Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Had the Chilean miners been trapped a half mile beneath the surface of the earth 25 years ago, they wouldn't have made it out alive. The Chilean miners were saved by the innovative technologies that resulted from a flourishing system of capitalism, argues Daniel Henninger in today's WSJ. For example, take the Center Rock drill bit, which in the end meant the difference between life and death for the miners.
This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive.
[...] The Center Rock drill, heretofore not featured on websites like Engadget or Gizmodo, is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That's why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.
This profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at that Chilean mine. The high-strength cable winding around the big wheel atop that simple rig is from Germany. Japan supplied the super-flexible, fiber-optic communications cable that linked the miners to the world above...Samsung of South Korea supplied a cellphone that has its own projector. Jeffrey Gabbay, the founder of Cupron Inc. in Richmond, Va., supplied socks made with copper fiber that consumed foot bacteria, and minimized odor and infection.
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Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Diane, Diane, Diane. Don't you know that Chris Matthews has already determined that if the miners followed Tea Party philosophy they would all be dead?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-dickens/2010/10/13/matthews-chilean-miners-would-be-dead-if-they-followed-tea-partys-
You aren't going to disagree with a man whose intelligence depends upon the utter reliability of radicular tingling in his lower extremity, are you?
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Chris Matthews must think the Tea Party is full of a bunch of anarcho-nihilists:
How utterly absurd.
May '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Diane Ellis, Ed.: Chris Matthews must think the Tea Party is full of a bunch of anarcho-nihilists:
How utterly absurd. · Oct 14 at 9:50am
Yes, finally we'll be able to give the people what they want.
May '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Capitalism!?! Vindicated.
Oct '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
I'll play the devil's advocate here. Wasn't it capitalism that had those miners down there in the first place? If we would just revert to primitivism, man would not find himself in such unnatural predicaments.
Jun '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
It's a wise leader that turns the technical details over to the best experts, wherever those best experts happen to be. I wish we had one of those leaders.
May '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
I heard several commenters, even on the BBC webcast, marvel at President Pinera's willingness to take big political risks, and his courage and calmness as he did so. And also the way he flew into fast action, calling in companies from around the globe who were able to help. It was like nothing they've ever seen.
In other words he was acting more like a successful (as in billionaire successful) business man rather than a career politician and bureaucrat.Wonderful to see what can happen when the President has some real accomplishment under his belt.
Of course we'll have to forgive him his Harvard degree. At least he never went to Yale!
Jun '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
The difference is, with capitalism you have the choice of going down into the mine, or not. The miners know the risks, and know what it pays. Maintaining mistresses costs money. With communism, someone else decides if you go into the mine, or not, and someone else decides if the pay is enough of a reward for the risks.
May '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Capitalism sent them down there and capitalism brought them back up, so to speak. Just glad this wasn't a repeat of the Kursk incident.
How's that miner going to find the time to go to Graceland? He used up all his vacation days.
I know everyone was gaga about Tony Stark a few months ago, I wonder if our capitalist tea party superhero would have given up his "iron man tech" to help the miners.
Sep '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Shorter Chris Matthews:
"If they shrink government, that means less jobs and pay cuts for former gov't press hacks like me."
(And I invoke Pat Caffeinated Caddell when I use the word "hack")
Oct '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Remember that governments insist on being evaluated by their intentions, not their results. I'm sure it was the intention of many governments to develop a "super-duper-emergency drill head" that would have freed the trapped miners in half the time!
Paleo-cons must have said "no" to the funding, however. They were undoubtedly big recipients of campaign cash from Center Rock, Inc. and Haliburton.
So at least half the suffering of the miners can be laid at the feet of Dick Cheney and other capitalist robber-barons.
Sep '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
If you want to see real capitalism, offer capsule rides down to the collapsed mine chamber. Even at $3000-per, you’d have a waiting line.
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
This morning Rush made note that a Chinese miner commented on a blog that China would have left him down there to starve to death. God bless Capitalism mitigated by Christian/Judaic values.
Sep '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
They tried to interview a Russian miner on the same topic but Putin got to him first.
Jul '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Well, if the United States, with 5% of the world's population, wasn't gorging on 25% of the world's mineral resources, those guys would never have been down there in the first place.
They'd have been tending llama's or building wind farms. Or crafting those cute flute-thingies so beloved of 3rd-world tourists.
May '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Good point- the CuiChi tunnels in Vietnam sure cash in.
May '10
Re: Capitalism Saved the Chilean Miners
Or working as indentured servants for feudal landowners who don't want mining companies to offer these people comparatively better wages, daycare for their kids and a decent education. Call in the hippies pronto!
"Mine your own business" FTW.