As IF Times

link Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days – Yahoo! Canada News.

 Consider that the area of the World Trade Centre has been a construction site for almost 10 years now and the contrast to China is alarming.    If you were a Chinese construction worker, you wouldn’t have time to go to the bathroom or have a smoke break.   By the time you’re done, 3 floors would have gone up  in your absence. Contrast this with the 6 days it also took to create the world according to The Bible and the hotel may seem trite, but to be fair, at the beginning of time, He didn’t have to deal with unions.

For perspective, I list some of the event times for a few mundane things that I have had first hand experience with recently, none of which are exxagerations:

-2 months and counting to get a muffler for car

-8 days for a book ordered from publisher

-less than 10 seconds to order Kindle book via Amazon

-40 minutes to get through security checkpoint at Ohare airport

-2 months to have paperwork vetted by lawyers

-2 hours to cross the Canadian/US border by car

-17 hours to cross the Pacific from Asia to North America

-3 months for a sofa

-2 weeks for Canadian cheque to clear at a US bank

Out of curiosity, a search was made to determine how long it takes to produce some of the common things we take for granted.  Some facts were quite interesting.  According to the website www.answers.ask.com, it can take only 24 hours to assemble a complete car.  In fact, they claim that some highly efficient factories can produce up to 100 cars per hour!  No wonder sometimes the Nav system doesn’t work.   It apparently takes a little over 3 weeks to build a Boeing 747 airliner. The “average” time it takes to build a one-off 2800 sq ft house is 3 to 4 months.  Oddly, the average time for a reno is the same. 

We hear stories of bespoke suits at Saville Row taking months to make, requiring numerous trials and fittings.  On the other hand, we know that in Hong Kong, you can have a complete suit made in one day, or even in a few hours, from measurement to walking out the door. 

In this part of the world, we are conditioned to long wait times for all kinds of mundane things.  Since expectations are low because of this conditioning, few complain and nothing really improves.  When exposed to the incredible feat performed by these Chinese construction workers, maybe our complacency will be given a long overdue shake.  In the case of the hotel construction, wouldn’t this same feat be possible here  if not for bureaucratic impediments?  My guess is that long wait times for most things has more to do with bureaucracy and wasted time than logistic restrictions.  For instance, anything involving due process of law is doomed for indeterminable wait times.   Someone should set up an effective free trade program to bring the Chinese economy more in line with Western economies.  The use of currency differentials is a losing strategy.   We should get to import Chinese workers and in turn, we get to export lawyers.  In a very short time, the efficiency rates will swing noticeably and much of the trade imbalances can be resolved.  Sadly, I think the Chinese would prefer a plague of locusts.

link AFP: Obama bemoans ‘diversions’ of IPod, Xbox era.

You have to read this article carefully to make sure that it’s an accurate reporting of events.  It appears to be genuine and therefore alarming.  Did he really say that  “information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy”? In the same breath, he says that education is the key to progress.  I have written before about how the President’s actions have often been in direct contrast to his actions.  This is the first time he has contradicted himself in the same sentence.

It becomes clearer what the reference is when he states:

 “…some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets….All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy….”

Now this becomes clearer; what he is really doing is throwing an oblique dig at certain right of center media outlets, led no doubt by Fox Cable, a notorious critic of the administration’s policies.  Strangely, all of the mainstream media outlets have given favorable spin to the President’s policies; Fox is the only balancing voice to those views.  Somehow, this qualifies a mention in a commencement speech. Truly ironic in a place of learning since in the latter part of the same speech, the Pres includes this obligatory message invoking Thomas Jefferson:

“…What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart….It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship…”

So a confusing message is being sent.  If he doesn’t care for the role that technological devices are playing in society, he is the First Luddite.  That doesn’t speak well of the thousands of high tech jobs created by likes of Apple, Amazon, Sony etc, companies and  industries that have led the U.S. over the past decade.   Like it or not, society needs more engineers and technologically savvy grads to propel America forward.  Lawyers seem to be in surplus at the moment.  If he doesn’t care for the few dissenters with his policies, perhaps an official White House news service will be implemented, although that would be redundant in the presence of NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS.

Lastly, there is the discussion of learning being the equivalent of  emancipation.  Again a function of pandering to your audience, but emancipation is no longer an issue, hasn’t been one since, well, 1863.   This may explain the skepticism of modern technology.  It looks like someone’s looking to the past instead of the future.  Or maybe it’s just the politican/lawyer showing, covering both sides of an discussion without saying anything.  Bottom line, I think the man is confused.  Information, regardless of how it’s transmitted is everything.  Like the old saying, the truth shall set you free.