Breaking News

http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/opinion/04vogel.html&OQ=_rQ3D1&OP=580129aeQ2FSjGQ3CSXuQ5Bk3uuspSp@@Q2BSQ27@S@1SuQ7CQ5DQ2AQ5DuQ2AS@1.u6GrQ60Rsyr

This editorial in the NYT talks about how it is actually Deng Xiaoping, not Mao Zedong, who is truly celebrated in China. Mao zedong brought on mass starvation, but Deng Xiaoping was clever enough to install capitalism but call it communism and make sure it was “Chinese”.

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE5450YY20090506

WalMart, the world’s largest retail store, now has shops in China ans is planning on expanding. An unnamed company source who was quoted by Chinese media said Wal-Mart plans to open 100 of the convenience stores across China this year and 1,000 in five years. This is a smart move for China as it not only opens a new market, but also helps provide retail intelligence so they can get more data for their master plans. This will undoubtedly bring many jobs and much wealth to China.

http://www.chinatechnews.com/2009/02/18/8873-eicc-will-investigate-technology-sweatshops-in-china

A specific sweatshop, Meitai, is deceiving its workers by paying them less than promised, which is unacceptable. Workers need to count their paychecks or get the police involved or something. It’s almost unthinkable to imagine people getting paid less than promised. This company purportedly overworks its employees but this shouldn’t be too much of a problem since we’ll have robots that do it all sooner or later… maybe.

http://www.senser.com/biii-6.htm

This webpage talks about how idiots like kathie lee gifford think they are helping by supporting the elimination of labor from one of their sweatshops (hers was in honduras) but then it just get shifted over to another sweatshop. I will be investigating this more, because it sounds like BS.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Powellsweatshops.html

Yeah I was right. You can’t argue with economics. This page talks about how those poor little kids working in sweatshops in Honduras were doing very well compared to most Hondurans, by some estimates making 50% above the national average. Sweatshops should be heralded as the coming of civilization, not some plague that makes people worse off. Sweatshops improve lives.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Powellsweatshops.html

I’m using the same site again because there’s a lot to cover here, but another argument made is simply: “what are these kid’s alternatives to sweatshop labor”? It’s not like they can choose between working in a sweatshop and working in an ice cream shop. It’s sweatshop labor, intense farm work (10-14 hours a day under blazing hot sun or pouring rain doing backbreaking work), prostitution, or even simply starvation. An excerpt from the page: “Wendy Diaz’s message should have been, “Don’t cry for me, Kathy Lee. Cry for the Hondurans not fortunate enough to work for you.” Instead the U.S. media compared $3.10 per day to U.S. alternatives, not Honduran alternatives. But U.S. alternatives are irrelevant. No one is offering these workers green cards. Because working in these factories provides workers with more than twice the average income of a person in the country, reform efforts must absolutely not jeopardize any new jobs they create there. This would be akin to shutting down Red Cross because a few of it’s members were involved in some kind of scandal…

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Powellsweatshops.html

Now to focus on the proposed “alternatives” to sweatshops that various well-meaning people have set out and why they probably won’t work: the first is banning importation of goods produced in sweatshop conditions. This will allegedly reduce demand by destroying the market for this labor. What these proposals actually are are ways for US-centric organizations to increase union wages at the expense of those in true poverty. Employers trying to meet health and safety standards will increase these standards at the expense of their worker’s wages, or just lay workers off. These politicians pretend to be workers friends, but nobody who plans to get you laid off is really your friend.

http://mises.org/story/2384

This story makes a point which I’ll have to research to backup, but I assume to be true: it’s never the workers in a poor country who protest a new factory showing up; it’s white liberals who think they can run the world and make it better for everybody, and sometimes do, but just as often fail ( my words, not his) he goes on to state some inflammatory topics about unions being pro socialist and anti-capitalist progress… I think I agree but more research is needed here.

http://catdrop.com/

This is exactly what I’m talking about. It is a completely odd example, but a perfect illustration of what irritates me: poorly thought out plans to “help” poor remote villagers that instead end up ruining their livelihood. Throwing in DDT actually ended up killing cats which led to more mice which spread typhus and other plagues. The same situation happens with sweatshops. Some well-meaning dumbass hears that some guy named Pablo in Honduras is making less money per capita than an american in the same situation by working in a sweatshop (regardless of the fact that he is making fantastic money compared to his countrymen stuck harvesting sugarcane 14 hours a day) and decides that evil sweatshops are the cause. He successfully campaigns to have the sweatshop down, not realizing he just put Pablo out on the street. The well-meaning idiot then pats himself on the back, congratulating himself on making the world a little bit of better place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop#Decent_Working_Conditions_and_Fair_Competition_Act

Ohboyohboyohboy. Here’s an interesting example of  a wolf in lamb’s clothing. This bill, which surprisingly didn’t pass, considering it’s complete idiocy (yeah I don’t really trust politicians…) would have made it an FTC offense to purchase goods made from sweatshop labor, ostensibly to help prevent human rights infringements that were likely to occur. (You can just imagine the result: the bill would save 10 or 20 workers from being beaten or abused and put 30,000 out of jobs, 500 of which would then starve to death. Good job, Senators Dorgan and Brown!” But take a look at the second half of the name: not just “decent working conditions” but also “fair labor standards” this is a term trumpeted around by Unions whose argument is basically that they cannot (or more likely, do not want to) compete with workers in other countries, who would work harder, for longer hours, and for less pay, and thus want their current cushy jobs protected by law. The two things in the name of the bill are complete opposites! I will address union work in a later post on my main page.