Friday, April 29, 2016
Russian supersonic warplane flies within 50 feet of US spy plane in Asia just a week after Pentagon hit out at the Kremlin
A Russian warplane flew within 50 feet of a US surveillance aircraft in Asia last week.
The US P-8 Maritime Patrol reconnaissance was conducting a routine mission in international airspace near the Kamchatka Peninsula on April 21.
But during the exercise, it was intercepted by an MiG-31 Russian jet - a supersonic jet, which is one of the fastest combat planes in the world.
It came just days after a Russian Su-27 barrel-rolled over an American RC-135 reconnaissance plane near the Baltic Sea on April 14 - a move deemed 'unsafe' by the Pentagon.
The US P-8 Maritime Patrol reconnaissance, was conducting a routine mission in international airspace near the Kamchatka Peninsula on April 21 when it was intercepted by an MiG-31 Russian jet (file image pictured)
The Russian jet began its course on the left side of the American reconnaissance plane, then went over it while spiraling on itself and finished on the right side.
And on April 11, the Pentagon slammed Russia after two Su-24 aircraft came within feet of the USS Donald Cook, a missile destroyer.
Secretary of State John Kerry said the Navy ship could have opened fire on the Russian military jets that buzzed around it.
The altercations come as Russia increases its patrol of borders using attack submarines.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3564083/Russian-supersonic-warplane-flies-50-feet-spy-plane-Asia-just-week-Pentagon-hit-Kremlin-two-close-encounters-Baltic-Sea.html#ixzz47AxqUpZI
The U.S. Economy Officially Joins The Global Economic Slowdown – 1st Quarter GDP Comes In At 0.5%
Even the government is admitting that the U.S. economy is slowing down. On Thursday, we learned that U.S. GDP grew at just a 0.5 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2016. This was lower than analysts were anticipating, and it marksthe third time in a row that the GDP number has declined compared to the previous quarter. In other words, GDP growth has been declining for close to a year now, and this lines up perfectly with what I have been saying about how the second half of last year was a turning point that plunged us into the early chapters of a brand new economic crisis. And as you will see below, the official GDP number is highly manipulated, and the way that it is calculated has been changed numerous times over the years. So the bad number that is being reported by the government is actually the best case scenario.
Of course many of the “experts” being quoted by the mainstream media are saying that this is just a temporary blip and that good times for the U.S. economy are right around the corner. For instance, check out this quote from Reuters…
“The economy essentially stalled in the first quarter, but that doesn’t mean it is faltering,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. “Some of the restraints to growth are dissipating. Growth is likely to accelerate going forward.”
We have been told this same story for years, but the “acceleration” has never materialized. In fact, Barack Obama is poised to become the only president in U.S. history to never have a single year when the economy grew by more than 3 percent during his presidency.
That is a statistic that is hard to believe, but it is true.
In addition, Louis Woodhill has pointed out that the average rate of U.S. economic growth during the Obama years will be the fourth worst in recorded history…
Assuming 2.67% RGDP growth for 2016, Obama will leave office having produced an average of 1.55% growth. This would place his presidency fourth from the bottom of the list of 39*, above only those of Herbert Hoover (-5.65%), Andrew Johnson (-0.70%) and Theodore Roosevelt (1.41%)
So does anyone out there still believe that there has been an “Obama recovery”?
We also need to add another layer to our analysis. By now, everyone should realize that the official GDP number is highly manipulated, and the way that GDP is calculated has been changed many, many times over the years.
For example, here is Peter Schiff commenting on changes that were made in 2013…
The latest example of this was revealed earlier this week when the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced new methods of calculating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that will immediately make the economy “bigger’ than it used to be. The changes focus heavily on how money spent on research and development (R&D) and the production of “intangible” assets like movies, music, and television programs will be accounted for. Declaring such expenditures to be “investments” will immediately increase U.S. GDP by about three percent. Such an upgrade would immediately increase the theoretic size of the U.S economy and may well lead to the perception of faster growth. In reality these smoke and mirror alterations are no different from changes made to the inflation and unemployment yardsticks that for years have convinced Americans that the economy is better than it actually is.
And the following originally comes from a Bloomberg article which discussed changes that were made in 2015…
The way some parts of U.S. gross domestic product are calculated are about to change in the wake of the debate over persistently depressed first-quarter growth.In a blog post published Friday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis listed a series of alterations it will make in seasonally adjusting data used to calculate economic growth. The changes will be implemented with the release of the initial second-quarter GDP estimate on July 30, the BEA said.
One of the changes that was made last year was intended to artificially boost GDP growth numbers for the first quarter of each year.
So without that artificial boost, what would the real number for the first quarter of 2016 look like?
John Williams of shadowstats.com tracks what the official government numbers would be if honest numbers were actually being used, and according to him U.S. GDP growth has been continuously negative since 2005.
But we certainly can’t have the press report those sorts of things. If that were the case, then everyone would be talking about the “economic depression” that never seems to end.
Unfortunately, the truth is that we are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and we can see evidence of this all around us. For example, on Thursday we also learned that the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen once again, and it is now hovering just 0.1 percent above the lowest level ever recorded in American history…
After gains in the second half of 2015, the homeownership rate fell to just 63.6 percent, seasonally adjusted, in the first quarter of this year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Homeownership hit a high of 69.4 percent in 2004, during one of the biggest housing booms in history. That was also when mortgage lending was arguably at its loosest level in history. The homeownership rate is now just one-tenth of 1 basis point higher than its all-time low in the second quarter of 2015.
For many more numbers that show that the U.S. economy has continued to decline, please see the following articles that I authored earlier this month…
Now that U.S. GDP growth has been steadily dropping for three quarters in a row, hopefully people will wake up and begin to realize what is happening.
We are entering very hard times, so now is not the time to go out and buy fancy new toys or to go into lots of debt.
Rather, this is a time to tighten our belts, batten down the hatches and prepare for rough seas ahead.
Sadly, most people continue to have blind faith that our politicians and the central bankers will be able to perform some kind of miracle to save us from what is coming.
Credit to Economic Collapse
Billy Graham's Daughter: God Is Turning Away From America And Leaving Us To Our Sins
Commenting on the moral state of America and God's judgment on sinful nations, evangelist Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of pastor Billy Graham, said America is imploding "morally and spiritually," that God is removing His "blessing and protection" from us, leaving us to our sins, and that this encroaching judgment is evident in the chaos of the political scene, the economy, and even the weather.
"Romans 1 describes the type of judgment where we sin, and we refuse to repent of our sin, then He backs away from us," said Anne Graham Lotz in arecent interview on CBN News with host Mark Martin. "He removes Himself from us and He turns us over to ourselves. That’s what I think I see in America. I believe we’re entering into that phase of judgment, where God is backing away."
At the start of the interview Anne Graham Lotz said that she herself and all Christians need to take prayer very seriously and pray for the United States because, she added, the solution to so many problems is not political but spiritual.
“Our nation, Mark, is in a mess, and you and I know it," she said. "You probably know better than I do because you follow the news very closely. But it's unraveling. We're imploding, and morally and spiritually, first and foremost. And I believe this is the time for God's people to humble themselves, pray, seek His face, turn from our sin, that He would hear our prayer, forgive our sin and bless America."
"I don't think the solution is primarily political or social or racial or economical or military, or some of these other things," said Lotz. "I believe the solution will be found on our knees before God.”
Credit to CNSnews.com
Navy spots colossal foreign WARSHIPS 'mysteriously' circling British coast for 12 hours
WARSHIPS have been spotted mysteriously circling just miles off the British coastline, leaving the Royal Navy stunned.
MARINE TRAFFIC*ALAMYTwo foreign warships were seen off the British coast
Two foreign naval ships were seen making a bizarre pattern around two miles from the Welsh coast for 12 hours late at night on Monday.
A Holyhead Coastguard spokesman confirmed the ships were seen sailing off Cilan Head near Abersoch, admitting he had "absolutely no idea what they are up to".
MARINE TRAFFIC*ALAMYTwo foreign warships were seen off the British coastTwo foreign naval ships were seen making a bizarre pattern around two miles from the Welsh coast for 12 hours late at night on Monday.
A Holyhead Coastguard spokesman confirmed the ships were seen sailing off Cilan Head near Abersoch, admitting he had "absolutely no idea what they are up to".
MARINE TRAFFICA coastguard spokesman said he had absolutely no idea what the ships were doing
Credit to express.co.uk
China passes law imposing security controls on foreign NGOs
A Chinese government offensive against civil society that campaigners describe as the worst in nearly three decades has intensified with Beijing’s approval on Thursday of a controversial new law that gives security forces control over foreign NGOs operating in the country.
Campaigners attacked the move as the latest phase of President Xi Jinping’s bid to rein in opposition to the Communist party. They said it represented a severe blow to non-profit groups involved in issues such as the environment, public health and education, as well as human rights.
Lu Jun, a well-known social activist who was forced to move to the US last year after his organisation was targeted by law enforcement, described the decision to give greater powers to police as a disaster.
“The real purpose of the foreign NGO law is to restrict foreign NGOs’ activities in China and to restrict domestic-rights NGOs’ activities in China by cutting the connection between [the two],” he said.
Lu, whose group, Yirenping, has campaigned on health and employment issues, claimed Beijing was attempting to use the new legislation to neutralise foreign-supported groups that it suspected were attempting to destabilise the government. “They consider foreign NGOs and some domestic NGOs as a threat to their regime,” he said.
Credit to theguardian.com
Thursday, April 28, 2016
The Future Of America? – More Than Half Of All U.S. Adults Under Age 30 Now Reject Capitalism
A shocking new survey has found that support for capitalism is dying in America. In fact, more than half of all adults in the United States under the age of 30 say that they do not support capitalism at this point. You might be tempted to dismiss them as “foolish young people”, but the truth is that they are the future of America. As older generations die off, they will eventually become the leaders of this country. And of course our nation has not resembled anything close to a capitalist society for quite some time now. In a recent article, I listed 97 different taxes that Americans pay each year, and some Americans actually end up returning more than half of what they earn to the government by the time it is all said and done. So at best it could be said that we are running some sort of hybrid system that isn’t as far down the road toward full-blown socialism as most European nations are. But without a doubt we are moving in that direction, and our young people are going to be cheering every step of the way.
When I first heard of this new survey from Harvard University, I was absolutely stunned. The following is from what the Washington Post had to say about it…
The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it.It isn’t clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.
Could it be possible that young adults were confused by the wording of the survey?
Well, other polls have come up with similar results…
The university’s results echo recent findings from Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who surveyed 1,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 26 and found that 58% of respondents believed socialism to be the “more compassionate” political system when compared to capitalism. And when participants were asked to sum up the root of America’s problem in one word, 29% said “greed.”
This trend among our young people is very real, and you can see it in their support of Bernie Sanders. For millions upon millions of young adults in America today, Hillary Clinton is not nearly liberal enough for them. So they have flocked to Sanders, and if they had been the only ones voting in this election season, he would have won the Democratic nomination by a landslide.
Sadly, most of our young people don’t seem to understand how socialism slowly but surely destroys a nation. If you want to see the end result of socialism, just look at the economic collapse that is going on in Venezuela right now. The following comes from a Bloomberg article entitled “Venezuela Doesn’t Have Enough Money to Pay for Its Money“…
Venezuela’s epic shortages are nothing new at this point. No diapers or car parts or aspirin — it’s all been well documented. But now the country is at risk of running out of money itself.In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business.Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money.
We are losing an entire generation of young people. These days, there is quite a lot of talk about how we need to get America back to the principles that it was founded upon, but the cold, hard reality of the matter is that most of our young people are running in the opposite direction as fast as they can.
And Americans under the age of 30 are not just becoming more liberal when it comes to economics. Surveys have found that they are more than twice as likely to support gay rights and less than half as likely to regularly attend church as the oldest Americans are.
So why is this happening?
Well, the truth is that our colleges and universities have become indoctrination centers for the progressive movement. I know, because I spent eight years at public universities in this country. The quality of the education that our young people are receiving is abysmal, but the values that are being imparted to them will last a lifetime.
And of course the same things could be said about our system of education all the way down to the kindergarten level. There are still some good people in the system, but overall it is overwhelmingly dominated by the progressives.
Meanwhile, the major entertainment providers in the United States are also promoting the same values. In a recent article entitled “Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become“, I discussed a Nielsen reportwhich detailed how much time the average American spends consuming media on various electronic devices each day…
Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes
Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes
Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes
Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes
Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes
Overall, the average American spends about 10 hours a day consuming one form of entertainment or another.
When you allow that much “programming” into your mind, it is inevitable that it is going to shape your values, and our young people are more “plugged in” than any of the rest of us.
So yes, I believe that it is exceedingly clear why we should be deeply concerned about the future of America. The values that are being relentlessly pounded into the heads of our young people are directly opposed to the values that this nation was founded upon, and it is these young people that will determine the path that this country ultimately takes.
Credit to Economic Collapse
Sweden faces a massive ISIS terror attack
Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists have infiltrated Sweden and are planning an imminent attack on the capital city of Stockholm, according to intelligence received by the Scandinavian nation.
Security services in Sweden are investigating undisclosed information about the ISIS attack, local media reported Tuesday as cited by Reuters on Wednesday.
Swedish security police (SAPO) were tipped off by Iraq that seven or eight ISIS terrorists entered Sweden with plans to attack civilians, according to Expressen.
A SAPO spokeswoman refused to divulge any details, saying, "security police are working intensively to assess received information, and it is of such a nature that our judgement is that we can not dismiss it."
An Iraqi security source revealed six Iraqis left the country in February 2015, and made their way into Sweden after passing through Turkey.
The head of the cell is a veteran terrorist with close ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda, as well as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, according to the source. He was jailed numerous times by US forces in Iraq.
"They want to conduct special operations to force Sweden to withdraw from the international military coalition (against ISIS)," said the source, making note of the recent large scale attacks in Paris and Brussels.
Sweden has yet to see a mass casualty terror attack, although a terrorist is currently waiting for a verdict for having apparently built a suicide bomb to launch an attack in the country. The closest the country came was in 2010, when a suicide bomber died as his bomb belt exploded prematurely in central Stockholm.
According to NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, police in the country are currently assessing whether the Norwegian royal family should take their planned trip to Stockholm this weekend celebrating the Swedish king's 70th birthday in light of the ISIS threat.
Credit to israelnationalnews.com
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/211488#.VyFiqOLhDIU
If An EMP Attack Hits America, Will You Know How to Get Clean Drinking Water?
Effects of An EMP Attack
EMP warnings are everywhere. North Korea and China are two prime suspects. Do you know what the main threats of an EMP attack consist of. That information is right here at your finger tips.
Water Borne Diseases
The greatest threat to human survival, in the aftermath of an EMP attack, is the public’s availability to obtain clean drinking water. This access would be greatly imperiled. In 2010, when Haiti was hit by a major earthquake which killed over 200,000 people, the misery did not stop with the survivors. Six weeks following the earthquake, Haiti announced its first cholera outbreak in over a century. The cholera outbreak went on to claim 8000 more lives. The disease thrives in places where there is insufficient water treatment, poor sanitation and inadequate hygiene. This is what precisely would happen in most areas following an EMP attack. Keeping drinking water clean and separate from human sewage and other contaminates would prove to be humanity’s biggest challenge. Cholera would also prove to be the biggest threat to long term survival. It is likely that in the 24 months following the event, that most people would succumb to cholera and other water-borne diseases. Cholera is a horrible disease which grants its victims a very painful and agonizing death. In the 20th century, human lifespan in United States increased by 35 years. Thirty of those 35 years was due to improvements in sanitation. Following an EMP attack, effective sanitation would all but disappear.
The following interview between Dave Hodges and Bob Griswold could save your life, because Bob teaches you how to make the proper adaptations.
Credit to Common Sense
Obama Announces “We Live in a Peaceful Era”
And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.” Isaiah 3:4 (The Israel Bible™)
Addressing world leaders at a trade fair in Hannover, Germany on Monday, US President Barack Obama acknowledged the good fortune of living in what he considers to be the “most peaceful” era in human history. He noted major advances in education, longevity of life, health care, and the spread of democracy as some of the many benefits of living today.
With pride, Obama added extreme strides in social equality to the list. “Around the world we’re more tolerant, with more opportunity for women and gays and lesbians as we push back on bigotry and prejudice,” he said.
Discouraging any incredulity, he explained that the negative images portrayed in the media showing rampant global violence were misleading.
“I want to begin with an observation that, given the challenges that we face in the world and the headlines we see every day, it may seem improbable but it’s true. We are fortunate to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history,” he said.
The president clarified his position, noting that it had been several decades since the major world powers had faced each other in war. “[Though] it seems like only bad news comes through every day, it’s been decades since the last war between major powers,” he said.
Ironically, amid reassurances of the current (relatively) peaceful era, Obama added that he plans to call on European leaders, encouraging them to step up their efforts to fight the radical Islamic group known as ISIS. Upon this declaration, the president revealed that the US will be sending an additional 250 Special Forces troops into Syria to join in the fight.
Obama also called for more airstrikes and training, suggesting that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries contribute two percent of their economic output to defense spending.
“Europe and NATO can still do more,” he said. “We need to do everything in our power to stop [ISIS],” adding, “Europe has sometimes been complacent about its own defense.”
While Obama’s statement regarding the length in time since World Wars One and Two is factually true, current data does not support his overall claim about this era being peaceful. In fact, it’s completely the opposite; the security situation in the world has worsened significantly since he took office in 2009.
A recent study by Mida, a liberal Israeli current affairs and opinion online magazine, based their conclusions on the database of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden, which includes a comprehensive list of wars and conflicts worldwide using data collected since 1989. In an article titled, No Global Cop: The Victims of Obama’s Appeasment, Bigman notes that 80 percent more people were killed in wars around the globe under Obama’s isolationist policies than under Bush’s wartime, interventionist presidency. The areas hardest hit by the two terms of Obama’s policies were in the Mideast.
Choosing to put his focus elsewhere, Obama’s latest statements tend to emphasize the threat of global warming as the bigger danger. In a December interview on CBS This Morning, the president stated that climate change leads to terrorism and “dangerous ideologies”. He expressed this most clearly by taking a pass on the massively attended rally in Paris in January 2015 against terror, while calling the Paris summit in November dealing with climate change a “powerful rebuke” to terrorism and ISIS.
Though war is a tragic reality, the Bible does not always forbid it. Under certain conditions, it is the preferable alternative and sometimes even required by God. Maimonides wrote regarding the responsibilities a king in the Messianic era faces at the time closely preceding the war of Gog and Magog, that he must wage a final war against the root of all evil. Were a king or leader of any sort to neglect this obligation and instead capitulate to the forces of evil even in the name of peace, as Obama’s statements indicate, it would only bring more pain and suffering into the world.
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/66561/obamas-ignorance-fortunate-living-peaceful-era-history/#ZEfZ6wjdAI1oyUf6.99
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Some See Human Cloning As Tomorrow’s Supply-Line For Replacement Body Parts, Organs
Science has contributed to easing of humans’ problems since its proper understanding in the early 19th century. Without scientific discoveries and breakthroughs the world we see today, the technological advancements, couldn’t have been possible. One of the outcomes of the science that have increased the chances of survival of mankind on this planet is the cloning. Cloning is the process of creating the multiple copies of any living being or object exactly identical to the original parent.
Cloning finds its roots from Hans Spemann’s experiment in 1938 on embryo transplantation. In that experiment, Hans Spemann replaced the nucleus of an egg cell with another nucleus and the embryo that developed was of the organism whose nucleus was replaced in the egg cell. After that experiment, the process of cloning got its start and a major outcome of the cloning process was the isolation of human insulin gene and its multiplication (cloning) to increase its availability to the Diabetic patients with reduced insulin levels in their body.
In animals, the first ever example of successful cloning appeared in the form of Dolly Sheep, that was a clone produced by Dr Keith Campbell of Scotland in 1997 using nucleus from cultured cells of an older sheep. Due to the use of older sheep’s nucleus, Dolly survived only for 6 years and then died in 2003. The Dolly Sheep was a major breakthrough of that year.
Benefits:
Cloning can prove to be beneficial in lots of aspects of the future to the human beings. Currently, the major advantage that mankind is gaining from cloning is the insulin for diabetic patients, cloning of the plant species near to extinction and somewhat the cloning of endangered animals whose absence may cause an imbalance in the ecosystem.
Desired future benefits that a man could gain from cloning are:
- Organ replacement:
This is the technique of harvesting cells from certain vital organs like heart, liver and pancreas etc. For producing exact copies of those organs which could overcome the issues of blood cross-matching may save the person dying from the failure of any of the vital organs.
- Human clone:
Clone of the human being, although an impossible approach currently, but once achieved, could create the exact copy of a person so that any organ or lost body part may be replaced by the original person through its removal from the clone.
- Fertility problem
With this type of cloning somatic cells from male can be isolated, their nucleus would be extracted and then these somatic cells may be inserted in female egg cell. Afterwards, the egg develops into the embryo; the embryo is then implanted in the surrogate mother. The child thus born could have the characters from both the original parents.
- Heart attack prevention:
Scientists may be able to isolate and harvest the healthy heart cells. These healthy cells could then be injected in the place of the damaged heart cells and in this way heart attack may be prevented.
- Stem cells:
Human embryonic stem cells may be isolated and harvested to produce organs and tissues for replacing the damaged ones. Skin cells, brain, muscles, kidneys, liver, heart cells, stomach cells could be produced by using cloned stem cells.
All these above-mentioned benefits have not been achieved yet but if this field flourishes more with the efforts of more experts in this field, then some of the above-mentioned benefits may be achieved. Although human and animal cloning is ethically not-so-good, with increasing advancements in this field, it might be possible that in future we encounter our clones.
Credit to http://blogs.dunyanews.tv/
China Is Building a Robot Army of Model Workers
Can China reboot its manufacturing industry—and the global economy—by replacing millions of workers with machines?
Above: A robot arm moves circuit boards around for testing inside CIG’s factory in Shanghai. Previously the work was done by hand.
Inside a large, windowless room in an electronics factory in south Shanghai, about 15 workers are eyeing a small robot arm with frustration. Near the end of the production line where optical networking equipment is being packed into boxes for shipping, the robot sits motionless.
“The system is down,” explains Nie Juan, a woman in her early 20s who is responsible for quality control. Her team has been testing the robot for the past week. The machine is meant to place stickers on the boxes containing new routers, and it seemed to have mastered the task quite nicely. But then it suddenly stopped working. “The robot does save labor,” Nie tells me, her brow furrowed, “but it is difficult to maintain.”
The hitch reflects a much bigger technological challenge facing China’s manufacturers today. Wages in Shanghai have more than doubled in the past seven years, and the company that owns the factory, Cambridge Industries Group, faces fierce competition from increasingly high-tech operations in Germany, Japan, and the United States. To address both of these problems, CIG wants to replace two-thirds of its 3,000 workers with machines this year. Within a few more years, it wants the operation to be almost entirely automated, creating a so-called “dark factory.” The idea is that with so few people around, you could switch the lights off and leave the place to the machines.
But as the idle robot arm on CIG’s packaging line suggests, replacing humans with machines is not an easy task. Most industrial robots have to be extensively programmed, and they will perform a job properly only if everything is positioned just so. Much of the production work done in Chinese factories requires dexterity, flexibility, and common sense. If a box comes down the line at an odd angle, for instance, a worker has to adjust his or her hand before affixing the label. A few hours later, the same worker might be tasked with affixing a new label to a different kind of box. And the following day he or she might be moved to another part of the line entirely.
Despite the huge challenges, countless manufacturers in China are planning to transform their production processes using robotics and automation at an unprecedented scale. In some ways, they don’t really have a choice. Human labor in China is no longer as cheap as it once was, especially compared with labor in rival manufacturing hubs growing quickly in Asia. In Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, factory wages can be less than a third of what they are in the urban centers of China. One solution, many manufacturers—and government officials—believe, is to replace human workers with machines.
Credit to technologyreview.com
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