[Taliesan]

I always wonder when people respond to a simple question with pages and pages of data. I think their minds get entranced by quantities of free-association.

Pick one Fortune 500 company. Tell me what part of their profits are from slave labor. You may THINK some of them are; how much do you KNOW?

I will vote with you today to outlaw American companies using slave labor. Which ones are doing it, and how much money is involved?

Truth is, this whole outsourcing argument is not about slave labor. I'm sure some exists. But the argument is about cheap labor. The whole slave labor thing gets thrown in to create moral drama.

[hedgetrimmer]

Well the article mentioned Chrylser for one.

[hedgetrimmer]

Our imports from China in 1996 totaled over $51 billion. It is impossible to determine how much of that figure came from prison labor facilities.

In 1990, the Chinese Justice Ministry officials gave us conflicting figures ranging from as low as $300 million to as high as $1 billion for the value of goods produced by prison farms and factories

Further clouding the situation are factories that the Chinese tell us are associated with prisons, but do not employ prison labor. These so-called "worker enterprises" employ relatives of prison employees and ex-convicts who remain near the prison after release. We are told that there are about 400,000 workers in such units separate from the prisons. These enterprises are specifically exempted from the government rules banning export of goods from the prison system

Another practice complicating our enforcement efforts is that Chinese manufacturers use a network of middlemen, including trading companies in China and Hong Kong, leaving the source very difficult to trace. Importation documents usually list the names of these trading companies whose representatives heretofore have not been forthcoming in providing information about the manufacturers they represent.


STATEMENT OF GEORGE J. WEISE
COMMISSIONER
UNITED STATES CUSTOMS SERVICE
***

Your question cannot be answered because of the utter treachery that goes along with using slave labor to build products. Because American corporate officers are not held accountable by their shareholders, or the citizens of this country which charter their corporations, the answer will probably never be known.

[the OlLine Rebel]

"The whole slave labor thing gets thrown in to create moral drama."

It's hyperbole - however, the liberals actually believe it. They think any1 working below the (unconstitutional) minimum wage is a slave.