Posted on 06/24/2006 1:43:00 PM PDT by wagglebee
Does your kid have an iPod?
Does he or she want one?
Don't even answer that question. Every kid in America either has one or wants one.
The demand for these little devices is amazing – and so is the price, between $200-$300.
"What's wrong with that?" you ask. "Commerce is good for America. It creates jobs and stimulates the economy."
Jobs? Stimulated economy?
Do you know where your iPod was made? Do you know by whom?
The London Sunday Mail wanted to find out. It sent reporters to "iPod City," where most of the Apple music players are made.
"iPod City" is not in the Silicon Valley, by the way. It's not in the USA. It's not in the United Kingdom. It's in Longhua, China.
That's where some 200,000 Chinese laborers work to make those iPods. That's more people than live in the city of Little Rock, Ark., for example.
What are the conditions like? How about the pay?
You might think a high-tech company like Apple might care about such matters. You might think the politically correct geeks who founded the company and run it would want to ensure foreign workers were not being exploited.
Here's what the Sunday Mail found:
The iPod shuffles are made in Suzhou, Shanghai, where workers earn $100 a month. Sounds better doesn't it? Except these laborers must pay for their own food and accommodations – requiring about half their salary.
Remember all this when your kid asks you for an iPod.
And remember it the next time you go shopping at Wal-Mart or some other bargain center where all the goods are made in these virtual Chinese gulags for pay just above slave wages.
And remember that Apple is just one of thousands of companies using Chinese sweatshops like those described here to manufacture expensive goods designed for the Western consumer who remains blissfully ignorant about the conditions that created that product.
Why is it that we don't tolerate the exploitation of workers in our own country but turn a blind eye to exploitation 10 times worse elsewhere?
What is happening to the American conscience and psyche that allows this kind of abuse?
How is it that the U.S. government could continue to encourage the kind of corporate greed that results in manufacturing agreements with the fascists in Beijing?
Why is it that we see no screaming headlines about the conditions of "iPod City" in the U.S. corporate establishment press?
Where is our sense of right and wrong?
Would we have so glibly accepting of imports from Nazi Germany as we are of those made in the virtual slave labor conditions of the so-called "workers paradise" in China?
No, there's a double standard that permits China, a totalitarian socialist country, to get away with abuses that would not be tolerated anywhere else in the world.
Welcome to the New World Order – where we're OK with the worst kind of oppression, as long as we can't see it taking place.
I have mostly classical on my iPod.
Great question, and thank you for asking.
It may have been made in the 4th floor of the factory in China by the same people who made your Mac.
But the point is, I don't blow hot air about such "injustices" while most of the Mac groupies I know do.
This provides me with a nice opportunity to reiterate the point I made last week when the Whole Foods Humane Lobster Policy Press Release was getting rotation: that "social responsibility" is nothing more nor less than a marketing scheme and an attempt to exert political leverage for power and profit, plain and simple, and the joke is on the idealists who buy it to salve their empty souls and dully aching concsiences - the same ones who abort their babies because they're adament about a "woman's right to choose."
Blah diddy blah blah blah -- the modern menu of ideals is about as nutritious as a super sized order of fries.
It's another They-Buy-The-Lie alert.
I, too, have never used an ipod. When I want to save music or sound files from the computer, I download them onto audiocassette tapes.
thank you for the humor.
I'm a right-wing conservative reactionary colonialist who shops (occassionally) at Whole Foods and uses a Mac. Despite their politics, they each sell/make a better product.
The thing I love most about capitalism is choice - sadly, not enough people here understand that basic concept.
Do you want the best product or the cheapest alternative?
Didn't Joseph Farah used to have a brain back in the 90s?
yup. and it's my personal choice, privilege, and conviction to avoid financing hypocrisy if possible, and to penalize it by withholding my money.
and yes, the pickings can be mighty slim.
I share a conviction with Stanley Marcus of wanting the best product available.
My personal view is that you may not understand the workings of most of the companies you frequent.
I bought an 8' Monster cable with a RIGHT-ANGLE mini-plug (very important) from Amazon to connect the MP3 player to the RCA phono jacks in my car's center console.
Learn how to do hi-quality CD rips to MP3. Here's a good place to start:
http://jthz.com/mp3/
http://mp3.radified.com/
You'll pardon me if I reserve the right to be skeptical of the opinions of people who are so quick to jump into someone else's head.
rarely do I find associated with the sort of denial that accompanies hypocrisy in the management of any enterprise, excellence in product or service.
and when I traded stocks for a living (i.e. shares of "companies whose workings I don't understand"), we had a saying: "short fraud." it works.
Like I said, you probably don't understand the workings of most of the companies you frequent.
I spent 20 years in corporate finance and Wall Street roadshows. I'm impressed by little.
1 Yuan (Chinese Money) = $ 0.124961.
You do the Math!
The workers are there for the room and board they get, in addition to the wage.
The police are there to make sure the workers dont steal the ipods.
All I did was show the hypocracy of a big brother computer maker using a tyranical big brother reguime and his commercial that was used to sell it! I understand economics 101, too bad your clueless to hypocracy 102!
Now waiiiiit just a minute... where are the free traders?
Isn't this just good ol' capitalism in action?!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.