The key difference between California and Finland is that this is only suggestions for the parliament to consider and vote on. There's no referendum and a populist vote can't make it law.
There's no need for a dislike button because it's more like Twitter. You can write all you like, it's not going to change the world if no one notices.
I hope that the adoption of the referendum will grow an a accelerated rate in many countries.
As a fellow European I certainly do not want it to spread any further. Have you met the average citizen of your fellow European countries? Or for that matter any other nation in the world.
I don't mind suggestions being brought forward, as long as they can be easily rejected by parliament. The problem with an entitled population, fueled by populist politicians and high-speed communications, is the lack of long-term planning. Why save for a rainy day when I want my shiny new school/hospital/highway today? The population is rarely in a position to make good decisions when they barely know the subject matter let alone have an education in the field.
I'm not a strong supporter of "democracy", the Tyranny of the [populist] majority, it's a dangerously fragile system. I would far prefer at least a modicum of intelligence be involved in the decision making, and I don't think we can trust either politicians or the masses to think beyond their immediate desires. We don't let children decide what to have for dinner.
Plato had some interesting ideas in "The Republic".
I don't think they're that bad really, the commissioners are fighting for their own country's benefit within the Union as well as doing their actual jobs. It's fair enough, it's how things work most places.
The European Parliament is at least clearly on the citizen's side, even if they don't have the power to act on it yet.
The Court of Justice is a very good check and balance, at least the system works.
Just because all you hear about the EU has to do with those two American companies does not mean they have a bias.
Your attitude is profoundly arrogant in my opinion. I cannot understand why so many of your fellow Americans don't understand the situation? If a company operates in a European jurisdiction, either as a local legal entity or offers services and goods, it has to follow local laws and courts. It's that simple, or leave!
The EU's courts go after European companies every day, you just don't read about it because it's "foreign" news. Why should the [very profitable] arms of American companies in Europe be any different?!
Most sources actually mention that it is subject to approval by many other countries such as China, Taiwan and Israel.
The EU and US however are the biggest markets, they're also the markets that lead/dictate the standards [due to their market power]. See how the EU set the standard for electronics world wide by requiring RoHS compliance [for products to be sold in Europe], and how California legislates the car industry in their state but affects the whole US.
Reaction of the mayor of Oslo after the shootings this year by far-right terrorrist : "We need even more democracy".
It was actually the Prime Minister of Norway that said that. Also the shootings themselves happened in another county far away from Oslo city.
... welfare state is rock solid and financed for almost ever by Oil money...
The national budget is financed by income, corporate and sales tax (75%). Sales taxes being the largest contributor. Oil and gas revenue is invested abroad in the SWF, we allow a maximum of 4% of the surplus to go towards the national budget. Oil does represent a solid portion of the revenue (25%), however it is not what funds the budget.
I don't pretend to know much about EMP hardening, I assume the built-in electronics are built to withstand the effects, but I also assume that the whole outer skin of the plane is shielded?
If that is the case, which I am only suggesting, is it not likely that the tablet inside the cockpit would also be shielded by the fuselage?
As an Apple Customer you are stuck with vendor lock in.
While Apple does not offer you the freedom to change the hardware, why would a consumer want to anyway, Apple does not lock you in with regards to operating systems which is what we are talking about here in reality.
If Apple switched to another hardware architecture, your current Mac would still be able to run any other major operating system on the market today including Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, *BSD and so on. What "lock in"?
I'm sorry, as far as I can tell you are not being sarcastic. If you honestly believe what you wrote then I have news for you.
Every time Google, Microsoft or some other American corporation is involved in so-called "foreign" courts American citizens are up in arms [on the Internet].
Do you really not understand that companies that have offices and offer services in said "foreign" country are subject to that country's laws and courts? The company is not "American", the legal entity involved is Google India, Inc, an Indian corporation.
Or are you simply in denial and wish it to be otherwise? It's quite simple, really, if you want to play, you have to play by the local rules.
I think you have the labs and roles confused, that's why I pointed out that there are different labs for medical and criminal cases.
What was formerly known as the Division of Forensic Medicine ("Rettsmedisinsk institutt"), is now, as of 2012, part of The Norwegian Institute of Public Health ("Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt"). This division was indeed plagued by the [public] capacity problems you refer to.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health is a "... national centre of excellence in the areas of epidemiology, mental health, control of infectious diseases, environmental medicine, forensic toxicology and drug abuse.".
The Division of Forensic Medicine and Drug Abuse Research analyses biological samples with respect to alcohol, drugs (medicinal and illegal) and toxic agents in cases where the results may have judicial consequences. The analytical results are usually interpreted and commented and, in many cases, expert statements are submitted to the courts.
The issue was not a lack of general capacity in the health care system, it was handing over work generated by criminal cases to privately owned labs. These are completely different and separate areas.
The Norwegian Police and Prosecuting Authority ("påtalemyndigheten") are frequently looking for positive DNA identification of suspects in murder and rape cases. This differs greatly from the lofty goal of mapping the complete exome, the human genome, in all future Norwegian cancer patients.
This national project will utilize and expand the existing capacity of the regional cancer centers, i.e. Norwegian hospitals, through: "... establish[ing] sampling procedures and sample logistics, bioinformatics infrastructure, analysis and pipelines,...". It will in no way impact, reduce or take away focus from the criminal cases handled by the Forensic Division. Of course, that is merely my opinion, that I gathered from what I read.
The key difference between the two is that what you're talking about is criminal investigations where we don't want to use private cliniques, this is a medical research project.
Here we go again, it's always just because we have oil, what a convenient excuse. Never mind the fact that we had socialized medicine long before we found oil & gas. The expense of this project is not extremely high or impossible for other systems to acheive.
Oil and gas accounts for 25% of Norway's GDP. The revenue is only invested abroad by our SWF, we allow ourselves a meager maximum 4% of the surplus on the fund. We consider ourselves simply the custodians of this wealth, it belongs to future generations of Norwegians.
As for "few other countries having that luxury", I give you all of "oil-free" Scandinavia; Sweden, Denmark, Finland and even Iceland.
Germany and France also have strong public health systems.
If import taxes is enough to encourage Foxconn to move plants to Brazil, then all the excuses made by Apple executives about China's construction advantages is meaningless.
No, like most people reading the article I quoted you seem to dismiss the third element mentioned. Even if the US created the supply chain, infrastructure and provided [adequate]low-cost factory workers, the US still would not be able to provide the huge number of engineers needed.
The US education system is not able to create the correct amount or type of workers. Never mind that this industry demands greater flexibility than most Western employees would accept. I don't know what the situation is in Brazil, I assume they are able to supply the factories. I believe they are going to offer training.
Even if you could somehow make Apple and everyone else produce in the US, it would hurt the corporations greatly because of the lost ability to move fast, keep low inventory and rapidly source from other suppliers. That could potentially destroy their current position(s) in the market.
China's own government is trying to develop domestic consumption, and rising wages is a part of that plan.
That domestic demand doesn't need any development any longer. It's much stronger in all areas, from cars to luxury items. The monied class in China is filled with countless billionaries (in US Dollars).
As it is, there's a shortage of labor in China...
The shortage is geographically limited to the coastal region where most production happens today. Why do you think Foxconn just created their massive super factories further inland? This is just the natural next move.
...and unions are growing stronger
That's hardly an accurate description from what I read, the Chinese unions strength is miniscule as they're limited and/or controlled by Beijing. They seem to be changing, not so much "growing". It has had an effect in companies from Honda to Foxconn, but it is not similar to how Western or American unions function, this short article is enlightening:
Foxconn is moving to countries like Vietnam and Indonesia
Yes, they are also moving to more expensive Asian countries such as Malaysia because they foresee rising wages in China.
The Chinese factories are already being refocused to supply the domestic market, while other Asian factories will supply the world market. The Chinese domestic market is growing much faster and unlike the West has stable, high growth.
As a Scandinavian, happily living in a social-democratic state, with little evidence of your so called "facist" entity, I strongly disagree with your description of the past, present and future, "my little friend".
In case you didn't notice, my comment included the American ethos ("The American Dream") simply to underline the fact that this is what most Americans want despite the very low probability that they will ever make it from gardener to billionaire. Why would you want to give that up? (sarcasm)
The EU is in no way similar to the corporatist US, you seem to have very little knowledge of the EU's relationship with its member countries, corporations and citizens. Never mind the actual record, the EU's parliament and officers have shown very strong support for its citizens's rights during the last decade for example in Internet privacy and so on. The US on the other hand has removed ever more of its citizens' rights including the Patriot Act, DMCA, ACTA and so on.
No, the EU is not ruled by corporations, just ask Microsoft, convicted in the US for monopolistic practices, just not punished for it... In the EU on the other hand.
Nothing prevents those companies from spending time and money to re-establish the manufacturing ecosystem back in the U.S. Nothing except greed.
In some way you could say that, but that is the nature of the capitalist economic system. Corporations are not charities. They have a responsibility to their shareholders, not the citizens of said country!
In my opinion the Chinese did not simply "force" their population, they're not slaves as you claim. They're highly skilled and educated. That's an advantage the US economy doesn't enjoy. There are plenty of smart, skilled and highly educated Americans, but there are so few of them by comparison with China. The US lower working class and urban poor are not "material" for high tech manufacturing jobs. To put it bluntly; the US has become fat and complancent.
If you wanted to re-establish manufacturing in the US you would need to start from scratch. In my opinion you would have to tear down the welfare state, take away civil rights and laws that stand in the way. Possibly huge government lead infrastructure projects, it wouldn't be "cost effective" for corporations. You would be asking for a European social-democratic state. The whole American ethos would become utterly meaningless.
I'm sorry, but again you seem to miss the point and jump to unwarranted conclusions. It's not the salary that's keeping Apple and everyone else in China!
If you could create the same infrastructure and scale for manufacturing in the US, they estimate the additional cost for each iPhone would be an additional $1,000 per phone!
Warehousing and keeping stock is extremely expensive, it's all done Just-In-Time now.
Also, will you please understand that I quoted a magazine! I assume they have greater insight in to this area than you and I. They actually have people in China that understand manufacturing.
Foxconn is building in Brazil as you correctly stated because it's one of the world's fastest growing markets, but also because they have huge import taxes on electronics. Apple has very little market share in Brazil, and they want to "cover" the BRIC countries as well as expand their world wide manufacturing capacity.
The rising wages in China are not a problem as you incorrectly assume, they are not moving factories from China to other cheaper countries.
They're creating new factories in other more expensive Asian countries, such as Malaysia, to supply the world market. They expect the salaries to increase in China even further! The Chinese factories will focus ever more on the Chinese domestic market. A market with ever greater importance and much larger and stronger demand than the global market.
The article goes on to describe that the American labor market is simply not able to supply the needed amount of correctly trained workers regardless. You would need to train a whole new generation! An impossible task and very costly [investment].
That race is probably lost, at least for now, what people should focus on is innovation and highly skilled jobs.
Remember, the people working the assembly lines do very simple tasks, never mind those workers, the problem is the thousands of skilled engineers that monitor and control these employees. At least according to the article, that's the second biggest hurdle.
Apple doesn't build iPhones in the United States, in other words, because there is no longer an ecosystem here to support that manufacturing. There's no supply chain, there aren't enough super-low-cost workers, and there are not enough mid-level engineers.
The real reasons Apple makes iPhones in China, therefore, are as follows:
- Most of the components of iPhones and iPads--the supply chain--are now manufactured in China, so assembling the phones half-a-world away would create huge logistical challenges. It would also reduce flexibility--the ability to switch easily from one component supplier or manufacturer to another.
- China's factories are now far bigger and more nimble than those in the United States. They can hire (and fire) tens of thousands of workers practically overnight. Because so many of the workers live on-site, they can also press them into service at a moment's notice. And they can change production practices and speeds extremely rapidly.
- China now has a far bigger supply of appropriately-qualified engineers than the U.S. does--folks with the technical skills necessary to build complex gadgets but not so credentialed that they cost too much. And, lastly, China's workforce is much hungrier and more frugal than many of their counterparts in the United States.
You don't seem to understand my point, this is not about sovereignty, the reason you can't apply American law to European courts is because the systems are vastly different. It's like using Imperial measurements in a Metric country, or even better like speaking Russian in China.
For example the Common Law principle of caveat emptor, "buyer beware", does not work the same in most European systems, where there are other balances, duties and rights for both seller and buyer. The equations are different, therefore different results.
Laws and their interpretations are not formed in a vacuum, international sources are considered, but not applied directly in most countries. They can function as guidance or useful examples. After all the UK is the original source of your legal system, laws, methods, rights and oldest precedents. You don't seem to mind those? Never mind the international treaties and conventions on trade and standardization.
Now, who's pushing that ACTA set of laws on Europe?
The US uses Common Law, that's a very different system from the Civil Law (Roman) system used in most European countries (with the exception of the UK and Ireland).
Precedents don't have the same value in other legal systems, or rather they don't have to. You can't apply American law to European courts:)
Slashdot Mirror
The key difference between California and Finland is that this is only suggestions for the parliament to consider and vote on. There's no referendum and a populist vote can't make it law.
There's no need for a dislike button because it's more like Twitter. You can write all you like, it's not going to change the world if no one notices.
Hehe, yeah, but it's only suggestions, they don't have to make them into law. It's only presented to the Finnish parliament.
As a fellow European I certainly do not want it to spread any further. Have you met the average citizen of your fellow European countries? Or for that matter any other nation in the world.
I don't mind suggestions being brought forward, as long as they can be easily rejected by parliament. The problem with an entitled population, fueled by populist politicians and high-speed communications, is the lack of long-term planning. Why save for a rainy day when I want my shiny new school/hospital/highway today? The population is rarely in a position to make good decisions when they barely know the subject matter let alone have an education in the field.
I'm not a strong supporter of "democracy", the Tyranny of the [populist] majority, it's a dangerously fragile system. I would far prefer at least a modicum of intelligence be involved in the decision making, and I don't think we can trust either politicians or the masses to think beyond their immediate desires. We don't let children decide what to have for dinner.
Plato had some interesting ideas in "The Republic".
I don't think they're that bad really, the commissioners are fighting for their own country's benefit within the Union as well as doing their actual jobs. It's fair enough, it's how things work most places.
The European Parliament is at least clearly on the citizen's side, even if they don't have the power to act on it yet.
The Court of Justice is a very good check and balance, at least the system works.
Hehe, but it's pronounced twent-eh in Dutch, sounds nothing like twenty ;)
http://www.forvo.com/word/twente/#nl
Just because all you hear about the EU has to do with those two American companies does not mean they have a bias.
Your attitude is profoundly arrogant in my opinion. I cannot understand why so many of your fellow Americans don't understand the situation? If a company operates in a European jurisdiction, either as a local legal entity or offers services and goods, it has to follow local laws and courts. It's that simple, or leave!
The EU's courts go after European companies every day, you just don't read about it because it's "foreign" news. Why should the [very profitable] arms of American companies in Europe be any different?!
Most sources actually mention that it is subject to approval by many other countries such as China, Taiwan and Israel.
The EU and US however are the biggest markets, they're also the markets that lead/dictate the standards [due to their market power]. See how the EU set the standard for electronics world wide by requiring RoHS compliance [for products to be sold in Europe], and how California legislates the car industry in their state but affects the whole US.
It was actually the Prime Minister of Norway that said that. Also the shootings themselves happened in another county far away from Oslo city.
The national budget is financed by income, corporate and sales tax (75%). Sales taxes being the largest contributor. Oil and gas revenue is invested abroad in the SWF, we allow a maximum of 4% of the surplus to go towards the national budget. Oil does represent a solid portion of the revenue (25%), however it is not what funds the budget.
I don't pretend to know much about EMP hardening, I assume the built-in electronics are built to withstand the effects, but I also assume that the whole outer skin of the plane is shielded?
If that is the case, which I am only suggesting, is it not likely that the tablet inside the cockpit would also be shielded by the fuselage?
That's basically how European telecom market(s) work. It's good for consumers, lower prices and more competition [than in the US].
While Apple does not offer you the freedom to change the hardware, why would a consumer want to anyway, Apple does not lock you in with regards to operating systems which is what we are talking about here in reality.
If Apple switched to another hardware architecture, your current Mac would still be able to run any other major operating system on the market today including Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, *BSD and so on. What "lock in"?
I'm sorry, as far as I can tell you are not being sarcastic. If you honestly believe what you wrote then I have news for you.
Every time Google, Microsoft or some other American corporation is involved in so-called "foreign" courts American citizens are up in arms [on the Internet].
Do you really not understand that companies that have offices and offer services in said "foreign" country are subject to that country's laws and courts? The company is not "American", the legal entity involved is Google India, Inc, an Indian corporation.
Or are you simply in denial and wish it to be otherwise? It's quite simple, really, if you want to play, you have to play by the local rules.
I think you have the labs and roles confused, that's why I pointed out that there are different labs for medical and criminal cases.
What was formerly known as the Division of Forensic Medicine ("Rettsmedisinsk institutt"), is now, as of 2012, part of The Norwegian Institute of Public Health ("Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt"). This division was indeed plagued by the [public] capacity problems you refer to.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health is a "... national centre of excellence in the areas of epidemiology, mental health, control of infectious diseases, environmental medicine, forensic toxicology and drug abuse.".
The Division of Forensic Medicine and Drug Abuse Research analyses biological samples with respect to alcohol, drugs (medicinal and illegal) and toxic agents in cases where the results may have judicial consequences. The analytical results are usually interpreted and commented and, in many cases, expert statements are submitted to the courts.
The issue was not a lack of general capacity in the health care system, it was handing over work generated by criminal cases to privately owned labs. These are completely different and separate areas.
The Norwegian Police and Prosecuting Authority ("påtalemyndigheten") are frequently looking for positive DNA identification of suspects in murder and rape cases. This differs greatly from the lofty goal of mapping the complete exome, the human genome, in all future Norwegian cancer patients.
This national project will utilize and expand the existing capacity of the regional cancer centers, i.e. Norwegian hospitals, through: ...". It will in no way impact, reduce or take away focus from the criminal cases handled by the Forensic Division. Of course, that is merely my opinion, that I gathered from what I read.
"... establish[ing] sampling procedures and sample logistics, bioinformatics infrastructure, analysis and pipelines,
Source(s):
http://www.cancergenomics.no/
http://www.fhi.no/
http://www.forskning.no/
The key difference between the two is that what you're talking about is criminal investigations where we don't want to use private cliniques, this is a medical research project.
Here we go again, it's always just because we have oil, what a convenient excuse. Never mind the fact that we had socialized medicine long before we found oil & gas. The expense of this project is not extremely high or impossible for other systems to acheive.
Oil and gas accounts for 25% of Norway's GDP. The revenue is only invested abroad by our SWF, we allow ourselves a meager maximum 4% of the surplus on the fund. We consider ourselves simply the custodians of this wealth, it belongs to future generations of Norwegians.
As for "few other countries having that luxury", I give you all of "oil-free" Scandinavia; Sweden, Denmark, Finland and even Iceland.
Germany and France also have strong public health systems.
No, like most people reading the article I quoted you seem to dismiss the third element mentioned. Even if the US created the supply chain, infrastructure and provided [adequate]low-cost factory workers, the US still would not be able to provide the huge number of engineers needed.
The US education system is not able to create the correct amount or type of workers. Never mind that this industry demands greater flexibility than most Western employees would accept. I don't know what the situation is in Brazil, I assume they are able to supply the factories. I believe they are going to offer training.
Even if you could somehow make Apple and everyone else produce in the US, it would hurt the corporations greatly because of the lost ability to move fast, keep low inventory and rapidly source from other suppliers. That could potentially destroy their current position(s) in the market.
That domestic demand doesn't need any development any longer. It's much stronger in all areas, from cars to luxury items. The monied class in China is filled with countless billionaries (in US Dollars).
The shortage is geographically limited to the coastal region where most production happens today. Why do you think Foxconn just created their massive super factories further inland? This is just the natural next move.
That's hardly an accurate description from what I read, the Chinese unions strength is miniscule as they're limited and/or controlled by Beijing. They seem to be changing, not so much "growing". It has had an effect in companies from Honda to Foxconn, but it is not similar to how Western or American unions function, this short article is enlightening:
http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/CP204.pdf
Yes, they are also moving to more expensive Asian countries such as Malaysia because they foresee rising wages in China.
The Chinese factories are already being refocused to supply the domestic market, while other Asian factories will supply the world market. The Chinese domestic market is growing much faster and unlike the West has stable, high growth.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_21/b4179011091633.htm
As a Scandinavian, happily living in a social-democratic state, with little evidence of your so called "facist" entity, I strongly disagree with your description of the past, present and future, "my little friend".
In case you didn't notice, my comment included the American ethos ("The American Dream") simply to underline the fact that this is what most Americans want despite the very low probability that they will ever make it from gardener to billionaire. Why would you want to give that up? (sarcasm)
The EU is in no way similar to the corporatist US, you seem to have very little knowledge of the EU's relationship with its member countries, corporations and citizens. Never mind the actual record, the EU's parliament and officers have shown very strong support for its citizens's rights during the last decade for example in Internet privacy and so on. The US on the other hand has removed ever more of its citizens' rights including the Patriot Act, DMCA, ACTA and so on.
No, the EU is not ruled by corporations, just ask Microsoft, convicted in the US for monopolistic practices, just not punished for it... In the EU on the other hand.
In some way you could say that, but that is the nature of the capitalist economic system. Corporations are not charities. They have a responsibility to their shareholders, not the citizens of said country!
In my opinion the Chinese did not simply "force" their population, they're not slaves as you claim. They're highly skilled and educated. That's an advantage the US economy doesn't enjoy. There are plenty of smart, skilled and highly educated Americans, but there are so few of them by comparison with China. The US lower working class and urban poor are not "material" for high tech manufacturing jobs. To put it bluntly; the US has become fat and complancent.
If you wanted to re-establish manufacturing in the US you would need to start from scratch. In my opinion you would have to tear down the welfare state, take away civil rights and laws that stand in the way. Possibly huge government lead infrastructure projects, it wouldn't be "cost effective" for corporations. You would be asking for a European social-democratic state. The whole American ethos would become utterly meaningless.
I'm sorry, but again you seem to miss the point and jump to unwarranted conclusions. It's not the salary that's keeping Apple and everyone else in China!
If you could create the same infrastructure and scale for manufacturing in the US, they estimate the additional cost for each iPhone would be an additional $1,000 per phone!
Warehousing and keeping stock is extremely expensive, it's all done Just-In-Time now.
Your conclusion is wrong in my opinion.
Also, will you please understand that I quoted a magazine! I assume they have greater insight in to this area than you and I. They actually have people in China that understand manufacturing.
Foxconn is building in Brazil as you correctly stated because it's one of the world's fastest growing markets, but also because they have huge import taxes on electronics. Apple has very little market share in Brazil, and they want to "cover" the BRIC countries as well as expand their world wide manufacturing capacity.
The rising wages in China are not a problem as you incorrectly assume, they are not moving factories from China to other cheaper countries.
They're creating new factories in other more expensive Asian countries, such as Malaysia, to supply the world market. They expect the salaries to increase in China even further! The Chinese factories will focus ever more on the Chinese domestic market. A market with ever greater importance and much larger and stronger demand than the global market.
The article goes on to describe that the American labor market is simply not able to supply the needed amount of correctly trained workers regardless. You would need to train a whole new generation! An impossible task and very costly [investment].
That race is probably lost, at least for now, what people should focus on is innovation and highly skilled jobs.
Remember, the people working the assembly lines do very simple tasks, never mind those workers, the problem is the thousands of skilled engineers that monitor and control these employees. At least according to the article, that's the second biggest hurdle.
No, that would be the wrong conclusion.
The salary difference amounts to a meager $65 per iPhone if that was all it took. Cheap workers are not the key.
The real difference is infrastructure and scale.
To quote "Business Insider" magazine:
Apple doesn't build iPhones in the United States, in other words, because there is no longer an ecosystem here to support that manufacturing. There's no supply chain, there aren't enough super-low-cost workers, and there are not enough mid-level engineers.
The real reasons Apple makes iPhones in China, therefore, are as follows:
- Most of the components of iPhones and iPads--the supply chain--are now manufactured in China, so assembling the phones half-a-world away would create huge logistical challenges. It would also reduce flexibility--the ability to switch easily from one component supplier or manufacturer to another.
- China's factories are now far bigger and more nimble than those in the United States. They can hire (and fire) tens of thousands of workers practically overnight. Because so many of the workers live on-site, they can also press them into service at a moment's notice. And they can change production practices and speeds extremely rapidly.
- China now has a far bigger supply of appropriately-qualified engineers than the U.S. does--folks with the technical skills necessary to build complex gadgets but not so credentialed that they cost too much.
And, lastly, China's workforce is much hungrier and more frugal than many of their counterparts in the United States.
You don't seem to understand my point, this is not about sovereignty, the reason you can't apply American law to European courts is because the systems are vastly different. It's like using Imperial measurements in a Metric country, or even better like speaking Russian in China.
For example the Common Law principle of caveat emptor, "buyer beware", does not work the same in most European systems, where there are other balances, duties and rights for both seller and buyer. The equations are different, therefore different results.
Laws and their interpretations are not formed in a vacuum, international sources are considered, but not applied directly in most countries. They can function as guidance or useful examples. After all the UK is the original source of your legal system, laws, methods, rights and oldest precedents. You don't seem to mind those? Never mind the international treaties and conventions on trade and standardization.
Now, who's pushing that ACTA set of laws on Europe?
The US uses Common Law, that's a very different system from the Civil Law (Roman) system used in most European countries (with the exception of the UK and Ireland).
Precedents don't have the same value in other legal systems, or rather they don't have to. You can't apply American law to European courts :)