Political Quotes

“And more capital investment and more technology. That is, of course, what countries like the United States have. That is the advantage that we have. Let me just tell the gentlewoman my example that I always use is the copper industry in my own State. Copper was riding high back in the 1960's and 1970's and right up to 1982 when the world copper price collapsed. Half the mines in Arizona closed as a result of that. The other half were struggling selling copper at below the market price, so they were losing money with every pound of copper that they were selling. They knew that in order to stay competitive, they had to make some big changes. What they did was they put a tremendous investment in capital into those mines. We now have the most technologically advanced copper mines in the world in Arizona. Everything is computer controlled, they use robots, they use all kinds of things. The bottom line is yes, there is half the people working in the copper industry in Arizona but there is still a copper industry and they are producing more copper today than they were in 1982 with less than half of the number of people. The result is they can compete and they can outproduce in copper Chile, which is a medium-priced country in terms of wages, Zambia which is at 25 cents an hour or Zaire or Guinea or those other countries which are at the very rock bottom there. We can still beat them because we have much more productivity.…”