Obama- US bridges and roads being built by Chinese firms
I recently found a very disturbing video which questioned President Obama and his decision making. There have been a few major projects involving construction in the United States which are still being worked on, and these projects have been given to Chinese firms. These are multi-million dollar projects, and would give US citizens who are looking for jobs a chance to start working again. President Obama has been emphasizing that we need to bring back jobs in America and create new jobs, and this video just shows how hypocritical he is being.... Give me some feedback monkeys!!!!
If American firms aren't willing to compete on price with the Chinese, then they aren't desperate enough. Considering all the cries for austerity we keep hearing, should we really expect the government to overpay for infrastructure projects?
Have you seen U.S. construction firms? The construction they do on campus has taken over a year to remodel a building. We have to deal with the same construction zone on the highway for over a year. It is absolutely ridiculous. In both cases I see construction actually being done maybe... 40% of the time if that!
I have literally said to myself, "imagine if it were the Chinese that had this project, it'd be done in a week."
I would bet that not only the Chinese do it cheaper and quicker, but also with higher quality.
I wouldn't be so sure about that
Regardless, if the building is taking place in the U.S. then the Chinese firm is going to have to sub-contract out a fair amount of the work to american firms.
Anyone from DC? I reference the Springfield interchange on I-95. I'm 30 years old, and this 5 year project has spanned my lifetime.
i'm interning in virgnia i take 495 and dulles toll road try getting on i495 north at 3:00 PM it's so stupid you have two lanes being merged into one whats worse is in my view there is no way to fix it, who ever designed that on ramp must of been on crack b/c there is NO way to expand that on ramp due to support column placement IF some ones car breaks down on that on ramp you'll see back ups for miles
Ha! Yes! This is SO true! Haha.
I will say, however, that they've been crushing the metro expansion. Granted, it took something like 30 years for the expansion to win approval and financing but they've really been crushing ever since they got the green light.
I could give a rats ass about the heavily unionized American construction industry. It's good that competition is being injected into the marketplace. Maybe it wouldn't take 12 years to finish one project.
I completely agree that the US construction industry is coddled with out-of-date unions and pointless restrictions, however from having seen it firsthand I don't think the Chinese system is better at all.
There are multiple factors as to why China can build stuff so quickly:
I doubt that many American workers would be willing to subject themselves to these working conditions.
I've seen some construction happen ridiculously fast, but when they're working that quickly using low quality materials and low quality labor the, the result pretty much falls in line with the inputs. The Chinese can build things quicker in China because they operate in a completely different legal, quality, and labor framework; which cannot and should not be transplanted to the US.
China and the US are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to construction. I see labor unions as the main reason why construction isn't done faster in the US, but although the Chinese can do it faster, they don't do it with nearly the level of quality that American workers do.
While I am a long-term China bull (near-term questionable), this very recent example of a Chinese contractor utterly failing at building a Polish road in time for Euro 2012 should be instructive:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527023034590045773638429164107…
Since when was having Chinese people build American roads anything new?
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