Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
I guess full on slave labor as described by that site likely doesn't have too much to do with trade imbalance, but very low wages and living conditions do. I know different places have different economies so $7 an hour in the US is not even minimum wage, but in some countries it would be like making six figures in the US. To me just as big of a problem are those companies that are exploiting needy, under-educated people. There are tons of companies all over the world that exist in places where jobs are hard to come by and poverty is rampant. People will put up with a lot and work for next to nothing when they are desperate.
I do see a difference between working at Walmart or McDonald's for minimum wage and working in a sweatshop in Indonesia. Here you have options and if you are willing to work you can get an education and get a better job. In those other places, that may not be an option. They are working at that wage because that is what they must do to survive and businesses are taking advantage of that. Those millions of people who are working in these sweatshops do attribute to trade imbalances.
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I think most have the mindset of 20 years ago for China. It's not the same now, with exceptions.
I have watched plenty of interviews and reports of the Chinese worker, and can say that there is a big gap between the 'have' and have-nots' but it does not look much different than the early Japanese Industrial revolution. But we are dealing with 100x the people.
But I'm not going to blame China for corporate greed. It's because of that, this bad play was allowed to happen and strengthen in the first place. They care about nothing but the bottom line 'today' and have created this mess and now find it is unfair to them and want the US gov to do something for them.
The free world only has ban stolen IP from being imported. Company's were well aware of the rules when they entered into selling in China and ignored them. Much of it was not stolen as they would have you believe. Not that much of it was not, but they did have agreements and cheated the system to which they entered.
How would you fair with your credit card company if you suddenly did not like the agreements you signed-on for. You agreed to pay the principle back with interest and refuse to pay the interest and they remove it from other accounts. Is that unfair ?
Sometimes there is a price to pay for cheating a agreement you knowingly enter into.
But I do have a say where I spend my money and I vote accordingly with it rather than to tell others how to do their biz. I do not, or resist, spending money where the labor laws have been side-stepped here in the US.
Indonesia is a similar but whole different story. What labor laws exist and seldom enforced with the help of greedy politicians and greedy comany's.
US co's go abroad to bypass rules. And now so many have entered in bad agreements,
why should my tax dollars go to protecting them.
They have made a mess of many 3rd world counties and is why we are viewed poorly in them because the people do not understand the difference between the gov and the co, because in their world, it is one in the same.
Stupid is as stupid does just like credit cards. And the monopolistic strategies of US co's can not play out very well on the world stage. Most of us have been lied to and/or highly mislead about most of this.
And I am not saying China is doing no wrong either.
Greed kills many things. No matter what, you will be paying for it.