Tuesday, July 5, 2011

California Buys San Francisco a New Bridge--from China

Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times.

“They’ve produced a pretty impressive bridge for us.” 
~Tony Anziano, California Department of Transportation

Yikes!

The bridge that U.S. taxpayer dollars are buying from China is the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, shown on the right of the photo. (That's San Francisco in the background.)

California officials are saying that they saved $400 million by buying the San Francisco Bay bridge decks from China.

I wonder how many U.S. jobs were "saved" for Chinese workers?

According to The New York Times, the answer is "hundreds."

Of course, that doesn't count the additional hundreds of Chinese involved in loading the massive bridge decks onto Chinese ships and transporting them to the U.S. 

Why is China taking such a big roll in building one of America's iconic landmarks? According to the project director:
Most U.S. companies don’t have these types of warehouses, equipment or the cash flow.
Nor do they have the support of President Barack Hussein Obama, the Democrat Party, or the entire green movement.


I'll bet all the smoke from this iron and steel factory in Chongqing meets California's stringent clean air standards, don't you?



And they probably are powered by Chinese windmills . . . .


Linked by new friend Tina @ Pecan Corners. Thanks!
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9 comments:

  1. Isn't capitalism great. Do you know I haven't heard one word of that here. It's only on blogs from out of the state.

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  2. I hadnt heard either..sigh.............Hope u had a wonderful holiday my friend:)

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  3. @Odie - That is sad. Chinese projects like this are happening all over the U.S. & Canada with little press coverage.

    I think it's interesting that China's sale of this bridge to California didn't get mentioned until the bridge is nearly complete.

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  4. @Woman - I had a terrific holiday, thanks!

    Now it's time to get back to work putting our hard-won independence to use!

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  5. Idaho is actually planning on letting them set up self sustained communities. They think it is going create jobs. How can a self sustained community create jobs?

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  6. @Trestin: Wild guess: Could it be called "creating 'jobs'" and political influence for the politicians and city and regional planners who are greasing the skids for these "communities"?

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  7. Wow. No one is willing to say "no" are they? China also has a habit of importing its own labor for its jobs in other countries. Is that happening here too - is that part of the "Americans don't have the necessary skills" talking point the pro-open-door people like to repeat?

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  8. @Tina - That's the plan for the "self-sustained communities" Trestin mentioned above. You can read about them here.

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  9. I'm just "dumbfounded", as we used to say in Oklahoma. Thank you for putting out the word on this. I have blogged about this insanity,
    linked to you in the post
    - and added Bread Upon the Waters to Pecan Corner's permanent blog list too. :-)

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