Tag Archives: ohio

Business/Economics, Idaho, International, Opinion, Technology, U.S.

Black Horse & Apple computers: Apple rakes in huge profits, thanks to slave wage labor! Apple’s China factory installs anti-jumping nets to keep workers from leaping to their deaths. Idaho, Ohio, Michigan & Pennsylvania Republicans hoping China will build similar slave cities in the U.S.

…there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

January 26, 2012

Apple reported their 2011 fourth quarter profits at a record $13.06 billion!  That would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that Chinese workers are being pushed so hard to make Apple products that they’re literally going over the edge to their deaths!

I love my Apple computer (it’s lasted longer than any other computer I’ve had, and with far less glitches), but, one of the factors in me buying an Apple was that I thought they were made in the U.S.  Apparently after (evil) Bill Gates became a major investor in Apple, production was shipped overseas.

Around the time Apple was reporting their record profits, Chinese media was reporting on a factory that made Apple products.  Turns out the workers there threatened suicide because of slave labor conditions.

It’s so bad that a Catholic Online article says Chinese factories are spending money to put up nets around their buildings, to keep workers from jumping to their deaths.

You see, working in Chinese factories is not like working in a U.S. factory (not yet anyway): “Chinese factories are self-contained cities with workers living side-by-side in dorms. Workers spend an average of 10-12 hours per day working, six days a week.” Also: “…life in a Chinese factory is unpleasant, boring, repetitive, and workers have little to no privacy, and few rights-if any. The food is nothing to write home about either. Employers can set workers to task at any hour, force them into overtime, and arbitrarily fire them if desired. It’s as near to slavery as one can get without the chains.” -Catholic Online

When I realize how much I paid for my Mac (more than double what I was paying for cheapo IBM types) it sickens me to know that it could have been made by wage slaves!  I thought one of the reasons for the higher price was that I was supporting U.S. jobs!

This month Apple’s contracted factory in China, run by a company called Foxconn, reported that workers threatened to commit mass suicide.  To give you an example of the crowded working conditions, Foxconn admits they have at least 32,000 workers living on their factory ‘campus’!  That’s not a factory, it’s a self contained slave city!!!

But guess what? The state government of Idaho has been toying with Chinese contractors to build such a slave city right here in Idaho, U.S.A.  They call it an “industrial complex”.

In 2010, the Idaho Statesman reported that state officials were working on a project that would allow the China National Machinery Industry Corporation (aka SINOMACH) to build huge a slave labor camp south of Boise.  It could cover up to 30,000 acres, and is “…based on a concept popular in China today…”.

That camp would include retail shops and homes for workers, and some reports say the ’employees’ will come from China.

SINOMACH also got involved with a fertilizer project near American Falls, but since then all has gone quite on that project.

Lobbyists working for the Chinese say Idaho Republican leaders are great to work with: “One thing these Chinese see is we have a governor here who has a great big open door policy, and I think that’s making a difference in this SINOMACH project.”-Pat Sullivan, lobbyist

The Idaho Republican’s open door policy for China is part of their Project 60 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plan.

Idaho Republican leaders love China: “Idaho’s the last state that should say we don’t want to do business with Asia. Asia’s where the money is.”-Brad Little, Idaho Lieutenant Governor

I’ve also reported on how most of Idaho’s Republican politicians are in the pockets of for profit prison labor operations.

SINOMACH is also dealing with officials in Ohio, Michigan (is there a connection to the union busting going on in that state?) and Pennsylvania.

Also this month, SINOMACH announced they will increase their efforts to set up operations in other countries: “We encourage our subsidiaries, including scientific institutions and design, construction and industrial equipment manufacturing companies, to go overseas and explore and develop new services and markets.”: Ren Hongbin, chairman of SINOMACH

SINOMACH (short for Sino Machinery) reported a revenue increase of 17% in 2011, for a total of $30 billion.  I wounder how much was from cutting costs with slave labor?

 

Business/Economics, Technology, U.S.

Government & Corporate Incompetence: Ohio suffering mass earthquakes, officials blame Fracking. Not the first time; Arkansas blamed Fracking on increased quakes back in July

“The earthquakes will trickle on as a kind of a cascading process once you’ve caused them to occur. This one year of pumping is a pulse that has been pushed into the ground, and it’s going to be spreading out for at least a year.”-John Armbruster, Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

On New Year’s Eve, Ohio had a 4.0 quake.  It’s part of many quakes the state has suffered since March 2011.  Now state lawmakers are banning the energy industry’s practice of Fracking.

Energy companies inject chemically heavy water, under extreme pressures, deep into the ground.  It releases natural gas from shale. The gas is used mainly for the oil industry’s hydrogen cracking process, which makes fuels cleaner burning.

For a long time it’s been claimed that fracking pollutes underground water sources, but the industry has successfully fought off such claims.  Another claim is that it could cause earthquakes.

Now, seismologists with the U.S. Geological Survey have testified to Ohio officials that the state’s unusual quake activity is directly related to fracking wastewater injection.

In July, the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission banned  fracking wastewater injection, because of increased earthquake activity.

Energy companies doing the fracking are taking their wastewater and injecting it deep into underground sand deposits, to get rid of it.  Scientists say the problem is that the companies have overshot the underground sand beds, and are basically pressurizing fault lines.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Texas mom shoots kids then self after being denied food stamps, part of increasing trend in Texas due to bad economy

On December 6, a Texas mom shot her two kids, and then herself inside a Laredo social services office, after being denied food stamps.  She had been applying since July!

Officials say she didn’t provide enough documentation!  Her two kids, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, are in critical condition, she’s dead.  The woman had moved to Texas after losing her job in Ohio. This is not the first shooting in Texas related to the bad economy.

On November 30, in Bay City, Texas, an illegal immigrant shot the mother of his children, and then killed all four children, in front of neighbors.  One neighbor said the man had just lost his job at a local grocery store: “He worked nights and all of a sudden he was having trouble with his family. I knew the guy, but I didn’t know he would do something like this.”-Juan Elizondo, daughter witnessed the shootings

The shooter had been deported before, and there’s speculation that fear of being deported again could have played apart: “She was scared she didn’t have papers, that he didn’t have papers. They were both scared that they were going to get deported.”-Juan Elizondo

 

 

U.S.

Another fatal U.S. mine cave in

After a fatal silver mine collapse, in Mullen, Idaho, a Washingtonville, Ohio, man was killed April 25 in a coal mine accident.

Officials with the East Fairfield Coal Company says the cave in was a freak accident.  They claim it was the first fatal accident in the mine’s 80 years of operation.  State and Federal authorities are investigating.