Posted on 07/28/2013 7:34:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Until three years ago I did not believe in magic. But that was before I began investigating how western brands perform a conjuring routine that makes the great Indian rope trick pale in comparison. Now I'm beginning to believe someone has cast a spell over the world's consumers.
This is how it works. Well Known Company makes shiny, pretty things in India or China. The Observer reports that the people making the shiny, pretty things are being paid buttons and, what's more, have been using children's nimble little fingers to put them together. There is much outrage, WKC professes its horror that it has been let down by its supply chain and promises to make everything better. And then nothing happens. WKC keeps making shiny, pretty things and people keep buying them. Because they love them. Because they are cheap. And because they have let themselves be bewitched.
Last week I revealed how poverty wages in India's tea industry fuel a slave trade in teenage girls whose parents cannot afford to keep them. Tea drinkers were naturally upset. So the ethical bodies that certified Assam tea estates paying a basic 12p an hour were wheeled out to give the impression everything would be made right.
For many consumers, that is enough. They want to feel that they are being ethical. But they don't want to pay more. They are prepared to believe in the brands they love. Companies know this. They know that if they make the right noises about behaving ethically, their customers will turn a blind eye.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Translation:
Admit it: If you aren’t a communist you are a selfish pig.
Zero credibility X 1,000 words = zero credibility X 10,000 words = Zero credibility = written in The Guardian.
I find the guilt laid on here a little thick. In many cases, these are the only jobs available in dirt poor countries, and do provide at least a meager existence to those who work in the trade. I guarantee people living in Ethiopia would jump at the chance if such a factory would open up there.
In reality, the minimum wage laws that this liberal rag supports are what drive manufacturing into the Third World. Guardian is a cesspool of hypocrites.
J Crew which is anything but cheap has it’s clothes made in China.
Yeah it would be so much better if those people in India and China didn’t work at all and starved to death.
could be worse could be our children
I’m playing the smallest violin..and that violin needs small kids to make it.
Unless the author wrote this article completely naked, chances are they were wearing an article of clothing manufactured in an asian sweatshop.
lol
Forty years after the American retreat from Indochina, Vietnamese children make tennis shoes for American children. What a Glorious Victory for Socialism.
Do you insist on buying US made clothes or clothes made in worker friendly factories? I don’t because I know it is a fruitless task.
The poverty wages certainly are less than ideal.
Of course, many Americans and other westerners also make voluntary charitable contributions to help in economic development in poor countries. And even those who don't make voluntary charitable contributions have often made involuntary contributions through taxes and foreign aid.
We could all pay more for our tea. Or, we could stop buying the tea and then the poor families, instead of selling their teenage daughters into low wage situations would sell them into prostitution.
I weave my own cheap underwear out of yak wool.
I make the elastic for the waistband out of old wheelbarrow inner tubes.
No guilt here!
In America children worked on the farm and didn’t get paid at all. When they were old enough they even went to school! They worked for their room and board.
Things are the same in all countries. The difference is what the children are being hired for. Family farm or someone else’s industry. It builds a back bone, keeps them off the streets.
You nailed it.
Was my post ambiguous? The author is a commie.
>> buying US made clothes or clothes made in worker friendly factories?
Where do you find those, anyway? At the farmer’s market, right behind the unicorn milk booth?
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