Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never lived in such circumstances or in those countries). They may not get paid the same salary according to western standard, but the worker are doing (for the most part) pretty fine with the amount of money they are making. As a matter of fact, most of them have never seen so much money in their life, and most of the garments workers (mostly women) who without garments work would either be house wife, or beggars or do seasonal farming work 2-3 months a year with 1/10th of the pay, if at all (usually they get paid by farmed goods like rice, instead of money).

You have to understand, you can live a very good life with very little money in this part of the world, as far as the living standard of the local economy is concerned, the pay is not bad at all (there are few exception where garments owners take advantage of workers, but its not the norm). Garments industry alone single handedly have improved countless people's life and directly or indirectly have saved many people's life too.

To give you an example, we live in a pretty well off part of the city in dhaka, a family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers (thats how the local culture works). Our monthly grocery shopping cost rarely goes over 500-600 dollars. And we eat pretty good too, even compare to my 12 year stay in NY. For a single person my monthly grocery bill could easily go to 400-500 dollars in NY, and I used to be fairly frugal. So I think a perspective is necessary when talking about wages in this part of the world.

This obviously comes at a cost sometimes, but honestly I don't think any sane person believes the alternative (not having enough jobs, however underpaid they are) would have been better. Every, so called developed countries, has come to where they are on the back of cheap labors and poor worker's right and poor working conditions. That doesn't make it right, but thats pretty much how it works.

It might present an issue if they wanted to buy a lot of US made weapons for example, but China is big enough that it largely does not need America.

It doesn't happen anymore because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore. Well, there is one thing the US manufactures - energy. Not directly, but they get all the economic benefit for it.

When you pull a barrel of oil out of the ground, you've created wealth where there was none before. It is not a zero sum game. When you charge dollars for that barrel, you give those dollars value in the global energy market. It does not matter who 'owns' the oil, even another country, as long as it's sold in dollars, the US gets the benefit.

This is why stuff from China is so cheap. The only thing a dollar is good for on the global market is energy, but the dollar has a near monopoly on it. The US doesn't have to do any of the work when they are the ones putting the gas in the gas tank. The rest of the world makes the engine go off of that gas.