Uechi-Ryu.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAEyqi07as0

Wow.

Guess it must be real , no comments ....

Yeah, it appears to be a form of protest against rising land values. They believe the government should be building low-cost housing for people to live in. It seems to be a statement about publicly owned land and what should be done with it. I haven't looked into it that thoroughly, so I could be wrong.

What do you think about it Stryke?

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- Justin Powell

I just dont get it Justin , I wonder if it`s political or need , I think the housing cost situation is a worldwide situation , housing costs whould be about 3 to 3.5 times the average yearly wage some economists state where as In New Zealand it`s at least 6.5 and regionally even higher .

I do beleive the right to housing should exist if it becomes to unobtainable , there must be a point where hard work can provide , I dont beleive in hand outs , but do beleive a fair system would address hard work and housing needs .

You also talking to the guy that thinks it should be his right to go build a log cabin and live in the wilderness and live off the land .

I am always perplexed by the wealth and poverty of the US , dont get me wrong I`ve seen homeless in a lot of places , And economically i`m fairly conservative , I beleive folks should work for what they need and better themselves in the process .

the Question i`m stuck on is wether the average person can come out of these economys in a good way , can they get by , or is mr average now at subsistance level , and Mr Below average is hitting the welfare lines and possibly the street .

I just see an interesting development in developed societys , one where the luxury consumable is in reach of all , but where the necessitys of life seem more out of reach , Everyone can afford a dvd and a home pc , or even stretch to a fairly impressive vehicle , but somehow the important things get out of reach .

It`s an intersting area to me , Ive swung a hammer for habitat for humanity (just a couple days ) and I wonder whats involved in changing the poverty cycle , I do beleive affordable housing is the key factor (for those with a work ethic)

this kind of stuff raises more questions than it answers , I just no a shanty town is a terribl thing , even as a protest , there is the real potential of acceptance .

Until homes came into existence, we were all homeless......

Until writing was invented, we were all illiterate........

Until the computer was invented, we were all computer illiterate........

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Most of us are about as divorced from the practice of home building as we can be.......


Who builds bird's nests?

Is there a crisis of home affordability among birds?




Who builds beaver dams?


Is it a conspiracy of beaver dam contractors that has led to the dramatic rise of beaver dam costs?



For most (certainly not all) parents, <b>the biggest nightmare of all would be to find that your son or daughter aspired to be some type of contruction worker instead of going to college or university at the PRECISE age of 18......</b>as if there were no social benefit to this kind of work......



While i value the college experience, I wonder if we as a society can afford to devalue the contruction arts & science to the point that there is an affordability crisis.......



The recent bridge collapese in MN, imo, was indicative of a society that not only undervalues men, but also undervalues the work that men traditionally do........


In congress, before the bridege collapse, highway funding and funding of infrastructure projects took the back seat to funding children's health care.........

While i support children's health care, i wouldnt do so to the exclusion of INFRASTRUCTURE (who can live without it?!?!?!?!?!).........



NEWS FLASH!

<b>A bunch of journalists recently found out that women and children also use bridges (and thus they may need to be maintained)........</b>



Infrastructure for most people is pretty boring; it gets ignored for years and then everyone wonders why bridges collapse and concrete panels fall on people's head...........


first, poop happens......we all have been taught to expect guarentees in this life and i find that there is little more laughable than EXPECTING a guarenteee on everything (the only certainty in life is uncertainty....).........

entropy happens....the sooner you understand that, the easier life will be (the laws of thermodynamics apply to all of us even if we dont want em to).........


We get the bridges and houses and buildings we pay for........if we get all cheap and complain about cost overruns and cannot figure out why buildings cost so much, it is because we pretend we are ignorant that we demanded more stringent building codes (most people demand greater safety in their building structures- no deaths are consdered acceptable)).......

you get what you pay for and you should pay for what you get.......unless you believe in magic

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I'd be rather surprised if evidence were presented showing that healthcare led to the bridge collapse. There are many structures with known defects that don't "have" to have repairs, including, say, bridges with potholes, and leaving a few unfilled to provide healthcare isn't really risking a collapse. I haven't heard that anyone knew this bridge or any other to be imminent or close to imminent and chose not to do anything.

"While i value the college experience, I wonder if we as a society can afford to devalue the contruction arts & science to the point that there is an affordability crisis......."

Can you elaborate? Are you saying there's too few people in construction and that's what's driven prices up? I think it may be a bit more complex. Otherwise wages would rise and more people would go into it.

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--Ian

We have a tent city in edmonton since june.

We recently had a bridge collapse in Quebec as well.

I think it was Prince Charles who said,"... society gets the architecture that society deserves" - I believe he was speaking aesthetically, but he appears to touch on some wider truths.

I've spent the past 25 years working in the building trades and I can attest to the lack of value placed on craft. One of the problems in North America is that, rather than choosing a trade and being encouraged to pursue it, people often just kind of fall into a trade through a process of elimination.

Bridge Builders have it particularly rough - they have to travel far from home to some desolate highway intersection and spend several months living in cheap motels, eating crappy restaraunt food and working long hours to build some concrete structure that no one will ever celebrate for it's beauty or craft only to get laid off at the end of the project or move on to some other desolate highway intersection to start again....

The people investigating the Quebec collapse simply dredged up the same old story: cost over-runs, project was behind schedule and had to get done, crooked contractors, odd and unexplained relationships with inspectors - blah blah blah.

I suspect it is our neverending desire to make things more efficient that leads us here. I'm only half-serious, but let's say, for instance that the back hoe was never invented - most construction sites would require another 30 strong bodies to move soil. Local people with an interest in the work.

And, maybe if things like bridges where built to be beautifull as well as functional the people building them would take an even greater interest in them.

Then maybe shanty towns would not spring up wherever there is some small promise for those who haven't great hopes elsewhere.

I'm probably wrong, but do give it a little thought.

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Chris

the "Big Dig" in Boston is not the best built structure ever built.

I wonder if quality workmanship is lacking in Boston or if most of the billions spent on the project, ended up in pockets that had nothing to do with the actual work!

What? Corruption in the building trades????? Shocking - Absolutely Shocking!

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GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"

What is driving up construction costs?!?!?!?!



is it too few people entering the field?

is it basic inflation (cost of materials like copper and wood, etc etc etc)?

Is it increasing complexity and sophistication and reliability?!?!?!?!

Is it decreasing support for training construction people in community colleges throughout the land (industrial arts are on the way out in the american high school and in its place are more college preparatory classes - since college is viewed as meaningful and valued and the other is viewed negatively)........





Fewer people entering the trades would have a tendency over time to drive up costs as the law of supply and demand would increase overall wages in the undesired filed (not that those of us in a capitalist society should support capitalist notions of a free market economy).......


Inflation would have to be a major factor in increased cost of housing (but we should ignore this aspect of economics andf focus only on unsupported conspiracy theories)......


We expect more of our homes than we ever have before (we not only have electricity, but now we want entertainment centers, more square footage than ever before, and we want greater efficiencies in utility usage and we want safer materials (no asbestos, pcbs, etc etc etc)......




finally, the vast majority of people (this is debatable) want nothing to do with fixing, maintaining or building their own home (they happily choose to be ignorant even though such ignorance may often cost em more in the long run)............Amercians used to make their own homes in large numbers (when they were far less complaex with far fewer amenities) and now they dont (and they cannot figure out why they cost so much - it must be a conspricay or the complexity.....you decide!




No one suggested that health care led to a bridge collapse (although taking my words out of context is a fun practice)......


Not valuing (undervaluing), not giving value to the art & science of construction practices and trades......that is the problem in a nutshell......



Our schools (made up of many interested individuals) want every child to have a chance to make to college (a laudable and noble goal, but it is as if that is the only place in the world where a perosn can make a meaningful contribution to society.....




I dared to suggest that the trades of creating buildings may be as important as health care (dare I make such a comparison IAN?!?!?!)



Some say we need massive immigration cuz there are some jobs Americans wont do or do not want to do.........

laughable, I say.......I do the work they say Americans do not want to do.....



as an example (and dont get all pissy cuz i dare criticize a woman), my mother did everything she could to discourage me from doing the things i was good at (engineering) and did everything she could to encourage me to do things i wasn't good at (but that she was interested in and i was not that good at or interested in).....I was pushed topwards a liberal arts degree even though i was pretty bored with those subjects (compared to engineering)

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<b>We, as a society, get the buildings (AND infrastructure) we deserve</b>



Blaming is easy......



understanding is not so easy.....




what aspects of the big dig made it especially difficult to complete the job without ninnies whining about how bad a job was done?!?!?!?!?!?!




1) <b>from conception to completion, the big dig took in the vicinity of two decades to complete</b>

this affects bidding.........suppose you asked me to build you a house and i bid you a price and you come back to me a decade later and demand i build you the house for the same amount even though <b>you and I </b>both know the cost of every building material and labor has gone up dramatically in the ensuing decade.........

time to completion is important cuz as as steve noted, this work is done by <b>people</b> (mostly men, but not exclusively) who have homes, lives and aspirations.....while most of us would love to work real hard for little money, the rest of us are seeking better opportunity (less hard work for better pay or equally hard work for higher pay).......continuity of workers is important to maintaining QUALITY construction.......there were many sissies who cried about COST with little understanding of what was being asked of those doing the work in the first place (both in terms of complexity and DANGER).......

every construction project involves risk and danger.....we as a society are much more willing to sacrifcice the lives of a worker (male workers in most cases) in the big dig than someone using a part of the project when it is completed..........any loss of life is tragic, but to expect no loss of life is ignorant of historical & present day construction reality.......

2) aspects of the big dig were exceedingly complex and had never been done before..........

ever build a mile long tunnel under an existing freeway that is currently being used?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? ever build a mile longh tunnel under a lving breathing city while having to move many miles of hundred year old utility lines & pipes?!?!?!?!?!?!?




<b>We, as a society, get the buildings (AND infrastructure) we deserve</b>





<b>We, as a society, get the Democracy we deserve</b>

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