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The Problem with DHS's Plan to 'Buy American'
An anonymous reader points out a Cnet report on the
Homeland Security Authorization Act, which would require that more than 50 percent of the components in any end product bought by the Department of Homeland Security be produced or manufactured in the U.S., writing "The Pentagon has agreements with 21 countries that waive the act, but an amendment that just passed the House would prevent the DHS from waiving the 'Buy American' restrictions. "The president of the Information Technology Association of America observed that this means the DHS may 'have to learn to do without computers and cell phones,' since he could not think of any manufacturers of those devices that would meet the 50% threshold."
No, they'd never do something as low and underhand as that... That would be like putting an illegal tariff on steel imports...
Based in america yes, but are 50% or more of their components made in US, I think you would have a hard time finding any of them above 10% US made components.
> That would be like putting an illegal tariff on steel imports...
Or, say, softwood lumber?
I work for a department of the NIH--the National Institute of Health. I have been closely associated with some large computer purchases, and I can tell you that, over a certain dollar amount, we must also source from US manufacturing plants.
The details of how this works aren't 100% clear to me--but I believe that major manufacturers have a manufacturing plant for just this purpose, although I don't know if they serve any other gov't institutes besides the NIH.
I can tell you that we can purchase Dell, Apple, and HP following the US sourcing rules. While it does indeed complicate the bidding process, it's not impossible. I would imagine that the DHS would tap the same resources; in fact, their use of these resources might drive down the prices for all gov't buyers who are currently constrained by this rule. The more the merrier.
The fact that you can't purchase "Made in the USA" computer goods at Best Buy really has no relation to the purchasing power of the US gov't.
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$tar -xvf
As a Government acquisition professional, I would like to point out that buy American does not apply to commercially available products. It is recognized that market forces will generally provide fair pricing.
This ruling applies to custom development (hardware/software) only. So DHS can buy all the cell phones they want from Taiwan. If they want buy something that does not exist in the commercial market, then "Buy American" applies.
Just a bit north, near Detroit at the River Rouge (extremely industrialized part of michigan) and also one of the home to one of those SuperFund sites, the contamination is so great that a person, without protection, supposodly will get cancer within 20 minutes of exposure.
As a kid, my dad would bring my brother and I down there in the boat and watch the fires. Fires, literraly on the river, they'd just start spontaneously, it almost seems surreal thinking about that experience. It was almost like a weird scene out of mad-max/apolocalpyse now/terminator.
Uhhhmm, Daimler Chrysler is no longer a U.S. auto maker.
Where did you get your economics degree? Perhaps you ought to consider asking for your money back.
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Here's is the shocker: China does not run a large trade surplus. (Serious, it's very very small, and was in '04 only slightly in the black.) Now, the numbers "experts" give you tell you that the US ran a $160bn trade deficit with China in the year to April '05. But that is against an overall trade surplus of just $26bn (which, trust me, isn't a lot of money when it comes to surpluses and deficits.)
(For details on China's trade performance, check this http://www.uschina.org/statistics/2005tradeperfor
But this is not relevent: China imports as much as it exports. It just happens not to import a lot from the US. It does however import a lot from Germany (which, along with Japan is the world's largest manufacturer of capital goods). So, China has a trade deficit with Germany, and a trade surplus with the US. Now: go to Germany. Who do they buy from? Well, lets start with the US. Germany imports a terrific amount of software and financial services from the US.
So: money goes US -> China -> Germany -> US ->
(Now, this isn't great if you work in the manufacturing sector in the US, and your job goes to China. But it is great if you're selling fund management products to the Germans.)
Here's another shocker. Between 1998 and 2005, the US lost 2m manufacturing jobs (while, it should be noted, manufacturing output rose). And those jobs went to China, right? No. China lost 15m jobs. Yes, you heard that right fiftenn million manufacturing jobs were lost. (The result, I should add, of moving from an inefficient state system to a marginally more efficient private system.)
Anyway: the point I make is a simple one. Focussing on bilateral trade surpluses or deficits is stupid. You have to look at the system. You also have to remember that those trade deficit/surplus numbers are vey bad at capturing so called "invisible" exports, such as financial services.
Cheers,
Robert
--- My dad's political betting
I agree on your point on senseless real estate appreciation and have been making similar comments myself for years. Houses do not appreciate, they depreciate; the damn things fall apart. The land may, however, may appreciate in value if it is in a popular area (i.e. a city). I always thought that real estate appreciation was a scam concocted by real estate agents to offset their commissions. If every time you sold your house it sold for the same price that you bought it for, you would be out $10,000 in commissions. This would make you seriously look at why you are paying $10,000 for a (usually incompetent) agent. Fortunately, appraisals are done by real estate agents; often not the agent selling the house but a buddy. So, you jack up the appraisal of the house by at least the amount of the commissions so you don't pay too much attention to why you are paying five times as much for a real estate bimbo to sell your house as you would a surgeon for life saving surgery (the hospital will make up the difference, though). Did the seller do any remodelling or redecorating? Add the cost of that (plus some) to the appraisal as well. Never mind that they buyer will probably have to spend more money undoing the "improvements".
These real estate idiots are way behind on using technology and actual information to sell houses. A few now offer panoramic camera views. A large number of people who buy houses do so in a different city than the one they now live in and those that live in the same city have better things to do with their time than shlep around to houses that could have been ruled out with a real estate bimbo who insists on showing houses during customers working hours. Hire some architecture students to draw up a decent floorplan/3D model of the house, take pictures that are linked so you can select any view of each room from the floorplan, and photograph, catalog, and test all ethernet, phone, cable tv, and electrical outlets including which circuit breaker they connect to. Real estate agent incompetence and the constant stream of disinterested potential buyers traipsing through also severely impacts the lives of people who live in rental property which is being sold to a new landlord. Give people decent virtual tours at their convenience and then let them visit the house only if it is really one of their top candidates.
Besides making real estate agents among the top ten overpaid professions in America, housing is not affordable to those entering the housing market. When the baby boomers, who bought their first houses for realistic prices before appreciation ran amok under favorable loan terms, die off the bubble will have to burst.
Chirac complained about GWB interfering in EU/Turkey relations
Miller says:
Completely missing the point, Chirac didn't complain about the US commenting on Mexico or vice versa, he said that he (Chirac) had as little right to interfere in US/Mexican relations as GWB has to "support" Turkeys EU membership application.
Miller then blathers on:
Oh, dear. France is "economically stagnant". Turkey is "an emerging democracy". So Turkey should just ignore France, eh?
Of course this is all bollocks. France has a veto on who joins the union, just like all the other member states. Of course Turkey cares what France thinks.
And, unlike the idiot Miller:
Turkey knows that Chirac is in fact one of the EU leaders who are pushing for Turkey's membership. That's why he complained about GWB's wrecking intervention.
Frankly having GWB "support" Turkeys membership application is just about the best way to make sure it is rejected.
Which, given the pronouncements of some of the NeoCon nutters, may have been what GWB's speach was for.
Watch this Heartland Institute video