Re: Quality and Workmanship in th US
Yes and no. . .
I love my Smith & Wessons and Rugers, but you can have anything made by Colt in the past 20 years and use it for a boat anchor. Overseas, I'd chunk my -16 and go scrounge an AK in the early days. In the latter, it was H&K all the way. Never had a problem with Israeli Arms, either.
Benelli makes the fastest firing semi-auto shotgun I've ever fired. When I was testing it for the USMS, I was able to fire six rounds before the empty hull of the first round hit the ground.
Beretta makes one helluva good shotgun, and their Italian-made 92F 9mm is a fine weapon (a design they shamelessly stole from the Brazilians). But again, you can't give me an American-made Beretta.
Had Uncle Robin Hood let me carry my Colt Gov't Series 70, I would've--I like 45ACP. But it is a single-action only handgun and that's a no-no in federal law enforcement work. The Series 80 and later models have the gov't mandated hammer/firing pin magazine-out safety device, which can cost you your life. Pure junk.
We're on even ground firearms-wise with the Europeans.
I'll definitely defer to your expertise on this topic, as my experience has been limited to rifles, and to a significantly lesser extent, shotguns. And while I'm far from an expert on the topic (it's a hobby I've been wanting to take back up but time and money have already been allocated to others), my late grand-uncle mentioned many times how after buying his first one way-back-when, he'd never purchase a rifle made by anybody other than Remington. I've never shot anything else (other than various .22s), so take that for whatever it's worth, I guess.
As an aside, one of the things I miss most about my uncle thinking about him now were the lazy fall afternoons of shooting on his farm... And I distinctly recall the day he
finally let me shoot one of his two 700's. I don't recall exactly what the first one was (it was his deer rifle and I think it was .270 Win. but I can't remember for sure), but I even
more distinctly remember the first time he let me shoot the .300 Win. Magnum... Holy
Moses. He got pretty proficient with the latter, and had designs on taking it on a big game hunt in Africa, but he never got the chance. But at any rate, good memories though I often lament the fact that the farm is gone (I'll discuss that below). I digress...
Yeah, but what nationalities are doing the programming and engineering? Japan kicks our butt in innovation for a lot of things software and hardware related.
I'd definitely agree that Asia kicks our collective behind in hardware, but I think the proliferation of software development in China, India and elsewhere in Asia is really more indicative of the trend of farming out more of the "assembly-line" type of software development projects. In this case, just like manufacturing, the emphasis is not on innovation, but rather, simply cost savings. The reality of the matter is that any reasonably skilled developer anywhere really
can crank out relatively simple applications and employers simply aren't willing to pay the rate that American developers demand.
The difference, however, is that the development languages and software design practices they use to
do the development have been (by and large) created here. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, programming languages as a whole are a category of innovations that are almost exclusively American. From COBOL and FORTRAN, to Java and .NET, and all the way down to simple HTML, virtually every piece of software written anywhere in the world is written in a language that, generally speaking, was originally created here.
Maybe at the collegiate level, but primary and secondary, we suck.
I agree, but I think that within the last decade and a half or so, colleges have -- generally speaking -- become much more "degree factory" than "institution for higher learning". That's not to say they don't offer excellent educations, about on par with those of other countries; I just get the feeling that many if not most of the recent-college grads I've interviewed and/or worked with of late were there to simply complete the "Get good grades in high school so you can get into a good college so you can get a good job" progression expected of them by their parents or peers or whomever. But I could talk about that for quite a long time, so maybe that's a topic for another thread.
No excuse not to, not what with our natural resources. But there are countries like Canada and Argentina that are closing the gap fast.
Also agree here. I think that has a lot to do with the shrinking amount of farmland in this country... Anecdotally, the area I grew up in used to be seemingly endless farm fields, with some of the most fertile soil in the US. Now, much of that has been replaced with sprawling developments of homes, townhomes, strip malls, movie theaters, etc. etc. I'm not about to
condemn that, necessarily, but it is what it is, and our population ain't shrinking.
Labor unions have priced themselves out of the realistic market along with government regulators (ala: EPA, OSHA, EOE, etc).
And yet, as a nation, collectively, we not only allow it continue, we MAKE it continue with our apathetic voting record.
As far as unions go, I do think we'll soon be beginning to see the end of their influence and importance, and having to compete in a global economy probably has a lot to do with that. I think they served a purpose that, over a century ago, has ultimately benefited the US overall, but there's little -- if any -- need left for them.
With regard to regulations, I can certainly understand your beef. I think what's necessary is some sort of balance between freely exercised capitalism and responsible government regulation. But with so much cash being heaved to and fro between lobbyists and government, I doubt that'll ever really happen. Unless that changes somehow, I think we'll be stuck with a constantly swinging pendulum of easing and restricting regulations, which isn't good for anybody on either side.
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