Chinese Suicide Sweatshop makes your ipad

Cosmo

stuckinline wrote:

ok, it may be cheaper to build a new facility, but what about all the energy is takes to ship the products to the usa?

...
It's chump change to them.
The greatest savings is in labor. If you don't have to pay greater salaries, provide medical and dental coverage, insurance, pensions, etc... all the things American workers take for granted... the costs of distribution is nominal.

Godfather.

[stuckinline]while the cost of shipping is figured into the price, from an environmental standpoint, i feel it a waste of resources to ship products from china, when the usa is fully capable of manufacturing the products here.

I agree 100%

Godfather.

Flagg

blackredyellow wrote:

Godfather. wrote:

Blackredyellow I do not agree on either examples (oil/business) we the consumer will always save a buck when we are able, what choice do we have in most cases other than autos, for the most part we buy what is available,
we have big business to blame for that not us the consumer.

Godfather.

But if we (as consumers) only purchased american-made goods, then businesses would be forced to produce goods here.

You said that we will always save a buck when we are able, business are the same way.

Have you actually tried that? I bet it would be pretty difficult to live your life only buying American made products. Not impossible, but you would have to do without a lot of things.

I am typing on a computer made in China while listening to music on an iPhone made in China while wearing clothes made in Vietnam, Bangladesh and Mexico.

I know I saw a news story where someone tried to go a whole year only buying American made products and it was pretty tough to do. I wish I could find that story.

know1

Jeanwah wrote:

It should be the corporations responsibility to keep our economy healthy. But there are no regulations for that. That is why corps will ALWAYS outsource. They are directly killing the American economy by thinking only of their own bottom line, and going oversees to find the cheapest workers. ETA: AND it doesn't help that American consumers want everything cheap, cheap, cheap!

Why is the responsibility to keep the AMERICAN economy strong? What about the Chinese economy? What would all those workers do if they closed that plant and moved the jobs to America?

People are people. Americans are no better than anyone else, and business/jobs should go where they want to.

Flagg

And then you have to decide where to draw the line. For example, if I buy a new Maytag washing machine made in America, what about all the components? Where did they come from?

Autos are even trickier since most Japanese cars are actually built here and a good deal of American cars are built in Mexico. Both with parts from all over the place.

In 2008, I bought a Honda Accord. Built in Ohio. Did I support America or Japan? I don't even know.

And you can't force corporations to keep the jobs here. Especially if you allow foreign companies to sell their stuff here. If you force an American company to make an alarm clock here and they have to sell it for $20 to make a profit, and a French company makes one with Chinese labor and can ship it here and sell it for $10 and still make a profit, which clock are most Americans going to buy?

And you can't slap a bunch of tariffs on it to even the price out because that French company will just stop selling that clock here and the French government will then decide to retaliate and either tariff US imports or stop them altogether.

The above is a huge generalization and an example but that about sums it up I think.

know1

redrock wrote:

Godfather. wrote:

higher tariff's....lots higher and limit over seas imports to a 1/4 of what they are now,everything from t.v's to cars, I don't know business as well you all might but something needs to be done..have any ideas ?

Godfather.

We can't be insular anymore and protectionism is now irrelevant. We are in a global economy and we need to learn to work with this. There is no going back to 'how it was'.

Amen!

stuckinline

to those of you defending the chinese rights to jobs .....how do you defend this:
(from jeanwah's original post)



Down narrow, prison-like corridors, they sleep in cramped rooms in triple-decked bunk beds to save space, with simple bamboo mats for mattresses.

Despite summer temperatures hitting 35 degrees, with 90 per cent humidity, there is no air-conditioning. Workers say some dormitories house more than 40 people and are infested with ants and cockroaches, with the noise and stench making it difficult to sleep.

know1

stuckinline wrote:

to those of you defending the chinese rights to jobs .....how do you defend this:
(from jeanwah's original post)



Down narrow, prison-like corridors, they sleep in cramped rooms in triple-decked bunk beds to save space, with simple bamboo mats for mattresses.

Despite summer temperatures hitting 35 degrees, with 90 per cent humidity, there is no air-conditioning. Workers say some dormitories house more than 40 people and are infested with ants and cockroaches, with the noise and stench making it difficult to sleep.

First of all, there were a lot of things in that article that are pretty subjective and do not take culture into account. To those of us in the west in our McMansions, I'll bet most corridors seem narrow. Heck, aren't there Japanese hotels where people actually pay to basically sleep in something that's about the size of an oversized drawer?

I'll also ask whether those workers are slaves or prisoners. If not, they are there by choice. And what that tells me is those conditions are better than their alternatives. I'm not defending the conditions, but if change has happened that allows these people better conditions than they had before, is that a bad thing?

Finally, they talked about restaurants and basketball courts. How many factories in America have those?

Jason P

stuckinline wrote:

"Despite summer temperatures hitting 35 degrees, with 90 per cent humidity, there is no air-conditioning. Workers say some dormitories house more than 40 people and are infested with ants and cockroaches, with the noise and stench making it difficult to sleep."

Sounds like my freshman year at college . . . and I wish I was kidding!

Jeanwah

know1 wrote:

stuckinline wrote:

to those of you defending the chinese rights to jobs .....how do you defend this:
(from jeanwah's original post)



Down narrow, prison-like corridors, they sleep in cramped rooms in triple-decked bunk beds to save space, with simple bamboo mats for mattresses.

Despite summer temperatures hitting 35 degrees, with 90 per cent humidity, there is no air-conditioning. Workers say some dormitories house more than 40 people and are infested with ants and cockroaches, with the noise and stench making it difficult to sleep.

First of all, there were a lot of things in that article that are pretty subjective and do not take culture into account. To those of us in the west in our McMansions, I'll bet most corridors seem narrow. Heck, aren't there Japanese hotels where people actually pay to basically sleep in something that's about the size of an oversized drawer?

I'll also ask whether those workers are slaves or prisoners. If not, they are there by choice. And what that tells me is those conditions are better than their alternatives. I'm not defending the conditions, but if change has happened that allows these people better conditions than they had before, is that a bad thing?

Finally, they talked about restaurants and basketball courts. How many factories in America have those?

You are actually going to defend sweat shop labor... :roll:

And yeah, factories / companies have been known to jack up the amenities to make it look like the employers care, while actually they overwork & underpay employees. I've worked in 2 such places (American) that pull that off.