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Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

spiegel.de

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Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#51

Post by ilkhd2 »

AlisdairO wrote: post #23
ilkhd2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inexpensive (or more correctly - cheap) are almost always made in misery. So by simple logic, people who prefer cheap products prefer products made in misery.

That's some seriously bad logic. The fact that cheap implies misery does not mean that misery implies cheap. People aren't buying the product for the misery, they're buying it for the price. Adding misery without affecting the price will not make people any more likely to buy your product.

Yes, you sound like Nazi's on Nuremberg process - "we just executed orders". And that is true: the did not care about people whom the tortured. In fact the would in other circumstances be friendly and polite to them. Yet they really-really needed their salaries or premiums or move up on their military ladder or other stuff.

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#52

Post by ilkhd2 »

ramchip wrote: post #22
ilkhd2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inexpensive (or more correctly - cheap) are almost always made in misery. So by simple logic, people who prefer cheap products prefer products made in misery.

Does not compute. High-level languages are almost always slower. So by simple logic, people who prefer high-level languages prefer slow languages. However, people wouldn't want anything to do with a slow language that's low-level. And in the same way for a shirt made in a poor country that's not cheap.

I am not talking about their intentions - that is not a domain of "simple logic" anyway. What I am saying is factual statement: the set [made cheaply] is a subset of [made in misery]. So you cannot escape purchasing stuff [made in misery] if you buy suff [made cheaply].

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#53

Post by ilkhd2 »

w00pla wrote: post #26
ilkhd2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) People in USA/Canada/Other western world are _addicted_ to products made in misery (in China, for example). Less miserable of course, but still far from good conditions. 2) If there are reasons to think that it can improve their condition, than it os a good idea.

> 1) People in USA/Canada/Other western world are _addicted_ to products made in misery (in China, for example) The act of buying something made in a third world country greatly reduces the misery (by providing a job and an income to a person). Btw, people in China have a pretty good lifestyle when compared to other people in third world countries - all thanks to Americans buying their stuff.

Oh yeah? tell it to ones who immigrate from China to Kazakhstan for example: Kazakhstan has very limited trade with USA, but quality of live is much, much higher than Chinese.

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#54

Post by dgordon »

ilkhd2 wrote: post #51
AlisdairO wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some seriously bad logic. The fact that cheap implies misery does not mean that misery implies cheap. People aren't buying the product for the misery, they're buying it for the price. Adding misery without affecting the price will not make people any more likely to buy your product.

Yes, you sound like Nazi's on Nuremberg process - "we just executed orders". And that is true: the did not care about people whom the tortured. In fact the would in other circumstances be friendly and polite to them. Yet they really-really needed their salaries or premiums or move up on their military ladder or other stuff.

So if people didn't buy stuff from these miserable countries the people there would be better off? Absolutely wrong. Typically their other choices are subsistence farming, prostitution, or selling children into same.

Also, I'm amazed that you tried to equate economic decisions to the acts of torture and mass murder committed by the Nazis. There ought to be a law about that sort of thing. ;-)

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#55

Post by whughes »

ilkhd2 wrote: post #47
w00pla wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair trade is a first World scam. What fair trade does is mandate the price of certain commodities. This in effect negates the biggest advantage of developing countries (cheap labour) and allows the products to be manufactured in developed countries at a "fair" price. Fair trade, along with agricultural subsidization is some of the most evil things that developed countries do.

Do not like it - do not buy, goddamnit. If you think that people who buy Fair Trade are stupid - no we are not, and we are doing for a reason - we do not feel good when consume something made by slaves. You can still shop for "free trade" stuff, nobody prevents you from doing that.

He didn't say you were just stupid, or that you were wasting your money. He said fair trade was evil. That means it's not so easy as saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it." Ignoring evil is not good, even if other people are doing the evil. "If you don't like murder, don't murder people" won't stop other people from committing murders. You're free to have your own opinion on whether fair trade actually is evil, but please address his point rather than ignoring it.

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#56

Post by whughes »

ilkhd2 wrote: post #53
w00pla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) People in USA/Canada/Other western world are _addicted_ to products made in misery (in China, for example) The act of buying something made in a third world country greatly reduces the misery (by providing a job and an income to a person). Btw, people in China have a pretty good lifestyle when compared to other people in third world countries - all thanks to Americans buying their stuff.

Oh yeah? tell it to ones who immigrate from China to Kazakhstan for example: Kazakhstan has very limited trade with USA, but quality of live is much, much higher than Chinese.

Of course. Kazakhstan is not a third-world country. It's a former Soviet republic, an oiled country, and basically a Russian satellite.

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#57

Post by ilkhd2 »

hugh_ wrote: post #38
alxp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans aren't as ignorant as you think, everyone has now seen images of sweat shops and knows if you ask them that manufacturing conditions for the things they buy at Wal Mart are awful. However, they continue to buy them, just like an alcoholic continues to drink even though he knows that it's killing him. That's textbook addiction right there.

Not really, it's just damn near impossible to buy anything that isn't made in China or some other crappy dictatorship.

Difficult but not impossible. Amazingly enough, not everything affordable made in misery. LEGO kits for example are mostly made in Europe. Every once in a while you can see inexpensive toys made in Sweden, shirts made in Egypt, platic containers made in Germany, furniture made in Canada, hammers made in Russia, just look at the stickers.

The problem is in my view is not that countries are dictatorships, the problems are: 1. Outsourcing everything to one country creates unhealthy dependence of recipient economy on manufacturer. Well you may say - China depends on USA as much as USA on China - and that will be false - you forgot about a big economy - European Union/Canada. Asymmetry is obvious. 2. Nothing bad in outsourcing some amount of production to poor countries - good way to help them in fact. But if you overstretch then will destroy wellbeing of the citizens of your country, forcing them out of job, and, because poor countries has poor environmental regulations, poison environment of the producer.

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#58

Post by AlisdairO »

ilkhd2 wrote: post #51
AlisdairO wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some seriously bad logic. The fact that cheap implies misery does not mean that misery implies cheap. People aren't buying the product for the misery, they're buying it for the price. Adding misery without affecting the price will not make people any more likely to buy your product.

Yes, you sound like Nazi's on Nuremberg process - "we just executed orders". And that is true: the did not care about people whom the tortured. In fact the would in other circumstances be friendly and polite to them. Yet they really-really needed their salaries or premiums or move up on their military ladder or other stuff.

What utter drivel. I made no comment on the rights or wrongs of the situation: I simply pointed out that your logic was horribly flawed. Which it remains, and no attempts to compare me to a nazi are going to change that.

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#59

Post by eru »

whughes wrote: post #55
ilkhd2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not like it - do not buy, goddamnit. If you think that people who buy Fair Trade are stupid - no we are not, and we are doing for a reason - we do not feel good when consume something made by slaves. You can still shop for "free trade" stuff, nobody prevents you from doing that.

He didn't say you were just stupid, or that you were wasting your money. He said fair trade was evil . That means it's not so easy as saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it." Ignoring evil is not good, even if other people are doing the evil. "If you don't like murder, don't murder people" won't stop other people from committing murders. You're free to have your own opinion on whether fair trade actually is evil,…

With a bit of goodwill, you can read the ilkhd's comment as: If all participants are in there voluntarily, it can't be evil; and you are free to ignore it.

I do not like the `fairtrade' stuff for the same reasons as w00pla, but since nobody's forced to participate (as opposed to agricultural subsidies and tariffs), I do not mind other people engaging in this.

Fair trade is free trade where people in the developed world choose to pay the produces to pay them for certain strange things. E.g. as a fairtrade producer you can not employ day labourers. (At least that's what I heard. But I do not remember the source.) And genetically modified plants are banned, too. (http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/...)

I can image myself paying more for stuff that gets produced in nice working conditions and does not damage the environment. But I'd actually prefer to see more GM and I do not mind day labourers. Perhaps one could create an alternative to `fairtrade' where you can combine your own building blocks of stuff you want to pay extra for?

Re: Swedish startup selling North Korean jeans

#60

Post by eru »

ilkhd2 wrote: post #50
m_eiman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that little thing called "war".

... with Middle East, that already cost 3*10^12 $??

And the US is still doing fine. They can waste a lot more resources before it's going to be as bad as in some other places.
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