Tapsearch Com EditorComputer Age Hunger Games
Ray Tapajna Today Computer generation chopped off by free trade
I fought to the end for the last computer made in the USA and the "Hunger Games"
A parallel for the future
I am part of several computer generations and enjoyed my own computer business for more than twenty-five years until free trade came and smashed it.Primarily, I was a trouble shooter supplier to major corporations and my business grew as imports replaced American made components. Our clients had a difficult time with components coming from the Far East . For example, an industrial computer manufacturer would test a component in the field for six months and then if it passed this test, the part would then go through destruct testing to see how it would hold out under several different conditions.
I tried to keep these engineer oriented manufacturers going but as all the American made parts disappeared, we had only the imported products left. Up to this time, if there was an revision in the make up of the component , the manufacturer would give it a new product code or at least put an "R" behind the old product code to show something was changed. However, the products that start coming from the Far East were changed constantly with no indication given about any change in the product. So, in our engineering oriented manufacturing the in U.S.A, a product that successfully completed all the testing stages was not the same product after six months. I got a lot of grief for this and I tried to tell all, that they had to change their quality control methods to some kind of statistical testing where things are tested by batches. Whole batches would have to be rejected at a time. This was a very expensive proposition unless the U.S. manufacturers were willing to deal with a 3 to 5 percent rejection rate. They could not do it. And that is another reason so many computer manufacturers went out of business on top of the fact they could not longer compete against Far East manufacturers who paid their workers only pennies a day.
I then made my worst business mistake of my career. I thought the American public would wake up to the fact they were shopping their way our of their jobs and I fought to the end for the last computer made in the USA and I went down with the ship.
Americans and many other workers across the world shopped their way out of their jobs and sadly, they continue to do it. A new working poor class has replaced middle class workers and the poorer class is now hooked on cheaper imports. The free trader tell us there is a balancing point where all of the global competition will level off and have a more positive ending for all workers in the world. They have been telling the same story now for more than twenty-five years with new generations not know how much they were betrayed.
The race to the bottom will continue since there are at least a billion workers in the world who will work for practically nothing. And they are not going away especially with the new global monetary crisis. Instead of trying to keep the failed policies going, the money changers and free traders should count up the losses with the Trade Deficit being the best indicator for these losses. They now amount to the trillions of loss monetary values.
Occupation Wall Street may have come too late. We face a future where like it was once in Rome, when it was better to be a slave than a freeman. Th
I fought to the end for the last computer made in the USA and the "Hunger Games"
A parallel for the future
I am part of several computer generations and enjoyed my own computer business for more than twenty-five years until free trade came and smashed it.Primarily, I was a trouble shooter supplier to major corporations and my business grew as imports replaced American made components. Our clients had a difficult time with components coming from the Far East . For example, an industrial computer manufacturer would test a component in the field for six months and then if it passed this test, the part would then go through destruct testing to see how it would hold out under several different conditions.
I tried to keep these engineer oriented manufacturers going but as all the American made parts disappeared, we had only the imported products left. Up to this time, if there was an revision in the make up of the component , the manufacturer would give it a new product code or at least put an "R" behind the old product code to show something was changed. However, the products that start coming from the Far East were changed constantly with no indication given about any change in the product. So, in our engineering oriented manufacturing the in U.S.A, a product that successfully completed all the testing stages was not the same product after six months. I got a lot of grief for this and I tried to tell all, that they had to change their quality control methods to some kind of statistical testing where things are tested by batches. Whole batches would have to be rejected at a time. This was a very expensive proposition unless the U.S. manufacturers were willing to deal with a 3 to 5 percent rejection rate. They could not do it. And that is another reason so many computer manufacturers went out of business on top of the fact they could not longer compete against Far East manufacturers who paid their workers only pennies a day.
I then made my worst business mistake of my career. I thought the American public would wake up to the fact they were shopping their way our of their jobs and I fought to the end for the last computer made in the USA and I went down with the ship.
Americans and many other workers across the world shopped their way out of their jobs and sadly, they continue to do it. A new working poor class has replaced middle class workers and the poorer class is now hooked on cheaper imports. The free trader tell us there is a balancing point where all of the global competition will level off and have a more positive ending for all workers in the world. They have been telling the same story now for more than twenty-five years with new generations not know how much they were betrayed.
The race to the bottom will continue since there are at least a billion workers in the world who will work for practically nothing. And they are not going away especially with the new global monetary crisis. Instead of trying to keep the failed policies going, the money changers and free traders should count up the losses with the Trade Deficit being the best indicator for these losses. They now amount to the trillions of loss monetary values.
Occupation Wall Street may have come too late. We face a future where like it was once in Rome, when it was better to be a slave than a freeman. Th
You can not eat just paper and expect to survive- The Hunger Games - A parallel for the future
