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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (51857)	6/29/2009 8:03:01 PM
From: Box-By-The-Riviera™	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217700

even on the ground side? wow, those are amazing windows.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (51857)	6/29/2009 11:24:56 PM
From: Snowshoe	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217700

>>this building FELL OVER<< Such tall buildings on Shanghai's silty soil would make me nervous. The folks who bought into the fallen tower will get their money back, but the those in the other 10 identical towers are stuck with tainted property. Too bad they didn't buy individual American-style houses made from wooden sticks. ;)

To: TobagoJack who wrote (51857)	6/30/2009 2:00:20 AM
From: energyplay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217700

Almost all of the building held together very well, and did not break apart. The glass and the frames holding the glass did great. It did not turn into a pile of rubble, but held together like car that flipped over. Aside from the foundation, that building would have done great in an earthquake. The places where the glass survived, people would mostly survive - banged up, but the outside (the wall on top) did NOT fall in on the apartments. The foundation and anchoring shows an astonishing level of screw-up. Are all the real foundation workers fixing earthquake damage out west ? That foundation is not even mediocre, it is a joke. >>> It is very unusual to see 90% of something first rate and the other 10% below incompetent. <<< (Okay, we can insert the Barrack Obama / Joe Biden joke here) Do you see anything similar in business in Asia ?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (51857)	6/30/2009 4:51:32 PM
From: Maurice Winn	6 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217700

TJ, that first photo shows swarms of apartment buildings, not to mention the clones in the same group of apartments. Made in China involves melamine in the milk, lead in the paint, fake labels on clothes, roads with negligible foundations. It's a culture of fraud. Even the police are faking it [they aren't as evil as they pretend to be]. Sure, there are plenty of savage beasts who will shoot refugees in the back and beat recalcitrant recruits to keep things on the rails, for now. A good example of the fakery is the row of tanks which stopped and tried to go around the man standing in the way with his plastic bags. The driver obviously was only pretending to be super powerful dangerous. He didn't really want to skoosh somebody or fire a shell into them. It's just a fun job for him. Imagine what the foundations look like in all the buildings in China. When tested in an earthquake, lots of schools fell down and killed lots of children. I drove along a new highway outside Beijing and it had already collapsed with wheel tracks pushing the surface down. It will soon be ruined. Seriously, it's hard to think of genuine things in China. No wonder that apartment I looked at in Beijing was so cheap. Penthouse, great location, great views, 3 or 4 bedroom, recreation area surrounding the building. I didn't ask about the foundations. I recall as a young civil engineer learning the phrase "starter rods", which were two bits of steel sticking out of concrete to make it look as though there had been steel put in the concrete. I was shocked. A concrete professor thought that the multistorey buildings in Wellington would be in trouble when an earthquake hits due to lack of curing of the concrete due to rapid construction and inadequate moisture retention for long enough for the concrete to reach full strength. I'd add to that honeycombed concrete due to poor workmanship. I worked on the police station [9 storeys high] in Auckland. When testing windows for leaks, puddles of water got in. It turned out the concrete surrounds was honeycombed due to lack of compaction. That means it's really weak. I don't know if they fixed it or just covered it up with goop to stop it leaking. Fixing it would be very expensive. They'd have to dig out much of the building I guess. Watching people build roads - they really couldn't care less. NZ roads fall apart all too often after not much time in service. Mqurice