On Tue, 6 Mar 2012 17:25:35 -0800 (PST), A Moose in Love
> wrote:

>On Mar 6, 4:32*pm, Jeßus > wrote:
>> On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:17:12 -0500, "Jean B." > wrote:
>> >Dave Smith wrote:
>> >> On 04/03/2012 2:43 PM, Jeßus wrote:
>>
>> >>> Aside from general pollution concerns, when you have fake plastic rice
>> >>> and eggs, melamine adulterated milk, bleached mushrooms, bean sprouts
>> >>> grown with antibiotics, etc. all coming from the one place... well,
>> >>> I'd rather just steer clear of any foods from there.
>>
>> >> I had a talk with the produce manager are our local grocery store and
>> >> expressed my concerns about the increasing amount of Chinese produce
>> >> they were stalking. His answer was that the Chinese have to eat too.I
>> >> told him that I would not buy produce from China, and that if I had to
>> >> go to a different store to get non-Chinese produce I would be getting
>> >> all my groceries there.
>>
>> >Sounds like a good thing to voice. *I think it is crazy to become
>> >more and more dependent on other countries for food--especially
>> >basics, and especially China. *Also, how about foods that may
>> >emanate from the area affected by Chernobyl, etc., etc.?
>>
>> Agreed, more people need to vote with their wallets and buy locally
>> produced food from local businesses.
>>
>> That's what I do these days. Not doing this can only perpetuate the
>> current trends. I know it gets hard for those on limited incomes to
>> resist lower prices, but I often wonder just how hard they are really
>> trying (not all of course).
>>
>> It's insane how product is shipped overseas, then comes back again to
>> the state or country or origin. Not to mention the loss of local
>> employment and infrastructure.
>
>We have lost much work here. Arrow shirts, John Forsythe shirts, Huck
>glove, many meat packers; the only one left is Schneiders, and it is
>now only a distribution center, all of our rubber is gone, 3 Uniroyal
>plants, BF Goodrich, Goodyear tire, textiles are gone, leather
>tanning went a long time ago. but still in this region, the economy
>is chirping along. you just need to be very skilled, and you'll make
>out. having said that, the larger machine shops are/have been
>restructured, and many metal workers are out of work. RIM, is not
>doing so good, although it used to be primo. There was a time, when
>you could get out of school with a grade 10 education, and make decent
>money; about $25 in today's wages. not any more. Even RMS (an
>independent arm of Uniroyal; they worked in conjunction with Uniroyal
>tire on Strange street; Rubber Machinery Shops) has shut down. And
>they had very skilled machinist/fitters working there. One of our
>best automation tooling plants was going along very well. The owner
>controlled the majority of shares (he started repairing dies in his
>garage, and worked it up to a $100 million company) always made sure
>that in bad times, his good workers never got laid off. Then he died,
>and the bean counters took over. They started putting up communist
>style banners all over the shop such as 'Every Day is a New Day', and
>laid off the weekend shift, laid off the night shift, canned the
>machine shop foreman (who brought much to the company) etc.

Much the same thing is happening here, albeit at a much reduced
scale... Australia has so far weathered the GFC pretty well compared
to elsewhere. So far.