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Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

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Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#71

Post by khuey »

math wrote: post #53
sambeau wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the low-pay per se that concerns those who criticise the outsourcing of everything to the developing world. It is the lack of comparable safety standards, environmental standards and workers' rights. We in the developed world fought hard for around 200 years to achieve these standards and rights and it smarts to see large corporations side-step them by outsourcing to countries that don't require or enforce t…

Maybe worth sharing an observation from my building endeavors in Cambodia: often the workers don't realize the risks they are taking, so before lobbying for decent standards, they often need to actually comprehend what they are. This can be more difficult to get through to them than you might think. For example getting welders to always wear eye protection, getting people spray paint for a living to do so in a proper…

We [the west] didn't understand it either until people started dying. Sometimes lessons have to be learned the hard way.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#72

Post by muyuu »

eksith wrote: post #62
muyuu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These jobs wouldn't be there if not for the low wages. They belong to a foreign industry and a foreign market, it's nothing that they can simply protect internally.

Now that the jobs are there, the foreign industry has a responsibility to maintain the welfare of their slave labor force.

They'd rather just pack and leave. Jobs are not life-long entitlements.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#74

Post by weavejester »

melling wrote: post #8
weavejester wrote: post #3

Low safety standards may contribute to the low price of goods produced in China, but the main reason is that the Chinese government deliberately keeps the value of the yuan low against the dollar.

There must be some long term economic repercussion for trying to manipulate the price of your currency?

There is. China essentially needs to sell off a lot of yuan and buy up a lot of dollars to keep its currency weak, and it does this by purchasing vast amounts of US debt. There's a series of videos about it at the Khan Academy if you're interested:

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/core-finance/money-and-b...

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#75

Post by jonknee »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #64
sambeau wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the low-pay per se that concerns those who criticise the outsourcing of everything to the developing world. It is the lack of comparable safety standards, environmental standards and workers' rights. We in the developed world fought hard for around 200 years to achieve these standards and rights and it smarts to see large corporations side-step them by outsourcing to countries that don't require or enforce t…

A company doing business in Bangladesh has a fixed amount of money they can spend on compensation + safety + etc. In a competitive industry like garment manufacturing, the margins are already very thin, so increasing safety will result in reduced worker pay (or shutting down and workers becoming unemployed). There is no free lunch. The most we can do is force workers to trade pay for safety, which they might not want…

> A company doing business in Bangladesh has a fixed amount of money they can spend on compensation + safety + etc.

That's not true, the safety expenses should be mandated and everyone's prices will increase accordingly. Prices are set according to costs and in the developed world, safety is a required cost. It could happen overnight if the big customers actually required it. Imagine if Walmart suspended billions of dollars worth of contracts until safety standards were met.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#76

Post by jellicle »

Hacker News response:

"They knew the risks they were taking. They were all expert electricians who fully knew that their pay of almost $10,000/year would compensate them for the risk they were taking. If we started regulating companies like this, pretty soon there wouldn't be any companies and the entire world economy would collapse, people eating people, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and you don't want that, do you? Besides we all know government is bad. These people preferred their life of liberty and horrific, agonizing electrocution to a life lived under repressive workplace regulations like putting insulation on high-voltage wires."

Does that about sum it up?

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#77

Post by yummyfajitas »

melling wrote: post #8
weavejester wrote: post #3

Low safety standards may contribute to the low price of goods produced in China, but the main reason is that the Chinese government deliberately keeps the value of the yuan low against the dollar.

There must be some long term economic repercussion for trying to manipulate the price of your currency?

The short term repercussions are certainly clear:

Chinese goods are cheaper than they would otherwise be, which increases production in China.

Purchasing power of people holding Yuan (i.e., the Chinese people) is lower than it would otherwise be.

Basically, China is making it's people poorer in order to stimulate production.

In the long run, China is stuck holding a lot of US debt, the value of which will eventually be inflated away.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#78

Post by pavs »

eksith wrote: post #38
pavs wrote: post #22

One of the issue that comes up with this type of discussion about low pay to workers on developing worlds like China, India, Bangladesh (recently you might have heard some news about it in the media). 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…

You're in Bangladesh and in a well of part of the city, you say. A family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers too. Your entire post reminds me of something else I read : http://newint.org/features/2013/01/01/india-elite-sense-of-e... While the countries are all different (I'm from Sri Lanka originally), the attitudes are astoundingly similar. It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating g…

Please get off your moral high horse. I used to be like you all smug-faced and judgmental sitting behind a computer, until I was on the field with brac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRAC_(NGO)) and see for myself how the real world works.

They are NOT underpaid for the most part (If you actually bothered to read what I wrote). They are under-paid to "western living standard" but not according to the local living standard (for the most part). There are some exceptions and exploitations, but its very small percentage, but those are the examples that the media and people like you try to bring up when discussion these issues.

Lets be oblivious and ignore the world of good garments industry has done for literally millions people in the poorest parts of the world.

Change takes time, its not pretty, its not shiny, and its not fairy tale and sometimes people die in the process.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#79

Post by gregpilling »

snarfy wrote: post #28

This was true in the US pre WWII. Who better to walk in to the giant mechanism of knives and gears than small children? Their little arms can reach! 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…

As a US based manufacturer, I find your comment ignorant. There is a great deal of manufacturing in the US, and it is getting easier to do - not harder.

I have been manufacturing since 2004. It's not that hard. You start with an idea, build a minimally viable prototype, improve it, make a final design, sort out the supply chain and then start building. Design once, sell thousands of times.

Use automation, its cheaper than even Chinese labor. Work on just-in-time manufacturing techniques and you can get your inventory down to a small fraction of annual sales. The multi-axis controls in a 3D printer can be repurposed to do all sorts of motion control in a factory. See https://www.synthetos.com/project/tinyg/

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#80

Post by pionar »

eksith wrote: post #38
pavs wrote: post #22

One of the issue that comes up with this type of discussion about low pay to workers on developing worlds like China, India, Bangladesh (recently you might have heard some news about it in the media). 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…

You're in Bangladesh and in a well of part of the city, you say. A family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers too. Your entire post reminds me of something else I read : http://newint.org/features/2013/01/01/india-elite-sense-of-e... While the countries are all different (I'm from Sri Lanka originally), the attitudes are astoundingly similar. It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating g…

I find myself falling into this sometimes. I came from a relatively poor area and family (at least by US standards), and sometimes foolishly get the attitude briefly when confronted with poverty of "I got out of that, they should be able too. They're just lazy and/or are happy living that way. Which may be true, but I doubt it. I certainly never was.
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