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Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#101

Post by protomyth »

ghshephard wrote: post #52

Does anyone have any knowledge of how dangerous Chinese manufacturing jobs are compared to, say, US Manufacturing, or other sectors of the US economy? I.E. Is american agriculture (farming) more dangerous than chinese manufacturing? Here is what I was able to find on the US: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0658.p... US agriculture is pretty dangerous - 25 deaths per 100,000 employees/year. Anybo…

Tractors flipping over is probably the big on in US Agriculture, but quite a few people die in the grain silos doing various things. Most big Ag companies are fairly psycho about safety. I remember an elevator supervisor who fired workers who went over the speed limit on the elevators road and being told it was a firing offense to stand on a chair to reach something.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#102

Post by eksith »

pavs wrote: post #95
siam wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are from BRAC! I have heard they are some sort of BLOOD SUCKER, by giving small money to poor they take 80% interest. Even some rural farmer had to suicide after taking loan from Brac. And you are talking about "living standard" how funny man :)

You are confusing brac with something else that happend in india.

No, I think he got it pretty spot on.

I.E. From just December last year :

http://www.eoi.es/blogs/amyblyth/dp-the-grameen-and-brac-exp...

For balance, here's the response straight from the horse's mouth before that story was written :

http://www.brac.net/node/861

Very convenient when borrowers are unaware of those choices all too often as happened in Sri Lanka too after the tsunami.

And a guardian piece from 2008 :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/20/internationala...

Ah, but these are "Western media" outlets with a clearly biased view spewed from behind the computer. I was born there, but let me return to the modest shack my granddad built so I'll have better standing, shoulder-to-shoulder, with you.

Your organization is the NGO equivalent of the U.N. with greater far-reaching tentacles in every aspect of the poorest communities you influence. The garment factories you hold in such high esteem are exploitive in the extreme and the level of self-delusion you exhibit would have been funny if the consequences weren't so tragic.

Edit: Reply link not showing up yet. Meanwhile, since microcredit is the bread and butter, so to speak, of the BRAC scheme :

https://www.google.com/search?q=consequences+of+microcredit

https://www.google.com/search?q=effects+of+microcredit

https://www.google.com/search?q=repercussions+of+microcredit

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#103

Post by adharmad »

pfortuny wrote: post #54
antris wrote: post #11

This post (like many others) completely ignores the fact that these people choose to work in this environment. Statistics show that factory / industrial workers in China are doing better than those who stay in rural jobs. Human development indicators in China have constantly risen since the 1980's [1] and the economy is booming [2]. These sweatshops are horrific to our standards, but to their standards, these are gre…

Well, reading some Dickens will show they said the same in London in the early 1800s. And now we talk about those times as hideous, unjust, abusive... Is it a choice between death by fire and death by starvation? I do not call that a choice.

You are right. It is not a real choice.

But aren't the political and economic conditions in China the responsibility of the Chinese Government and at some level the Chinese people? Maybe the "choice" that they made is not the hideous working conditions but tolerating their political establishment that made such conditions a norm.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#104

Post by yummyfajitas »

nemo wrote: post #89
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…

"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.

The question is not whether workers mind being killed or injured. The question is which they mind more - lower pay, unemployment, or an increased risk of injury or death.

There are many things we could do to reduce your first world risk of death - mandate that all cars are have a mechanically enforced speed limit of 20mph, for example. We choose not to. Why?

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#105

Post by pavs »

eksith wrote: post #102
pavs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing brac with something else that happend in india.

No, I think he got it pretty spot on. I.E. From just December last year : http://www.eoi.es/blogs/amyblyth/dp-the-grameen-and-brac-exp... For balance, here's the response straight from the horse's mouth before that story was written : http://www.brac.net/node/861 Very convenient when borrowers are unaware of those choices all too often as happened in Sri Lanka too after the tsunami. And a guardian piece from 2008 : h…

Can you please point out the reference of BRAC charging 80% interest rate and farmers committing suicide?

I didn't find any such thing from your links after a quick glance.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#106

Post by smoyer »

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…

While the human suffering, abhorrent work conditions, slave wages and environmental issues related to Chinese industry may indeed be everything the article states, I don't think this video proves anything (as I noted in my other comment here).

If you want to make a point regarding any or all of these subjects, the proper way would be to cite statistics to show how working conditions, safety, pay (and cost of living) etc compare in the various countries.

Yes ... it was a horrific way to die. They may or may not have known the dangers (though it doesn't seem that any of them were looking up which leads me to think they had no idea they even needed to be careful) but regardless of the facts of this incident, one accident doesn't show a trend.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#107

Post by prewett »

gbog wrote: post #46
jacquesm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's quite a feat of misunderstanding. And I tried pretty hard to make sure that that exact comment wouldn't be made in order to reject the thing out of hand. I'm fine with producing goods in the far east, but the fact is that the low prices are in fact powered by more than just a simple difference in value between currencies and standard of living. The pollution and the work place risks (including death) are…

It's not misunderstanding. You link to an awful video, draw general conclusions on the account of one event, and your unsaid conclusion is that Chinese people disdain human lives. 100 years ago you'd have added infanticide. So, no, Chinese people are not heartless zombies workers, they cherish human life and had a full structured ethical system when Europe was Barbary, and they are taking themselves out of survival m…

Today the apartment complex I in which I live in Beijing sent some guys out to fix a water leak my landlord reported. There are two: one guy with a big rope attached to a safety harness he is wearing, the other guy holding the rope with one hand. The first guy opens the window, climbs through it onto the 1-foot ledge on the 16th floor (the window only opens about 30 degrees, so this is a little challenging). He caulks a few places, with his companion holding onto the rope with his one hand, right above the (unclipped) harness clip. You can be sure that if the first guy slips, he's a goner, there's no way the second guy is going to catch 150 lbs with his one hand.

So yes, factory conditions on average are probably better than the video, but no, this is not an isolated incident. I'm sure these guys cherish human life, but they've probably been doing this all month (at least) without a problem, why worry? Accidents always happen to the other guy. And there's nowhere to clip onto, so doing it the right way would be very mafan, whereas this way they got it done in 5 minutes. Quick and cheap, probably $10 max. The American way would be safe, take 30 minutes getting the harness set up, 5 minutes caulking, and cost at least $100.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#109

Post by betterunix »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #82
jonknee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Or, you know, those countries could have factories that satisfy their markets, and we could have factories that satisfy ours. All without having to kill people in the process or burning dirty fuels shipping goods halfway around the world.

Re: Why Stuff From China Is So Cheap

#110

Post by irremediable »

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…

Thanks for writing that. I was dispirited by how blithely and blindly callous some of the comments are.
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