APPLES TO ORANGES
Dear Editor,...

APPLES TO ORANGES

Dear Editor,
I've been in quality management for 20 years, in companies mostly related to semiconductor equipment. As the folks in the quality world celebrate more than $4 billion of spending ("$4.4 Billion and Growing," Quality Magazine, December 2005, p. 52), it's rather amazing to note what is happening in the ring tone industry. In just a few short years it has become more than $3 billion market and increasing fast. Wow! What a comparison of revenue! Sure, it's an apples-to-oranges argument, but it is a shocking comparison, too.

Steve Grube, Digital Dynamics Inc., Scotts Valley, CA

Publisher's note: Indeed this is an apples-to-oranges argument. The 2006 Quality Spending Survey refers to how much money will be spent by companies on quality equipment, software and services in the coming year, and is certainly not fully representative of the full global revenue realized by these suppliers. Nor is it fully representative of the money that quality brings to manufacturers-far more than $3 or $4 billion per year.

ECONOMIC SUICIDE

Dear Editor,
A recent article from the Los Angeles Times read, "2005 Trade Gap Tops $725 Billion." This is a $725 billion lie. There is no trade gap.

We traded 725 billion dollars worth of our productive wealth to other countries to balance the account. I assure you we did not get the products from the rest of the world for free. We traded our factories, our farms, our businesses and our skills for products made in other countries.

We traded the cotton farm instead of the cotton. The garment factory instead of the garments. The cow instead of the milk and cheese. In other words we trade all of the things that produce products instead of the products.

We are also trading millions of jobs instead of the products made by our own workers. This is economic suicide! Africa practiced this same insanity in the 17th and 18th centuries and look at the plight of Africa today. Congress should immediately stop the lie that there is a trade gap with an export tax of at least 99 percent imposed on our factories, farms and forests that are being traded for cheap oil and cheap plastic junk.

We need free trade for the products that America can produce with American labor. We should not be trading the wealth of America to China and other nations, especially for items that we can produce at home.

Suicide is supposed to be against the law and Congress is turning a blind eye to this self-inflicted murder of the United States.

Kenneth L. Russell
Professor of Education, Emeritus
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, TX

PROGRESS BEING MADE

Dear Editor,
I am a Chinese American and I just visited China one month ago. I cannot agree with you more in regard to the United States making head waves in pushing China to provide better treatment to the workers. I am also quite pleased to say that I have seen the positive influence of Western practices to consumer rights, as well as workplace safety and worker treatment, benefiting the people in China.

I applaud your effort, and those who are like-minded in such global thinking, to bettering humanity around the world.

Li Jiang
Sr. Quality Engineer
Tyco Electronics