While you stitch - who's watching the Olympics

Oh, I don't know. In a factory the managers up the line know what's happening, And they're profit driven. It costs more to have quqlity control, and that goes from ingredients to processing to cleaning all across the board. I've spent my fair share of time in manufacturing facilities. It may be fear on the lowest level of line worker, and the next is usually a line supervisor - worker level, then there's some beginning manager. The people that are out there all the time - they know. They may not acknowledge, but they know.

When one of my contractors moved from their old, old factory in Lawrence Mass to a shining new place in Amesbury - the workers were flipping out. The old place had lots of hiding areas for things like coffee, cigarettes, whatever - on the floor - where a stroll thru might not catch them - all the time. But, the "management" knew it. New place - much more open. Harder to have some crap around. OTOH, when suddenly it's "necessary" to speed up, and cut some corner - it happens.

You don't seriously think that telling the western finishers if we go to a product that may have some poisonous problems we can meet your deadline that would be the final result?

In a manufacturing environment, the profit vs cost is seen all over the place. Ultimately goals are set up high, but in every single factory I have ever been in, and I'm thinking that's more than most people (not as many as those who stay in the manufacturing profession) there is signage up on the floor - accidents, quotas, making our profit, how many units, production speed. All those kind of things. I've seen this in process plants, large (huge) steel production facilities, electronics, plastics, casting facilities, and....food processing. Line managers know if someone is bringing in something out of the ordinary. And they also have to speak for what their lines can do.

Ellice

True. It's one of those way of the world conundrums to me - and makes my brain hurt. We have a family with whom we're casually friendly - that owns a Chinese restaurant closer to town, and a farm out beyond us. Been going there for about 17 years. The eldest brothers came from mainland China, the sister - who is a little younger than me - I think was a baby when she came. Very interesting - I think they had a hard time to get their parents for many years - as somehow they escaped during Maoist time. They're very proud of Chinese culture, etc - but not all the government problems for the last

- and how much people really resent being turned back to China, etc. They are also, truly, the American dream - immigrants that have kept up a business, and the daughter of the middle brother is going into her senior year at Virginia Tech - in electrical engineering. The son did his freshman year at MIT with my goddaughter (they went to the same high school, Thomas Jefferson- which is a famous science & tech school). The sister - my friend

- her kids - busy with a teen in gymnastics, and the other doing soccer.

Still, you see how sad it is when they speak of the situation still in China.

Ellice

Did they play the interviews with him on the CBC? It was interesting as they went from you know this is not an adult to the acting like an adult. The interviews with the Canadian interviewers, are the most emotional - as they're essentially asking him to just tell what happened and all he'll say is are you going to help me, etc. It's a terrible situation, but, as we both know - not that it's right - there have been "child soldiers" all throughout history, and across the world even now.

Ellice

The fillers were still supposed to be food grade.

Not buying it.

Really?? I've been buying Hebrew National for that reason. I'll go read the tiny print again.

SHEEENNNAAAAA

I'd love a Wegmans here.

I'm tired of having to read the tiny print on the label to make sure I'm not getting the chicken processed to make it "juicier". Which really means we've soaked it in salt. Every local grocery store has a variation on that, right along side the plain old chicken.

Cheryl

It's easing though, the friend I jokingly call my adopted daughter, is able to have her parents come and visit (they don't want to stay) now and a few years ago they were not allowed to leave. As China embraces the western world, things will change but I doubt they could have democracy as we know it, for sheer weight of numbers.

I'm not saying the manager didn't know. Targets aren't set by managers. They're set by the economic planning committee in Beijing, who may or may not have ever been to the factory in question.

Especially if the cost of not speeding up is landing in jail.

The deadline isn't necessarily set by the Western finishers and you don't tell them what they don't need to know anyway.

You have tons of experience in factories in a market economy. How much experience do you have in factories in planned economies? You can't extrapolate from one to the other. The systems are completely different, the incentives are completely different, and the results are completely different. And although China has implemented some market reforms, it remains a planned economy in many ways. None of your experience applies, unless it includes time spent in Soviet-style economic systems.

Elizabeth

Of course they were. And maybe they knew they weren't and maybe they didn't and maybe they were saving their own hides.

Elizabeth

Have you tried Whole Foods?

Elizabeth

And by the way, I don't believe in using dog foods with fillers in them anyway. We were completely unaffected by that crisis, because of the quality and type of food we feed our boyz (and our girl, for that matter).

Elizabeth

Is the girlz you or the cat ? RDH

There are several companies that make uncured, no nitrate hot dogs, bacon, etc. We buy - with nitrates for a treat - Hebrew national. But, also will buy Weelshire Farms. Wegmans also carries a bunch of small company made deli things - like various sausages, including some German and other brands.

Ellice

None close enough to make the trip worth it. I think the nearest in Andover MA. Maybe once in a while or on the way back from a hockey game, but not for the 2 or 3 times a week I'm in a grocery store.

Cheryl

But this stuff made it into some higher end foods.

I've begun to wonder if the folks that are using the raw food and bones diet aren't on the right track.

Cheryl

It's definitely nice having the easy yellow "food you feel good about" banner. It's on some of the ground meat, but not all - not the club packed cheapest, for example. But, it certainly helps with the shopping. Also, we've found that if you can buy club-pack sizes - even if from the butcher cutting meat for you - the price is within .20/lb of Costco. So, if you can buy 4 rib-eyes or strips, or 2 larger (T-bones) at a time - the price goes down significantly. We've been buying choice sirloin for 3.99/# - of course that means 4 at a time, which is usually about 6#, but....

Our local Harris-Teeter also has "Smart Chicken" which is air-processed, instead of water bathed. All natural - they carry the organic and just "healthy" - so I tend to buy chicken there (the shop is in the local strip section of our town center, so about 1.5 mi from the house). Too bad their produce is kind of hit or miss. But, it's great for the stuff I'm going to couponize!

Ellice

True. This morning we were watching the stupid NBC show - and they had a segment about the hostesses who bring the medals out. Evidently the Chinese found 300 girls, all between 5'6" - 5'8" , weighing 110#- 120#, with 6-8 teeth showing when they smiled. Talk about a state being sure that there would be sameness. These girls, IIRC, between 18-20, were taken from local colleges, and had to rehearse over and over to be exactly the same. Points out to me that the sheer numbers again, determine so much of how things are done.

At the same time, totally repulsive discussion about women's gymnastics. I wanted to bunch Meredith Viera carrying on about how the US didn't win gold. For goodness sake, let these athletes do what they can, and not put so much emphasis on the stupid medal count.

Ellice

Well, I'd disagree, obviously. What I'm addressing is what seems to be your contention that no one below the level of government official has any responsibility or knew what they were doing. While workers in state run facilities may be more fearful of reprisals, factories still run in the same way - with variation in the level of automation, technology versus people power. Economics may drive decisions, but the people on the floor know what is going on - things are only hidden level by level. And, yes, I've had experience with Soviet manufacturing in areas I'd rather not discuss. Besides, studying more than just your basic US manufacturing approach. Including doing research on QC, manufacturing in post-war Japan, and the changes in the system (one of my advisors was a crony of Mark Demming, the guy who revolutionized Japanese manufacturing).

So, while you may be in an academic environment that I no longer work, research in - I'm not sure that has provided you better information or experience.

Ellice