Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Hello,

I've been watching the webcast this morning, and listened to what the Secretary of Commerce was talking about. As I listened, I began to think of how disrespectful his speech was to our visitors from other countries as he kept saying how America is the greatest country in the world, and on and on. Gauranteed our economy is top-notch, but I dont think an international competition is a place to gloat and promote America's potlitical stature. Being a proud American, I can only imagine what it must've felt like to be sitting there, from another country, and have to listen to that; however, If I was in their shoes, I would've felt disrespected. I know FIRST needs political support to grow, however to talk so highly of our country in front of others shows us how egotistical as a country we really are.
Just my $.02

~Greg

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Greg et al,
I really don't want to turn this into a political debate, so please, before you respond remember, this is just my $.02.
Consider the source. You said it was the "Secretary of Commerce". His job is our economy. He is a politician.
If he started bashing our economy, which anyone with any sense what-so-ever can see is booming, and running down our country, my guess is you would not have appreciated that either. Our international guests may have been left with the impression that our country was tearing it's self apart from the inside. All in all, that would have been a far cry worse than what he did.
Yes, this organization could definitely benefit from the support of our government and it's various entities. Just remember to consider the source when their "support" is given.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Thats exactly what I said. I was watching him talk and I was thinking...there are more than just US teams. I agree that it's his job to make sure the US is in good shape, so there would be a small reason, but I didn't think that it was necessary to elaborate that much on it.

Not much you can really do about it anyway. But I agree that it was a little bit over the top.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

OK, now for my 2 cents. I've been debating with myself about posting because I don't generally enjoy political discussions, because whether anyone likes it or not that's what this is.

It has become a disturbing (to me) trend over the years for Americans to feel guilty about being American. This guilt manifests itself in several different ways as in cringing when a political leader touts America's greatness in public. Is it in bad taste? I don't think so, even if it takes place at an international competition. This is an American speaking proudly of America's greatness on American soil. I would expect no less. Everyone should be proud of their nationality and what they bring to the world stage. I have been to several countries where they not only brag about themselves, but also denigrate America. That is the international community's favorite past time. Why? Because we are the greatest country (by any number of methods of keeping score) the face of the earth has ever seen. There are plenty of people out there that hate us for our greatness without us feeling contrite about it. The argument that we are disliked because of our "arrogance" is invalid. If we were a third-world country any display of arrogance would be of little consequence to other countries. There is nothing wrong with being great and being proud of it. There should NEVER be anything wrong with it. When American citizens begin to feel guilty about being Americans, there begins the erosion of our greatness.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Ok, I will try on someone elses shoes.

Let say FIRST is not an American thing. Lets say FIRST was founded in Japan, and the Championship is held every year in Tokyo.

Im sitting there in Tokyo at the opening ceremonies, there are 330 teams from Japan, 4 from Canada, one from Brazil, two from england, one from Israel, one from Africa

and one team from the US.

The speaker points out what a great country Japan is. Would I feel upset?

Not a bit!

After all, if I had traveled thousands of miles with 20 HS students to attend an event that only happens in that country, I would have to agree with him: "You got some really great things going on here - thats why we are here!"

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

It's just not very gratiously professional in my opinion.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

And that self-righteous attitude is the reason why they "denigrate" us. Whether or not we actually are the "greatest country the face of the earth has ever seen" is inconsequential, but the reason a third of the world hates America is because we try to rub it in everyone's faces, showing them how much "better" we are than them. If we truly were the "greatest country," we would have learned a long time ago that our political leaders and diplomats need not go around bragging this to everyone at any given chance, but rather spend that wasted time doing something more productive, such as proving to the world through actions, not meaningless, unbased words. You can always say you are great, but unless you prove that on a continuous basis, the words mean nothing.

__

On an unrelated note, could we have this moved to the Chit-Chat forum, or perhaps even Moderated discussion to prevent any problems that may arise?

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Now for my 2 cents Canadian.

I am use to politicians getting up and being blowhards. That is almost expected. I do however take offence to someone in FIRST telling me that the US is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yes there are a large majority of great Americans that do not rub things in our face. In fact I would say that 99% of Americans in FIRST are great people that look at others for who they are and not what nation that they come from. They symbolize what is good about FIRST. Changing society for the better. I believe that if more people were like Woodie and let their actions speak for themselves we would be much better off.

And please don't forget that others believe that their country is the best in the world. Even in FIRST there are bigger regionals than anywhere else in the USA. :D

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

There is a flip side / other shoe here that no one has mentioned.

99% of the people in this country can trace their family back to two people who lived in another country (mostly Europe) and came here at some point with little more than the clothes they were wearing

and the reason they came here is they were either destitute, or they were unwanted in their own homeland.

My grandparents came to the US in 1921 from Germany with nothing but hope for a better life.

So, yeah, we do walk with a bit of a swagger in the US, because when you get down to it, we are the rejects the other countries discarded, and instead of floundering the the 'wilderness' of N. America, we prospered instead.

Prospered and surpassed the nations that had no use for us.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I feel better if this is what others believe as well. It just made me feel really bad cause I wouldn't like it.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

One of the great things about FIRST is that it gives the students real world experiance.

The speech by the Secretary of Commerce is no different. Many times when a politician speaks he has an agenda or political message he wants to get out.

In this case his motivation seems fairly straight forward -- His job is to promote commerce in the US. To do so, he needs to portray a picture of economic expansion. To do otherwise would be counter productive. Imagine if he, instead of talking about US success, talked about the US economy tanking (hypothetically). If he did so, it would be front page news in the New York Times and Dow Jones would probably lose 200 points. So he will not talk poorly about the economy unless it is absolutely needed.

FIRSTers have the advantage of being able to listen to these politicians and learning how to filter the retoric from the substance.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

In this case the filter would be an impermeable membrane. All rhetoric, no substance.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I'm Canadian. I'm American. I happen to be a dual citizen. So, I can see it from both sides. And, remember that saying that goes something like "A truly smart person realizes how stupid they are." No country is the "best," but the States has some advantages, some disadvantages, so does Canada, so do other countries. I prefer Canada, but I don't walk up to people and say "Canada's the best country in the world," I might say "Canada is so much cleaner than the States." Likewise Canada's unemployment rate is higher than the States'. So, even if I am technically American too, it offends me to hear this, because it has to be one of the most arrogant things to say, and is in particularly poor taste in an international situation, why do you think the "arrogant American" stereotype came from? Why does the guy need to even say this? He could talk about international cooperation, global markets, education, and it would have been just as applicable to the multinational audience.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Personally, I feel that even though this was the Secretary of Commerce's job, this wasn't the place to say things like this. "Great" is a relative term and even Einstein said, "Relativity applies to physics, not ethics" (see signature for emphasis).
It doesn't matter who thinks what, unless you want to hear all sides of the story from all parties, making an assertion like this should not be done...especially not here.

Of course, this is over now and we can do nothing about it (or can we?).

$0.02.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Since Secretary Gutierrez is one of those people who came from another country himself and is now the Secretary of Commerce (!), I'll cut him some slack.....

I'm impressed that he came to talk to us, and recognizes the importance of FIRST

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I agree with you that he has the right to be proud of his country; I am too. But he needs to realize that he is speaking to not just Americans, but to people from around the world. At the very least, he could have acknowledged the fact that FIRST is an international competition and there were teams present from around the world. I guess he didn't notice all those flags of other countries hanging right above him. There is a difference between pride and arrogance. It's no wonder so much of the world hates America. There was a time when people around the world dreamed of a better life in America; now in a lot of the world people burn American flags in the streets.

My team was sitting right behind a team from Israel when the secretary was speaking. I could tell they did not enjoy listening to the secretary. I hope, in the future, the speakers are properly informed that there are teams form other countries present.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Amen to that!

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Alright, I will admit that both the Secretary of Commerce and a senator on Saturday did make some aggressive comments regarding America, though I feel that much of that was not meant to bash other countries, but rather to encourage the majority of the community: American youth. They spoke at a competition which is highly regarded as the organization which is making huge progress towards bringing in the next generation of engineers, most of whom were American. Perhaps some comments could've been edited, but for the most part, they were accurate and *not* demeaning. They were speaking in America, to mostly americans, and intended to encourage this majority who will build america

Secondly, I would like to note one of the major driving points Dean created FIRST for. Yes, FIRST has exploded, and as a result other nations have joined in, but the original purpose, that we still see integrated into FIRST speeches by FIRST founders, is that FIRST will bring America back to greatness. At kickoff we hear speeches citing stats regarding the number of U.S. versus American engineering degrees. We hear about Americans making it to the moon and accomplishing great things in the past, and that we are the next generation to create these wonders. Dean himself made the point, though carefully, that industrialized nations, have a huge new amount of competitors.

Tact and courtesy are always important on the international stage, but we must remember: FIRST is not an internationally devoted competition, in the sense that it's run out of America, with mostly American money, and with mostly American interests. In truth, major U.S. contributors (NASA, GM, Ford, Delphi, Google, GE, etc...) expect their money to return to them in a tangible way, and not just by making the whole world smarter. They want America smarter.

I'm sorry if I've offended anyone from other countries, but FIRST is, at it's roots, american. However, a huge amount amount of growth has been generously encouraged by new countries, and for this, we are very grateful. Our community is always ready to welcome new members, even from different countries, but regardless, we still intend to serve our original purposes. Though ready to help others, Americans should stay intensly proud of what they have.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I agree with what Greg (thread starter) is saying. It does show how egotistical America is. However, since the Secretary of Commerce probably isn't "current" with FIRST happenings, I'm not sure he felt, or even knew, that there would be as many international teams as there are.
I want to know how the teams from other countries feel about this.

I mean no disrespect to the Secretary when I say this.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I'm glad other people feel as I did when I heard that speech. I felt it was highly inappropriate and disrespectful. It'd even irritate me if FIRST was only a United States competition. I simply can not put up with this brand of supreme arrogance and cockiness that has unfortunately been with this country since the late 1800's.

In the United States I've grown so tired of the idea that being proud to be an American means you have to criticize all other nations and say that the United States is the greatest country ever. What gives you the right to say that? Oh, you were born here and have (most of the people saying crap like this) never experienced much if anything at all of the world outside of the United States. If you only ate cabbage your entire life and only knew about cabbage, besides always smelling bad, you would be ignorant of all other foods. When you had the opportunity to embrace the variety of nourishment available to us, you would rather push them away and spit on them. It's the government's job to keep people ignorant and patriotic and to let them believe everything they say. He happens to be an employee of the government. Guess what his job is?

It's going to be our own undoing one of these days.

PS: Please do not get the wrong message here. I am not attacking Americans, I'm attacking arrogance usually spawned by ignorance. Most of the last argument would not apply to him since he was born in Cuba and lived in Mexico, but it was mainly me venting about people who HAVEN'T experienced other nations yet try to bash them and throw the United States in their faces.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

If you think the state of commerce speech was bad you should have heard the speech given from the guy at st. Louis. "America is the best and we are working to keep it the best! We must keep the Chinese and Asians at bay! They are stealing all of our workers....blah blah blah"

That speech made me sick to my stomach. Its so sad, the United states of America was created so people could be equal and now I think we seemed to have lost that vision.

I wondering what Dean thought of his speech. I got the impression that Dean did not think that highly of it. does anyone know?

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Not only are there Israeli teams, Canadian teams, British teams, and Brazilian teams involved in FRC, there are also the 20+ countries represented in FLL. We have Canadian World Champions this year and have had Canadian and Brazilian Regional Chairman's Award Winners.

I for one believe that FIRST should be moving toward being a more multi-national organization. Yes, this event is in the US. This was represented by the fact that we were only able to hear the US National Anthem (a decision a fully support because it would have taken forever to hear all the other countries') However I do think that speeches at World Championships shouldn't be so Nationalistic. Yes, I know that he is the Secretary of Commerce, but I doubt I would have enjoyed hearing so much of it if I were a visitor to another country.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

lol, yeah we were all talking about that St. Louis speech on the way back home. We were doing overexaggerated impressions of him. It was really fun :D

It's kind of frustrating seeing these types of people being put up on a pedestal when they are the types of people that cause the bottlenecks we experience in technology. Latin is used in science so everyone can communicate, but yet we can't bring ourselves to actually do it sometimes.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Personally when he made the comment on how America won't let Indians keep taking their jobs and FIRST is helping Americans make sure of that, I was slightly offended being Indian myself. However, I can see that from his position that he would or had to take that stance. But, what I really didnt appreciate was when I commented that what the Secretary said wasn't very politically correct to my teammates, the guy in sitting in front of me turns around and says "I work with alot of Indians, they're great, but we're still better." I would expect that kind of statement from a student but this was from an mentor or chaperone. This isn't the kind of attitude we want to promote in FIRST.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I noticed most of our speakers did that too, and I think it was disrespectful expecially when they talked about America being the Greatest Country in the world infront of forenign people and all kinds of stuff. I hope the countries were not offended and I hope our speakers next year watch what they say next year.

Also I agree with the person above me. I myself am Indian and I heard someone on the team infront of us look over at me as soon as they said that. Just because there are Indian Engineers doesnt mean they dont work as hard as others and that they didn't earn their spots and jobs and that statement offended me a little. I think that that attitude is unacceptable in FIRST.

Pavan

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Hah, yeah me too. I kinda thought it funny when he said that though. Friends from other teasm where like, "Ha, you are stealing my jobs, wait crap, you were born here, ha we are both getting our jobs stolen." It was kinda funny, but then if you think about it, they aren't our jobs. If I am a company, I want the best workers for my company. If they so happen to not be in my country, so be it.

But yes, I felt pretty bad for the other teams when he was talking about that.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I was with Llama at the St Louis Regional for the "keep the Chinese and the Indians at bay" incident. (Note: Chinese and Indians not China and India) I don't think that this is a political issue because very one I talked to on my team was offended; mentors, students and parents, from all over the political spectrum. Once back home the incident would come up occasionally in conversation but most of us just felt that it was one persons misinterpretation of what FIRST is about.

Once we heard similar remarks two days in a row at nationals in front of our foreign guests we were again shocked at this misinterpretation (in our eyes) of what FIRST means.

I'm not offended by politicians being patriotic, what is offensive is the idea that FIRST is about beating others rather than improving ourselves.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

What may be coming from this discussion is the reason behind the homework assignment - to teach and to educate. FIRST isn't a given. It is a process of learning and understanding through experience - then sharing that with the school districts, the media, the leadership through communication and commitment.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

You know I'm glad that I am not the only one who was a little concerned about that. I have no issues with patriotism and cooperation with the government, and what not, but frankly I thought it was rude to talk about how America is the top and best...etc, even if it is just a person's opinion
If I was from another country I might be a little annoyed

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I was a bit miffed upon hearing these comments, but in my experience Canadians are pretty thick-skinned, and I'm no exception. I realize that what was said doesn't in any way reflect the general opinion of Americans, and that's good enough for me to not feel insulted.

Besides, I think it was demonstrated this past Championship that Canadians know a thing or two about science and technology. :)

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I too was shocked when i heard multiple references during speeches to all the teams talking about how America is the best country in the world and i instantly turned to multiple members of my team and pointed out it was an international competition and the flags from many other countries were proudly flying right above his head. Of course, as a citizen everyone has the right to love their country.. but FIRST is based on a strong belief of gracious professionalism.. and bragging that your country is better than all the others, especially when there's many of them in your audience, is not very graciously professional at all. I think it's wonderful that he sees how important FIRST is, but he also needs to see how important FIRST's morals are.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

First of all, I'm glad to hear that the few foreign posters thus far were not very offended.
Second, I would like to say that as an American citizen, it is appalling to me that anyone, especially a representative of our government, would speak so rudely to the international community.
It's true that American industry is great, but it's also true that Canada has one of the world's largest petroleum production capacities, China has one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and the European Union is a shining example of international cooperation to form a true global economy.
By putting America out there as "the best," to a room dotted with foreign students, what message does he send? If I were in the position of those students, I would be insulted and threatened.
Rather than embracing the new world economy that is rapidly becoming a reality, the Secretary only perpetuates the nation vs. nation trade scheme of the past thousand years.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Guess where the three winning teams came from? (yes, they all did attend other regionals)
The largest Regional in FIRST, held in Canada.

Guess who lead the winning alliance?
A Canadian team from Quebec.

And we had a team, 1114, who made a very strong push for the Chairman's Award this year.

FIRST is an International competition. Yes, it is still dominated by American teams. But the large number of Canadian, Israeli, and Brazilian teams who proved that they know a few things about robotics ;). Yes, there are still many more American teams. But if FIRST truly wants more growth it should look international. I hope to see more of a focus on this in the future. The future of science and technology does not only rely on the United States, it relies on the international community working together to solve the worlds problems.

Getting back to the point of the thread, No I wasn't really offended sitting up in the stands watching the presentation. I thought to myself that it is his job to speak more to the American people, than to myself as a Canadian. Didn't offend me, just hope that in the future we could see more of a focus on growing FIRST as an international organization

My $0.02 Canadian,
Jonathan Norris

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I didn't mind the speech too much (and I'm Canadian) - he might have gone over the top once or twice, but it's partially his job to be a cheerleader for the country he works for.

On a related note, I thought it was telling that the top ten list in the closing ceremonies referred to "Western culture" instead of "American culture". I might be going out on a limb here, but I suspect that FIRST might actually be succeeding at attacking the outsourcing issue in a way it probably didn't expect.

If you were an engineer and Texas and you lost your job to an engineer in Mexico, would you be most annoyed that you lost your job to someone geographically different? No - Alaska would be a lot further away, but if you lost your job to some upstart student in Alaska who worked for half your salary, I don't think it would be quite the same thing. I think you'd be most upset that you lost your job to someone who didn't share your values or your culture - someone who just seemed 'foreign'.

As well as inspiring and training American students to become excellent, more competitive engineers, in some small way FIRST is helping to build a broader, more inclusive 'Western' culture - we have international teams (1596), cross-border friendships (e.g. 48 and 1114), and all sorts of graciously professional interactions between teams (playing together on alliances, advice on Chief Delphi, sharing parts and tools in the pits, etc.)

If engineers and technicians worldwide could figure out some shared values and get used to working together in a graciously professional sort of way, we might be able to take the 'out' out of 'outsourcing' - if we all share a strong cultural set of values, who exactly is 'out'? I think FIRST is a great way to do this, and in some ways it might be an even more permanent solution.

******

I apologize in advance if any of the above comes across as insulting or arrogant or anything - it's taken me at least half an hour to edit this, but I'm still not sure it's worded right. Personally, I'm proud to be Canadian, but I have an immense amount of respect for what America has been able to accomplish over the last few hundred years. I want to work to make Canada the best it can be, but I hope that doesn't preclude me from being able to work along side some of the amazing American students and engineers I've met through FIRST.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Definately...

I spoke to a few international teams (when I got the chance) at the party and what not and not too many of them were offended.

And I think after the speakers saw that the canadian+american teamwork owned, I think they were thinking a little more of what they said hopefully..

Pavn

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Now that quite a few people have discussed Secretary Gutierrez’s speech, here is what he said in Atlanta. You can form your own opinion as others already have stated here but at least you will have the facts to base them on from his speech.

I was in the GA Dome for his speech but also recorded it from the NASA channel Friday morning. I watched it today and have typed his text for you to read.

I am of course proud of my country and some of what the Secretary said was obviously pro American. He also championed inventions, creativity, innovation and First Robotics. He challenged us to “step it up” and increase our level of innovation and creativity like never before. I believe he was talking to everyone in the audience not just Americans.

Some have mentioned here the Secretary was rude, criticized and bashed other countries in his speech. What I heard didn’t cause me to have that opinion. He was stating his opinion of his adopted country as he was born in Havana, Cuba.

Another has mentioned here that the Secretary said that “America won’t let Indians keep taking their jobs.” Well whatever was said by someone regarding Indians was not said by Secretary Gutierrez.

I myself have been to many other countries, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and at least 5 Canadian provinces ( I just love Canada!). I met with teams from Israel & Brazil last weekend and they were great people. I know that there are great hard working inventive people all over the world not just here at home.

For our gathering, the Secretary may have concentrated his speech on the USA a little much but that is part of his job. He oversees a diverse Cabinet agency with some 38,000 workers focused on promoting American business at home and abroad. He also formulates telecommunications and technology policy, fosters minority business development and promotes economic growth in distressed communities.

I was glad he was able to address the First gathering but understand others if they felt that he was speaking primarily toward Americans. I would hope that others also think as I do, that their countries are the greatest in the world!

Dave


There are likely some punctuation errors and I may have left out a couple of words but this is what was said.

Friday morning, April 28th, 2006 at the Georgia Dome,
John Dudas, Undersecretary of Commerce said about the Hon. Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce:

He fled Cuba with his family as a young boy and came to the United States. He learned English from a bellhop in a hotel in Miami. Sold cereal out of the back of a van in Mexico. Worked his way up to become CEO and chairman of the board of one of America’s most successful companies Kellogg’s.

Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce said:

I want to thank Dean Kamen and Mayor Franklin and representative Bass for supporting you in what you do and for having the foresight and the vision to know that what you are doing is going to create the future of our country.

Our economy grew once again at a very fast pace just in the first quarter and it confirms once again what we have been saying. That we have the most vibrant, the greatest country, the greatest economy on the face of the earth. There is nothing, nothing like it in the world and there is no developed or industrialized economy that is performing like we are. The reason that we are performing this way and the reason that we have led the world economy for so long, is because of our innovation, it’s because of our creativity, it’s because of our ideas, it has been our ability, our ability to invent new things. If you look back at the history of the last couple of centuries, inventions that have changed the lives of people all over the world, they have been created here in our country. Think about it, the light bulb, the automobile, the airplane, computer software, you can go on and on and on. This has been the country of ideas, the country of innovation, the country of creativity and the country of invention.

What’s happening now is that we have picked up three billion new competitors. Of course we have 3 billion new consumers. We also have to think about it as we have 3 billion new competitors. So whatever we have been doing for the past 20, 50, 100 or 200 years, we have to step it up. We have to grow it, we have to increase the pace, we have to step up our level of innovation, our level of invention, our level of creativity like we have never done before.

In his state of the union address the President called for a national movement to develop a national passion for innovation. A national passion for science, a national passion for math, a national passion for the creation of new things, new ideas and new inventions. A national movement, something that we can all get behind and say we are going to innovate like never before in our history because we are going to become even more than today, the most competitive economy in the world and we’re going to show the world why we are the leaders of the economy today.

So, First is very much leading the way and I can’t tell you how important it is what you are doing here today and how symbolic this is that we are having this session today in the year 2006. This is the future, this is what our future is all about and you are leading the way, you are a great example for citizens all over the country, you are role models of what we want to be as a nation in the future.

So I can’t tell you how much I thank you and on behalf of President Bush, on behalf of Americans all over the country, thank you for your leadership, thank you for what you are doing to make this the greatest country on Earth.

Thank you very much!

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Are you sure that is right? Im reading that and it doesn't make any sense. There aren't just three billion additional people now competiting in the engineering field because not everyone is an engineer.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I don't think he means just in engineering. India and China both have over one billion people each, so the two of those combined with several other developing nations comes out to the three billion that Secretary Gutierrez cited.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Thank you that makes sense. I wonder if people in the United States would actually be willing to do some of the jobs that the Chinese do. I ended up doing something that someone in China does normally just to double check their work. It had to be the most boring job in the world. This measurment had to be done on every single display that my company creates and I think on every single plasma display. It's called kickback voltage and it invovled staring at a multimeter. Please someone correct me if Im wrong. Im still in my second year of college and Im only an intern.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Normally testing like that would be done with an automated test fixture here in the US. The circuit under test would be hit with a bed-of-nails connection, powered up, and fully tested with automated test equipment.

A test fixture like that might cost $100k to design and build, but if you use it to test 1,000,000 circuit boards then the automated test only cost ten cents a board.

In other parts of the world they may not bother with the test fixture. Instead they will pay some 12 year old girl $1 a day to sit and test boards all day long with a meter. If she happens to touch the live circuit and get electrocuted there are 100 girls waiting to get her job.

In a way this helps to illustrate what the speaker was talking about when he said how great the US is, and that greatness is the direct result of innovation and a continuous cycle of improvement. In China they can build the same products in factories that american workers can, but they have no Osha, they have no child labor laws, they have no worker protection laws, they have no minimum wage, and employers are not held accountable if workers are injured or killed on the job.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

Whoops.. Bad example. I honestly can't say what the other company was doing but what I was doing was pretty close to what you described minus the whole automated procedure. Impossible to kill onself with also since the device was being operated at a low voltage. Sorry about that.

Re: Strikes me kind of uneasy...
 

I have to Disagree with you and agree with you ken.

That is the mentality of many americans. Everyone looks at the cons before they even notice that there are pros. I am Indian and have engineering realatives over there. Maybe that is A downside in some parts but in most of India that is not it. A few family frineds work across and awnser your very Customer Support questions, etc.

But just because there are few cases, not saying that there are none, but saying there are very few, that all people seem to focus on is THAT ONE ASPECT.

arrrg....