men shows a small,
partly obscured image of Mr. Abramoff looking on from the background as Mr.
Bush greets a Texas Indian chief in May 2001.

By itself, the picture hardly seems worthy of the White House's efforts to
keep it out of the public eye. Mr. Abramoff, a leading Republican
fund-raiser who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to corrupt public
officials, is little more than a blurry, bearded figure in the background at
a gathering of about two dozen people.

But it provides a window, albeit an opaque one, into Mr. Abramoff's efforts
to sell himself to Indian tribes as a man of influence who could open the
most secure doors in Washington to them. And it leaves unanswered questions
about how Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, whom he was trying to sign as
a client, gained access to a meeting with the president on the White House
grounds that was ostensibly for a group of state legislators who were
supporting Mr. Bush's 2001 tax cut plan.

================

And, here's how China "manages" its social structure - by censorship:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/we...gewanted=print



So Long, Dalai Lama: Google Adapts to China
By JOSEPH KAHN
BEIJING

SO what does the Dalai Lama look like, anyway?

Chinese Tibetans or other Buddhists who might be curious could try finding
images of the spiritual leader on Google.cn, a new search engine that Google
tailored for China and is now, two weeks after its unveiling, on full
display to local Web users.

Is he that guy with puffy cheeks wearing a Western suit? No, that's Liu
Jianchao, China's foreign ministry spokesman, demanding that the Dalai Lama
stop trying to split the motherland. What about that balding man leading a
big delegation? No, that's Chen Yi, a late Chinese vice prime minister,
offering grain to the Tibetan people.

Only one of the 161 images produced by searching in Chinese for the Dalai
Lama on Google.cn shows the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet
since 1940. He is pictured as a young man meeting senior Chinese officials.
That was before 1959, when China's People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet
and the Dalai Lama fled into exile.

For people outside China, or Chinese who can circumvent the Internet
firewall, the 2,030 images on unfiltered Google.com favor the Dalai Lama of
today. He is the genial-looking guy in the burgundy and saffron robe, here
meeting President Bush, there speaking to 40,000 people in New Jersey.

Several of the biggest media and technology companies have come under attack
for helping the Chinese government police the Web. Yahoo provided
information about its users' e-mail accounts that helped the authorities
convict dissidents in 2003 and 2005, Chinese lawyers say. Microsoft closed a
popular blog it hosted that offended Chinese censors. Cisco has sold
equipment that helps Beijing restrict access to Web sites it considers
subversive.

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 00:32:02 -0800, "presley"
wrote:

If you had ever read an economics textbook, James, you'd realize that "a
rising tide lifts all boats" is a myth. Bush claimed that returning taxes to
the wealthy in this country would have that effect here - instead,
statistics show that the middle class and lower classes in the US have seen
a substantial decline in wages relative to inflation in the past 5 years,
while the wealth of the upper class here has skyrocketed in that period,
Interestingly, you cite no evidence for your claim that all citizens of
China has benefitted from its economic growth - because such evidence
doesn't exist. China has a rapidly expanding upper class, whose standard of
living is beginning to match its counterparts in the West - but it has a
tiny middle class. In the long term, only countries in which the middle
class is the largest class can be said to have healthy economies. The
majority of people in China remain desperately poor. Many factories are run
as sweat shops with wages held down because government officials forbid
unionization attempts. How many thousands of Chinese die every year in coal
mining accidents? True unemployment is estimated by many China experts at
15% or higher (in other words, equal to the entire workforce of the United
States). Rural people leave their farm villages to try to find work in the
big cities, but usually fail and live in shantytowns on the outskirts,
surviving by begging and picking through garbage.
The only way this situation would ever change (and I'm not optimistic) would
be if the developed world insisted on fair labor standards and wages before
it would do business with China. But most of us prefer to hide our heads in
the sand, because we're able to buy some sort of advertised junk for $10
cheaper if we don't rock the boat too much.

You got that right, man. Village China has changed hardly at all.
A year or so ago, I was on a trip through China, and in front of our
fairly nice Western-style hotel, I saw homeless men sleeping behind
the hotel sign. This would never have been seen -- or permitted --
under the Old Regime.

And I saw much, much other evidence of the enormous divide between the
glitzy entrepreneurial class of, say, Shanghai, and the poor people
you mention above.

I had a very interesting talk with our guide, who was a well-educated
woman open to answering my many questions. I asked her if the
new rich class in China "gave back" to the community in the way
that is traditional here in America for those who have "made it".
She said the very concept does not yet exist in China.

IMHO, it will take several generations for the Chinese to liberate
themselves from the dead hand of totalitarianism. Just allowing
a "greed is good" ethos now permitted by the (chuckle!) Communist
Party hierarchy to prevail does not cut it.

Let's hope that by then they haven't totally destroyed their
environment. You'd think they would observe what the West is
doing to the Earth and mend their ways accordingly. But
corruption is so endemic, it's me, me, me, and screw the Earth.

Persephone




"James" wrote in message You are mistaken. All of
China is benefiting significantly from their
growing economy, including factory workers. You have to look at the big
picture rather than some poor schmuck who got a bad deal of the cards. I
suggest an economics book.




--

Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to relive it.

Santayana