Gyroscopic Investing

I just read that the Chinese engineered and built the new SF Bay Bridge. Does this make anyone else here sick? What on earth is happening to this country that we farm out major public works projects to Chinese companies now? No wonder we have an unemployment problem.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-1 ... china.html

Wait til we have to start paying the Russians for rides to outer space!

On the one hand, I'm sure many--if not most--Californians sympathize with the view that it's a shame to farm out American work (especially public work) to China when so many American workers are unemployed.

On the other hand, people don't appreciate having their taxes raised in the middle of a recession--when they are least able to afford paying higher taxes--which is exactly what a fully American-made bridge would require. A couple of articles estimated it would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars more to build the specialized infrastructure necessary to manufacture and build that entire bridge here in the US. (The infrastructure does not even exist here, nor would it likely have been profitable after completion of the bridge had the investment in it been made.)

Just playing devil's advocate.

Do people in California even care about national sovereignty?  LOL.

This is actually the second foreign-built bridge put up in the Bay Area in recent years.  The Al Zampa Carquinez Bridge was designed by a British firm, using Japanese steel members, floated over from Asia on Chinese-flag vessels.  Steel manufacturing plants in the Bay Area have largely disappeared over the last 30 years, as have all the military bases and auto plants, save one of each.  And with anti-carbon advocates firmly in control of all levels of local government, they're not coming back.  Oddly enough, if "local" steel had been used, it would have had to come from USS-POSCO, a Korean-owned steel plant in nearby Pittsburg, CA.

It really shouldn't come as such a surprise.  Six of the world's top ten steel producers are from China, South Korea or Japan.  The rest are from India, Russia and Luxembourg.  US Steel is #11.  Also, China is now the world's premier bridge builder.  Eleven of the world's top 15 longest bridges have been built in China.  And the oldest of these Chinese bridges was completed in 2003!!!

Regardless of who designs and builds a bridge, I find it unsettling when it falls apart and tons of steel land on unsuspecting cars:

Bay Bridge closed indefinitely (Thursday, October 29, 2009)
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio ... id=7086605

The space shuttle has been described as "5,000 subsystems flying in formation, each built by the lowest bidder."

Modern stock exchanges seem to have the same types of uncertainties now that computers are doing most of the trading (e.g., the Flash Crash).

Agreed.  However.......The Bay Bridge eyebar problem occurred on the old bridge, not the new one under construction.  It was traced back to the original 1930's design.  The first 2009 fix used all US-fabricated parts installed by C. C. Myers, a local contractor legendary for quality, on-time work.  And it failed again.  Nobody's perfect, I guess.