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Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

newyorker.com

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Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#31

Post by jorblumesea »

asveikau wrote: post #20
padobson wrote: post #2

As I read this, the New Yorker seemed to highlight the problems from a more leftist, social safety net perspective. The Chinese immigrants circumvented the tax code in every way they could - working under the table, starting unregistered businesses in garages and vans, living in the garages and vans, even dying secretly so their passports could be repurposed for new immigrants. This meant hospitals and other public s…

It's interesting to me that you would see the economic arguments and assume they were a genuinely held first principle and not an inauthentic PR line meant to resonate with the more base fear and hatred. In the United States at least there is a long history of this. Go look up what Lee Atwater said about the southern strategy. Summary: they embraced lines about low taxes and small government because it was getting im…

+1, most talk of "economics" in politics is just to couch or justify some political position that a side wants to push. Actual economics is boring and frankly going to produce some mixed results and no one on either side wants to hear.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#32

Post by mkirklions »

asveikau wrote: post #20
padobson wrote: post #2

As I read this, the New Yorker seemed to highlight the problems from a more leftist, social safety net perspective. The Chinese immigrants circumvented the tax code in every way they could - working under the table, starting unregistered businesses in garages and vans, living in the garages and vans, even dying secretly so their passports could be repurposed for new immigrants. This meant hospitals and other public s…

It's interesting to me that you would see the economic arguments and assume they were a genuinely held first principle and not an inauthentic PR line meant to resonate with the more base fear and hatred. In the United States at least there is a long history of this. Go look up what Lee Atwater said about the southern strategy. Summary: they embraced lines about low taxes and small government because it was getting im…

After this most recent presidential election, I believe that racism is ingrained in our DNA.

I couldnt believe what I was seeing in the 21st century.

Politicians will use this tool until humanity goes extinct.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#33

Post by LoSboccacc »

wenc wrote: post #17
baybal2 wrote: post #11

Chinese owned a big chunk of Italian textile industry for quite a while. For at least 12~14 years, a big portion of made in Italy stuff were Chinese made. Owning a factory in Italy can be quite cheaper than to do so in China, to a lot of people's surprise. An added benefit to it is that you can claim "Italian quality" For more on topic stuff, if you are a Vancouverite, you can visit an Italian cafe by Gastown Starbuc…

There's a town near Florence called Prato that has a large population of Wenzhou Chinese. Most work in the textile industry. If you visit Milan's Chinatown, it is full of textile and clothing shops as opposed to most Chinatowns around the world which are dominated by food and grocery stores.

Prato is one of the most talked about because of the high contrast between irregular workers (wether legally resident or otherwise) working for the high margin high fashion industry, but there are a lot similar realities like these to be found everywhere.

I.E a big earthquake happened a while ago in romagna and the most surprising fact was that once the chinese sweatshop were evaquated the local pupulation found themselves almost outnumbered by them in certain areas.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#34

Post by reaperducer »

Neither surprising, nor new.

This has been going on for years in a number of countries (Spain, Italy, etc...) just so the goods can be marked "Made in *". The TV image of the careful old craftsman hand-sweing your luggage is a falsehood. It's sweatshops all over again.

It's even happening in the United States. Louis Vuitton does its repairs with immigrant labor in southern California so it can say the work was done in America. (The whole thing is tremendously complicated because of California laws about handbags and leather goods, but that's off topic.)

There are compounds in some states that are essentially isolated towns surrounding a factory where Chinese laborers put things together so they can be marked "Made in USA." The laborers eat, sleep, work, and live without ever going outside the compound. It's like the horror stories we see about China, but on U.S. soil.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#35

Post by chrischen »

reaperducer wrote: post #34

Neither surprising, nor new. This has been going on for years in a number of countries (Spain, Italy, etc...) just so the goods can be marked "Made in *". The TV image of the careful old craftsman hand-sweing your luggage is a falsehood. It's sweatshops all over again. It's even happening in the United States. Louis Vuitton does its repairs with immigrant labor in southern California so it can say the work was done i…

What's wrong with immigrant labor (apart from them taking "our" jobs)?

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#36

Post by make3 »

chrischen wrote: post #35
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Neither surprising, nor new. This has been going on for years in a number of countries (Spain, Italy, etc...) just so the goods can be marked "Made in *". The TV image of the careful old craftsman hand-sweing your luggage is a falsehood. It's sweatshops all over again. It's even happening in the United States. Louis Vuitton does its repairs with immigrant labor in southern California so it can say the work was done i…

What's wrong with immigrant labor (apart from them taking "our" jobs)?

it is implied that they are payed at a sweatshop price in sweatshop conditions

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#37

Post by nickff »

wenc wrote: post #15
dekhn wrote: post #12

When I was in Amsterdam I chatted with a guy. His job is to fly to Amsterdam and Milan, go to all the bespoke stores, buy up all their goods, and then take them to a shop which clones them for production-scale. I'd have thought the designers would be working with the producers at scale, but that's not how it works.

"Bespoke" means custom-tailored to an individual. I'm not sure if it makes sense to clone them for production-scale -- mass-produced clothing are cut to average measurements to fit as many people as possible. Are you sure you meant bespoke?

"Bespoke" actually means more than custom-tailored; to be "bespoke", the client must have commissioned the creation of the design of an article of clothing. The usual dividing line between "bespoke" and "made-to-measure" is that in a "bespoke" process, there is more input in the design process, and there are a number of fittings of the garment (rather than just a set of measurements as in made-to measure). In the case of a shoe, a custom 'last' is generally the indicator of a "bespoke" product.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#39

Post by EastLondonCoder »

KingBluetooth wrote: post #25
EastLondonCoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats an odd way of looking at SD. There is a clear macroeconomic consensus that immigration is good for the economy as a whole, the GDP growth Sweden has enjoyed strongly support this. An SD government would be a threat to the Swedish welfare society. This is a party started not by right leaning nationalists but by actual nazis. Gustav Ekström, one of the founders of the party was a volunteer in the Waffen-SS in 194…

SD has a very dark and disturbing history I think we can all agree to that but they have cleaned up and become a different party then before. They are now for example proponents of "open swedishness" where ethnicity have no bearing on if you are Swedish. http://www.lt.se/opinion/debatt/sd-ar-for-en-oppen-svenskhet "Its overwhelmingly clear the main reason for the party is to turn Sweden into some sort of white nation…

"Its overwhelmingly clear the main reason for the party is to turn Sweden into some sort of white nationalist fantasy where anyone with a brown face is not welcome. "do you really believe this? - yes. Anecdata, what relatives and other acquaintance tells me who votes for the party say that thats what they want.

You don't have to scratch surface particularly hard to see statements such as Zlatan is not Swedish, or for example what leading members called Soran Ismail during the iron pipe scandal.

SD has also been very open with what kind of society they want when coming into power, they have been studying Hungary and Poland closely, countries which has openly racist policies and are defacto not democracies anymore.

"Maybe it wasn't clear in my original reply but to me it seems SD thinks the way to save the Swedish welfare state is reduced immigration." I am aware of that and its utterly, utterly hogwash. Immigration is the only way to save the welfare states all over western Europe since we face an ageing population.

"immigrants don't get jobs the taxes will have to be higher. " Perhaps some investment is needed to get immigrants up to speed.

Look, Sweden went through a very similar immigration wave in the early nineties from the balkans. Those immigrants and their decedents have mostly stayed in Sweden and have today similar levels of employment as native Swedish people. It took awhile and yes there where real issues but I have a hard time seeing that the end result is no less than an extremely positive outcome.

"In the paper Refugee immigration and public finances in Sweden by Ruist, Joakim. The cost is refugee immigration and their family members is calculated to 1 % of BNP in the year 2007."

Yes some investment is needed, it will pay dividends later. And in the short term there was a very nice correlation between gdp growth and immigrants arriving to Sweden.

Re: Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy

#40

Post by attalus »

mkirklions wrote: post #32
asveikau wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to me that you would see the economic arguments and assume they were a genuinely held first principle and not an inauthentic PR line meant to resonate with the more base fear and hatred. In the United States at least there is a long history of this. Go look up what Lee Atwater said about the southern strategy. Summary: they embraced lines about low taxes and small government because it was getting im…

After this most recent presidential election, I believe that racism is ingrained in our DNA. I couldnt believe what I was seeing in the 21st century. Politicians will use this tool until humanity goes extinct.

You really must be a troubled individual.
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