Off topic:
Interesting that all the stories so far talk about mothers in sweatshops. Not single one here mentions a father.
Were they working in the fields while women in the sweatshops?
We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
121–130 of 201 posts
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I include Vietnam in the current status of China. Robots would be cool. Although I have a high degree of respect for people that can make things in factories...it would be a shame to lose this skill set to robots. Keep in mind that China is already in competition with places like Vietnam. China puts its own provinces in competition with each other in much the same way that states and municipalities in the U.S. compet…
"Although I have a high degree of respect for people that can make things in factories...it would be a shame to lose this skill set to robots." Broadly speaking, "making things in factories" is not a skill. "Being able to set up efficient factory lines" is, but having robots instead of humans is just another variable in a long list of variables. I say "broadly speaking" because I'm sure there are exceptions, but I am…
Broadly speaking, your probably correct. I was referring to the ingenuity and skills that seem to come from much practice of using your hands.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comments are pretty fair and your feelings on what your family went through in '60s Taiwan I take as genuine. However, it was not only hard work that bootstrapped Taiwan out of poverty. Some part of Taiwan's current comfort is due to moving its most extreme labor and environmental problems to other Asian countries, namely China. So now China and a few others are at the bottom of the supply chain...who do they pa…
who do they pass the buck to to lift themselves out of these conditions? To whoever has the best comparative advantage, as economics has always worked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
Wikipedia is a fine source of information. I don't set my moral compass to it.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comments are pretty fair and your feelings on what your family went through in '60s Taiwan I take as genuine. However, it was not only hard work that bootstrapped Taiwan out of poverty. Some part of Taiwan's current comfort is due to moving its most extreme labor and environmental problems to other Asian countries, namely China. So now China and a few others are at the bottom of the supply chain...who do they pa…
who do they pass the buck to to lift themselves out of these conditions? To whoever has the best comparative advantage, as economics has always worked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
Actually, no, that's not how economics has always worked. Mercantilism was very popular before free market capitalism came along.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#125This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…
My mother-in-law worked in a factory in Taiwan in the 1960s. They didn't believe in providing ear protection to their workers and the loud machinery caused her permanent hearing loss in both ears that she still suffers from to this day. She can only hear out of one ear with a hearing aid, and her family has to shout at her just to barely communicate. Apparently you have no idea how bad it really is there. Here in the…
> " They didn't believe in providing ear protection to their workers and the loud machinery caused her permanent hearing loss in both ears that she still suffers from to this day."
My mother lost a segment of her right middle finger, and my grandfather eventually died of hazardous substances breathed in during his work. My father survived a chlorine tank breach by a hair - a low wall was the only thing between him and certain death.
None have regretted working there despite this. This isn't an argument against workplace safety - this is an argument against enforcing non-safety-related labor policies in developing countries where that is their chief advantage, and removal of it will harm economic development. Industrial jobs, shitty and brutal as they may be by our living and working standards, is a crucial part of the economic development of these countries.
Note that the author of the article's chief points are all based on how "bad" life is for these workers, and only one point is even remotely related to safety hazards in the workplace. His complaints range for anything from not being allowed cell phones in the factory to terrible food to hot-bunking in the employee dormitories. These are not at all safety issues, and thus IMHO something we must allow economic development and time to fix.
If the author has some real meat about flagrant safety violations in a factory, I would like to hear it, otherwise I stand by my assessment that this is nothing more than sensationalist reporting.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. People on first world countries (especially Americans, for some reason, but I won't go into that) seem to forget that the same dollar buys different things around the world. For example, the workers in that factory pay ~$1.50 a day for factory food. I don't think you can get food for a day with that amount in a place that accepts dollar as the main currency.
No, but I can certainly get equal food for less than $10 a day in NYC where I live now. Hell I basically buy whatever food I want when I go through the grocery store without looking at price tags (it's food, why skimp on the basics?) and Mint.com is telling me my average food in a month - including liquor and restaurants, is about $450 or $15 a day. (I cook at home almost every day, so for me eating out/liquor is abo…
Minimum wage is not a consistent measure and doesn't even have the same meaning everywhere.
And food availability varies too. I would probably have to make twice my current salary to eat Chinese food everyday.
But if you went further in your comparison you would probably conclude that you would make many times more money than them at the same job in the US. But that's because its two different countries, not because Microsoft is underpaying employees overseas, which is the point.
Though your calculations were way better than the author's simple currency conversions.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
who do they pass the buck to to lift themselves out of these conditions? To whoever has the best comparative advantage, as economics has always worked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
So, pardon me, what you're saying is that someone's got to be exploited in the end for the system to work? Don't sign me up.
No, I am not saying that. That was an assumption built into the question to which I was replying. Economic growth results in everyone being less exploited over time, and free trade results in people making the trade-offs to gain utility most meaningful in their own local circumstances.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
who do they pass the buck to to lift themselves out of these conditions? To whoever has the best comparative advantage, as economics has always worked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
Wikipedia is a fine source of information. I don't set my moral compass to it.
What is your source of moral advice for China?
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#129This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…
"Privileged white collars shocked and dismayed that blue collar work can really, really suck. News at 11." Your comment made me think: Privileged white collar shows complete disregard for those that have it worse. News at 11.
Exactly, but more like News at never. Our ratings votes dictate we rarely see a piece on slave labour and sweatshops.
I did find the article pretty sensationalist. The sexual harassment issues are believable though and weren't picked up on in these comments.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#130This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…
I have relatives in Taiwan and you are grossly exaggerating the situation to support your argument. > Okay, my mother worked as a child sweatshop laborer in Taiwan in the 60s, before the country bootstrapped itself out of abject, agrarian poverty, and I take issue with this. Much of Taiwan was poor because of Japanese occupation. Some were rich because of it. That divide is the sole reason Taiwan seemed poor to you.…
> "Tales rebounded of bosses that sat around playing mahjong, harassing female workers, or flying all over the world, while exploited workers worked for their enrichment from 6AM-10PM."
It sounds like your beef is with the KMT, not the Japanese - it is true that the Japanese occupation enriched (justly or otherwise) a lot of Taiwanese families, but the ones doing the "sitting around" after the occupation ended were primarily KMT bureaucrats.
As a matter of fact, this is something the older generation complains about endlessly. Despite being second-class citizens under Japanese rule, the government ran like clockwork; contrast with post-KMT-takeover Taiwan where the government became unfathomably inept and corrupt. This trend did not even begin to reverse itself until legitimate, sizable political opposition began to form against the KMT.
Side note: Said opposition (the DPP) turned out to be just as corrupt, if not moreso, than the ones they formed to replace. Thankfully years of pressure from a significant opposition party, and several more of even-more-inept DPP rule has created some saner political choices in Taiwan.
> "Taiwan did not need sweatshop labor to pull itself out of poverty."
Then what did it need? Imaginary capital investments in our many fine local delicacies? Become a tourism-driven banana republic? Grow fruit for American mega-conglomerate fruit companies? The industrialization of Taiwan generated the necessary economic lift that, to be fair to the KMT, under sound governmental oversight, resulted in the country we see today.
I think it's incredibly disingenuous to pin the blame for everything on the Japanese - the KMT fucked up just as much as they got right. If you want to talk about government corruption, nepotism, and downright incompetence, the KMT is a far better example than the Japanese.
> "That is highly insulting. It was not because of laziness or stupidity that much of Taiwan was so poor."
I'm not sure what I've said that insinuates this... but that's certainly not what I meant. I'm also not sure how this point relates at all to the necessity of industrial economies for developing nations.