sandpiper
Active Member
Well, actually I was born in Shanghai and immigrated from there yeas ago. I had been living in Shanghai during 2011 for a prolonged time. I tend to agree with you on your claims, but only to some extent. Yes, there is dirt cheap labor which are only paid a fraction of what here the contractors are getting. But in Shanghai, such things have become or are becoming a past. As a person who was born and had lived there for almost 30 years, I saw the booming of this city. It has about 20 million permanent residents and another several million migrating residents. Yes, 20 years ago, what you have said was true. Several years ago, partly true in Shanghai, now I really doubt so. The labor there is no longer cheap, they are well trained. The living standard there is longer substandard. My friends (actually, years ago, I) own or co-own construction companies and know the details. They bid for the government contracts, they need profit to survive. They have very skilled employees who are paid well.
One thing is true though, corruption. Another thing is also true, most construction companies who get such contracts are government owned. But here, as far as I know, majority of municipality construction contracts are also awarded because of "networking".
You can't justify the price difference just by private cooperation profits. You can't justify the speed difference because of the enormous "unskilled" labor.
Clean or not, they are moving way faster than us. corrupt or not, they build things. I'd rather see some corruption here and there than let skilled labor sit there and do nothing.
We just waste too much time and money fighting the red tapes.
I don't disagree with you (mostly) on the red tape over here. I think there is plenty of room for improvement. And yes there is some corruption - but I've been doing business in Canada for 25 years, and in my experience it's still relatively uncommon.
I'm happy that Shanghai is improving. It gives me a lot of hope for the future of the country.
My experience has been in more central China, in cities that are either undeveloped or newly developing. I was horrified at the way people live and the way things are done, and I found it really difficult to watch. I have personally watched the armies of old women with buckets moving concrete. And what I learned about how commercial transactions are done astounded me. Comparing the corruption over there to what happens in Canada is like comparing the Titanic to a rowboat. And I've not even touched on intellectual property theft or rule of law - both of which seem to be rather "discretionary"
Yes Canada is slow, but one of the results is that what happens usually makes economic sense. We don't have thousands of empty buildings that were put up because somebody knew somebody and got the funding from a government bank. The idiotic projects that we do have (like relocated gas plants and Mars) are inevitably caused by government incompetence, which further serves to reinforce the point that we do not want what they have in China - where the party essentially dictates what gets done and what does not.
Our system is slow and can certainly be improved - but I would never wish for what I experienced in China. I'd rather the red-tape any day. I really really hope that China country improves and perhaps your experience in Shanghai is a good sign for the future.
- - - Updated - - -
If sitter K was making a joke, I am not laughing. I was being sarcastic to make a point.
My point is: This is a site for the Tesla Supercharger in Eastern Canada, so lets concentrate on that and stop the racial (country & political- wise) bashing.
Fair point! Rant off.