San Francisco's Chinese Bridge

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Originally Posted By: PandaBear

That's why Caltran is sending 250 some people over there instead of relying on their QA.

Its not uncommon for big companies to send out their QA folks even for domestic jobs.

But I can see why they are doing it. I believe the likelihood of having problems with QA in China would be much higher then say France, Japan, or even India.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Its not uncommon for big companies to send out their QA folks even for domestic jobs.

But I can see why they are doing it. I believe the likelihood of having problems with QA in China would be much higher then say France, Japan, or even India.


France, Japan, etc do not jump from building brick house and melting cast iron to suddenly building large steel structures in a couple decades. China on the other hand go from non-industrialized monarch to war lord based chaos to WWII and communism, then suddenly in the 80s they have to catch up to what they were missing in the last 200 years.

You just wouldn't find people that know what they are doing even for 5 star hotel construction. I've been to a 1st class hot spring resort there and beside the poorly translated English on signs and menus (i.e. mountain bacteria rice instead of wild mushroom over rice), I see lavishly furnished bathroom with incorrectly installed faucets and granite floors. They have to import experienced workers from other nearby nations for these kind of projects.

The QA we send over there is probably more like instructors and supervisors than just QA.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Exactly gopher.

But this was clearly the result of bad Chinese Steel. Justlook how those beams failed.

Image2Aohviewpier6.jpg


Oh wait it wasn't


Al, I'm not sure I "get" your position on this matter. The Chinese are capable of making junk, and they are capable of making decent stuff. You have to babysit QC like crazy if you want the latter.

Regardless, that isn't the topic of this thread. This thread is about an American state out-sourcing the production of a bridge, paid for by tax payers, to China to "save money", whilst screwing some of the 28 million Americans who are currently unemployed out of the ability to earn some money, and pay taxes into subsidizing the cost of that bridge and paying off your 14 TRILLION in debt you guys have going down there.

If you don't see something backwards about this situation then..... I don't know what to say.
confused.gif
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

I have some mix feeling about this. Wanting the jobs to be in the US but don't want "Da Man" to rip us toll and tax payers off another $400M.


This line of thinking goes right to the heart of the problem: an 18% increase in price for something made by people making a living wage (and putting money back into their local economy) is viewed as "ripping people off".

Long-term, this is going to be a very expensive 18% savings (and when it's all said and done, since that $400 million was calculated in '04 when Chinese steel was much cheaper relative to US steel, the actual savings will be a lot less than that).

I honestly don't see how anyone can thing this is a good idea for the US? This pretty much personifies the race to the bottom, IMHO.
 
Originally Posted By: JOD
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

I have some mix feeling about this. Wanting the jobs to be in the US but don't want "Da Man" to rip us toll and tax payers off another $400M.


This line of thinking goes right to the heart of the problem: an 18% increase in price for something made by people making a living wage (and putting money back into their local economy) is viewed as "ripping people off".

Long-term, this is going to be a very expensive 18% savings (and when it's all said and done, since that $400 million was calculated in '04 when Chinese steel was much cheaper relative to US steel, the actual savings will be a lot less than that).

I honestly don't see how anyone can thing this is a good idea for the US? This pretty much personifies the race to the bottom, IMHO.


Exactly my point. Good summation.
 
When I read the article by my calculation the $400 million was only a 6% "savings". When it's all said and done they probably won't see that savings. They'll probably feel the effects of the billions going to China though.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear


I do agree with you, and I do hope to keep the money in the US.

But the point is, the money to build this bridge comes from local level and the bridge if build in the US will be build all the way outside of CA and money made outside of CA, with jobs outside of CA.

This is what we are having with "small government". If the whole US have a standardized tax and expense system rather than a "it is not in the constitution a federal right" argument, these kind of jobs would be in other states of the US as well as someone else will be paying for stuff benefiting California.

Unfortunately, as soon as one starts complaining about a big government system and not wanting to participate, the system falls apart. It is now up to the individual states fighting for themselves.

It is really tough to find money to pay for an already 20 year behind and way over budget bridge, and paying $4 toll really sucks.


Is this comment meant as humour in some way...seriously?
 
Originally Posted By: JOD
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

I have some mix feeling about this. Wanting the jobs to be in the US but don't want "Da Man" to rip us toll and tax payers off another $400M.


This line of thinking goes right to the heart of the problem: an 18% increase in price for something made by people making a living wage (and putting money back into their local economy) is viewed as "ripping people off".

Long-term, this is going to be a very expensive 18% savings (and when it's all said and done, since that $400 million was calculated in '04 when Chinese steel was much cheaper relative to US steel, the actual savings will be a lot less than that).

I honestly don't see how anyone can thing this is a good idea for the US? This pretty much personifies the race to the bottom, IMHO.


+1

The short term thinking is staggering...and the cost in the end will be tremendous. This is not "saving" at all.
 
Anyone pay attention to the fact that only one company in the US bid on building the main deck sections. There are very few companies in the US with the capacity to build GIANT 500 ton bridge sections like the Bay Bridge is constructed of. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of bids were European or Asian because of capacity issues for US manufacturers.

Also, lets ignore that Kiewit made parts for the foundation in Corpus Christi and large castings and forgings were made in Japan and England. There are about 24 cities in the US manufacturing parts for this bridge.
 
Originally Posted By: tom slick
Anyone pay attention to the fact that only one company in the US bid on building the main deck sections. There are very few companies in the US with the capacity to build GIANT 500 ton bridge sections like the Bay Bridge is constructed of. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of bids were European or Asian because of capacity issues for US manufacturers.

Also, lets ignore that Kiewit made parts for the foundation in Corpus Christi and large castings and forgings were made in Japan and England. There are about 24 cities in the US manufacturing parts for this bridge.


Weird Tom, considering Canada managed to produce a bridge EIGHT MILES LONG across a section of the friggin' Atlantic ocean to PEI at 1/7th the cost of this bridge, and manufactured the sections in New Brunswick and PEI......

http://www.confederationbridge.com/en/design_construction.php

We did however have to use a Dutch crane. On my!

The engineering was a joint venture between Canadian company Stantec and by a French company Jean Muller International.

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid sir. These endeavours CAN and HAVE been done before, by your countrymen. Your country did not get where it is by having China manufacturing everything. Though going where it is headed has.
 
I'm not defending China, I'm saying it's not as simple as "they could have but didn't". One US company bid on the main deck job, I don't know if any Canadian companies did. There are still hundreds of US workers building parts in cities across the US. Hundreds of Ironworkers assembling it, hundreds of engineers designing and inspecting.

If the deck sections were built in Norway would it be okay?
 
Originally Posted By: tom slick
I'm not defending China, I'm saying it's not as simple as "they could have but didn't". One US company bid on the main deck job, I don't know if any Canadian companies did. There are still hundreds of US workers building parts in cities across the US. Hundreds of Ironworkers assembling it, hundreds of engineers designing and inspecting.

If the deck sections were built in Norway would it be okay?


Yes. They are a first-world nation and would be competing at the same wage-level as Americans. That sir, is fair game.

This, on the other hand, is like you trying to compete with a kid from Zimbabwe as to who can go a week eating the least. He's got you beat from the get go, since he doesn't eat anyway.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: tom slick
I'm not defending China, I'm saying it's not as simple as "they could have but didn't". One US company bid on the main deck job, I don't know if any Canadian companies did. There are still hundreds of US workers building parts in cities across the US. Hundreds of Ironworkers assembling it, hundreds of engineers designing and inspecting.

If the deck sections were built in Norway would it be okay?


Yes. They are a first-world nation and would be competing at the same wage-level as Americans. That sir, is fair game.

This, on the other hand, is like you trying to compete with a kid from Zimbabwe as to who can go a week eating the least. He's got you beat from the get go, since he doesn't eat anyway.


And if we don't have a trade deficit with the country. If the US doesn't have trade balance or surplus with Norway it wouldn't be OK. We definitely have a trade deficit with China. If there wasn't a deficit and putting china qaulity issues aside it'd be different. But in reality no 1st world nation would underbid the US company in all probablity so that solves that problem.
 
Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
Is this comment meant as humour in some way...seriously?


No, it is dead serious. Assuming that the federal and steel belt state gov is helping enough to make the bid difference to be significantly less than 400M, those "small gov supporters" will be crying foul on how the government is wasting money.

On the other hand, if the fed and the steel belt state gov is not helping enough, then the California voters would cry foul. The sales tax is already at almost 9% and toll already $4 ($5 golden gate) to pay for this. They would think why should CA bail out other states.

If the whole nation has a "must buy only within the 50 states" policy then it would be a wash.
 
Originally Posted By: tom slick
I'm not defending China, I'm saying it's not as simple as "they could have but didn't". One US company bid on the main deck job, I don't know if any Canadian companies did. There are still hundreds of US workers building parts in cities across the US. Hundreds of Ironworkers assembling it, hundreds of engineers designing and inspecting.

If the deck sections were built in Norway would it be okay?


I've heard that the Chinese bids have the shortest schedule as well (realistic or not and whether they will be penalized for delay or not is a whole different subject all together).

Don't laugh, office politics have a lot of unrealistic schedules as well.
 
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
It's all a big sham probably. Who knows who is getting greased and getting kick backs.


Let's see, the original contract has 1 bid with American and Japanese partner. Someone cry foul.

Then the governator decided that only San Francisco area should pay for this instead of the whole Kalifornia, stalled it for a while.

Then the governator decided that he doesn't want a suspension bridge, and want a redesign without suspension, stall it for a while, a redesign came and it isn't much cheaper and people dislike, and stall it for a while.

Finally 2 bids are in, both are more expensive than the original 1 bid we got, but Chinese is closer and the American is more.

Then there're other quality delay and construction schedule to catch up. Each day of delay is penalty for $300k and each day ahead is 300k.

And the state have to split the 1.2B cost increase with the cities because of this "it is not cheap enough we need 1 more bid and we need to redesign it for cheaper" partisan stupidity.

So a lot of money is wasted, but a lot of people are sick and tired of wasting time with construction detour and just want it over with.

I've been crossing that bridge in 2002-2005 every day and watch its toll jump from $2 to $4 (free if you carpool), and spend on average 10 mins get to near the bridge 20 mins each way getting on the bridge, and 30 mins crossing it and go all the way to Livermore.

If they didn't fuzz about it and build it in the 90s it would probably only cost the original estimate of $1.4B instead, with overrun may be $3B top.
 
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