Why we cannot ever compete with China

---The reality recently came to me. I have a friend that owns a factory in China. They use lots of water in their manufacturing process. He wanted to put in a well to save money on water. After greasing the appropriate official's palm they had the well in and working in 3 weeks. ---I have 2/3 of an acre and wanted to build a simple cookie cutter pole building. That was FIVE years ago. I still do not even have a permit after spending over $30,000 jumping through hoops and regs. ---And I have a long list of requirements left. I need a soil engineer to design water run off for the gutters. By the way the maximum size building I am allowed is 1,000 sq feet. How big a roof does that have to catch rain water??? I have to spend another minimum of 10k to upgrade an existing septic system that has nothing to do with what I am building and is over 100 feet away. (I will not have running water in my building.) I have to pave an existing nice gravel driveway. Another 12k AND my soil engineer has to design the appropriate driveway run off system. (You can't just let a 12 feet wide driveway just drain by itself.) ---On and on AND I have tried to get the building dep't to actually tell me in advance IF I do all these things WILL I get the permit??? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel??? ---Sooooo no permit...no building...No property upgrade and increased taxes for the city...No buying of concrete for the poles and floor...no buying 2 garage doors...no hiring a cement finisher to install the floor...no buying of materials, roofing, siding, decking, etc etc...And everyone wonders why we are in a recession. Well, duh! ---And, no I am not moving to China but I know why they can beat us hands down in business. Lanny

Lanny

Tyranny takes on many forms.

I don't know if I would be advocating for a greased palm society. My son is an executive for a German faucet manufacturer. He deals with lots of different governments and the worst is Russia. It costs 6 times as much to build in Moscow than (already expensive) Paris or London. Their largest distributor there doesn't even have a warehouse. They have a series of boxcars around the perimeter of their property with steel beams spanning between them, covered with metal. It's surrounded by razor wire and guarded 24/7 by three guys with machine guns. Their office is a temporary building built with what looks like giant Lincoln Logs.

My son had to deal with a bureaucrat because a tax form they sent in was a day late because of a holiday they were unaware of. The woman got a commission on the over $10,000 fine. She negotiated down the government share of the fine by accepting her full commission amount under-the-table.

China is going to pay a price for that kind of lawlessness.

Our county tried that with a customer last year. Was going to cost him $50,000+ before he could ever build his $10,000 garage. We found a loophole in the law. I would suggest you check grandfather clauses in your area....you may have to pay a zoning attorney to get the correct answer. Log Cabin Grandfather clause or something like that is what we call it.

Heck I pay $215.00 a quarter for a service I don't use. Sewer. I paid the road service but never hooked up to the sewer. I don't need it, I have 2 septic tanks on my property. I didn't pay it for a while and they put a lein on me for non payment and threatend a sherrifs sale. Every 3 years have to have them emptied. I am one person I can't poop that much. The septic company knows I have 2 the township forgot so I pay for 1. Rules & regulations are strangling everyone. Lanny sorry for you. PC

Copperman PA misses you. :laugh:

Well lanny you have pointed out the fallacy of the Gooberm$nt creating jobs. They destroy them and truth in campaigning would say "I will destroy less jobs than my Opponent. Sen. K-pax" rather than "I will create more jobs than Sen. Bumblebee"

Where oh where are the small government anti regulatory Republicans? (not in office.......not anywhere in America for that matter.....it is an Oxymoron actually)

Egg I have had the same thought.....we both destroy our countries in different ways

that's what kill the building back were I used to live in Pa. After the Delaware River flooded 3 times with 100 year storms they put a stop on all building for the most part. It would cost $50,000.00 before the backhoe showed up. One guy they made put in a 1/2 acre retention pond for a 1800 square ft. ranch's rain gutters! his home was built in the middle of 15 acres.

Well, look on the bright side. As I think I understand it, if you ever get through that process and build the building, it's not a residence so your guys won't have to wear harnesses on it. It's ok if they break their necks on a barn. China trashes its country in one way and we trash ours in another. We're becoming radically dorkified. One of these days we'll have to provide GPS units to keep our guys from falling off the edges. Welcome to Matrix. In Russia, the opiate of the masses is Vodka. In the US it's false-memory syndrome, myopia, and fast food. I'm holding out for responsibility and I'm holding out for freedom. The only thing that really matters is your own integrity.