America Gives US Infrastructure Projects to Chinese State-Owned Firms

My dad sent me this link to an ABC News clip claiming that US cities are hiring Chinese instead of American workers for building projects. I’m pretty moderate in most ways, but in this one I’m a hard liner and I can’t believe the citizens are allowing this kind of pathetic decision making to take place.

YES! I blame the citizens! It is our own apathy that allows this to occur. Some decision maker somewhere is thinking about how to cover his ass and asking questions like:

  • How fast can we get this job done? Because if it drags on and on, people are going to have my ass!
  • How much is this going to cost? Because it it’s too much, people are going to have my ass!

It’s no wonder they choose a cheaper, faster workforce that is state-owned, who don’t pay workers very much, and without as much regard for their workforce’s safety! In every way the decision maker will be judged, it saves their ass!

Except one…
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8 Amazing Videos of Third World Construction Techniques

Third World Construction

Third World Construction Techniques

News flash: labor in the thirld world is cheap. And when I say cheap I mean it’s more economical to employ hundreds of people to move bricks, sand and cement than it is to buy one piece of heavy machinery to do the job.

Clearly they don’t have to worry about OSHA requirements over there, or any of that meddlesome workman’s compensation or other actual safety rules. After all, safety is for wussies!
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The Chinese Can Build 15-Story Hotel in Six days! Why Can’t We?

A construction crew in the south-central Chinese city of Changsha completed a 15-story hotel in just six days! Holy crap! When you take a look at the amazing pace, organization and precision of the work it makes you think that the US absolutely SUCKS at construction!

And by the way, the Chinese aren’t putting up crappy buildings that you wouldn’t want to be caught dead in! Just take a look at the amazing buildings Trey Ratcliff captured on his recent trip to China over on StuckInCustoms.com.

Anyway, here is the description from Yahoo News on this new building:

The work crew erected the hotel — a soundproofed, thermal-insulated structure reportedly built to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake — with all prefabricated materials. In other words, a crew of off-site factory workers built the sections, and their on-site counterparts arranged them on the foundation for the Ark project.

Despite the frenetic pace of construction, no workers were injured — and thanks to the prefab nature of the process, the builders wasted very few construction materials. Below is a time-lapse video that shows the hotel being built from the ground up in less than a week:

The World’s Craziest Construction Tricks!

We all know that construction workers are crazy. I mean come on. You can’t stand outside in the sun all day wearing a hardhat, boots, gloves and overalls without frying your brain just a little bit! And now, we have real evidence caught on video that these guys are out of control!

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Never Argue With Guys in Heavy Machinery

Arguing With Heavy MachineryI’m sure this is staged, but I found it highly amusing anyway. Watch what happens when the foreman drives his car over and starts yelling at the guys operating the backhoe and dump truck…

I’m pretty sure he had some explaining to do around the dinner table that night!
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