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Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

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Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#81

Post by api »

jellicle wrote: post #76

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? B…

Yeah. A lot of smart folks on HN, but also a lot of naive sheltered upper-class youngsters who have never even seen genuine adversity or human suffering.

This elite naivete blew me away when I spent years in the rough orbit of the Ivy League. They're not bad people... they just really genuinely have no idea. They have no frame of reference for the difficulty of growing up poor in the American interior, let alone for the difficulties faced by people in the third world or in dictatorships-of-GDP like China.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#82

Post by yummyfajitas »

jonknee wrote: post #75
yummyfajitas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If prices go up sufficiently then there is no advantage to building a factory in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi workers then become unemployed.

Right now, Bangladesh needs wealth more than anything else. Once they have wealth, they can spend it on things like OSHA.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#83

Post by pavs »

ronilan wrote: post #57
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…

> 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). I have never seen a comment, anywhere, that so clearly, and concisely, explains how a local culture works.

Seriously, when I first moved here it bothered me a lot. I am used to cooking for myself and wouldn't mind learning how to drive. But I was absolutely prohibited from going to the kitchen even by accident and not go anywhere without having someone with me all the time.

Now as I have learned my way around I do go out by myself but kitchen it still off limit.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#84

Post by pavs »

sambeau wrote: post #37
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…

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…

I don't disagree with anything you wrote. But wage issue often does come up on western media, with or without reference to safety standard (I am talking about Bangladesh, this might not be true about other countries).

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#85

Post by samspenc »

As bad as this is, it gets even worse: a lot of the stuff produced in China and exported overseas is made in forced labor camps (like the infamous Masanjia labor camp) and prisons by people who're simply imprisoned for being dissidents. Those people are not only unpaid, but tortured physically and mentally outside of their grueling work hours.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#86

Post by eksith »

jellicle wrote: post #76

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? B…

Pretty much.

I find it amusing that people who've visited these countries and lived in a select few, politically manipulated bubbles, can discern what's really happening.

I.E. The fellow who worked for BRAC. We know all about their work in Sri Lanka and how well they funneled cash to special interests after the 2004 tsunami who (in the interest of humanitarian relief, of course) managed to lose a lot of it in "administrative fees". Amazingly, in some places, some of the first structures to go up again were new garment factories; not public housing.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#87

Post by TDL »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #24
melling wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really, if you are a net exporter and most of your countries citizens never travel abroad. 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.

How does China "not need America"? The U.S. is China's largest trading partner.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#88

Post by mushfiq »

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…

This is not completely true, most of the garments workers are working with low wage like 40$/month(official but unofficially they are paid even less!). They live in the worst part of city and so on. And recent building collapse opened the nasty part of there work environment, when I lived in Bangladesh I have seen how misrable the work condition in garments. And most people work there due to job crisis and for other factors. And you can see the latest accidents photos http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2013/04/304_dead_in_buildin.... So how can we do the improvement, it needs steps from every stakeholders, laws should be strict, there should be labour union(millions of worker working but there is no labour right union!) and of course the West should be more concern to provide better facility for the workers.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#89

Post by nemo »

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…

"The most we can do is force workers to trade pay for safety, which they might not want to do."

This is a weird way to frame things, as though workers don't really mind being killed or injured on the job. Safety is management's responsibility, not an employee choice.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#90

Post by eksith »

pavs wrote: post #78
eksith wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

I did "bother" to read the article. And I know all about BRAC (there is a branch in Sri Lanka too).

I don't need the media to tell me what's happening. I have family - therefore, a genuine vested interest in what happens to them and their community - and I stay in touch to this day. I know all about what the garment industry has done in the poorest parts of the world; I've seen the end result first hand (and second, third and fourth by virtue of having family working there).

The only one oblivious is you if you think you know how the real world works.

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