The People's Republic of Capitalism

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/koppel/highlights/highlights.html

Anyone catch this tonight? What were your thoughts? All I can say now is I don't ever want to shop at Wal-Mart again...made baby jebus cry

 

Didn't see the show. Don't want to read the 6 page story.

Can you summarize?

I think Wal-Mart kicks ass.

 

Bascially it's a 4 hour show (broken into 1 hour segments) that shows how the US and China are becoming dependent on each other in the business world. It seemed interesting enough for me to DVR it, since I'm curious and love the Discovery Channel.

The thing about WalMart that seemed to be sickening is how they are using China to make cheap crap for us, at cheap prices, and sending good stuff there to have China's new up and coming middle class get all of this great American stuff.

Meanwhile, while people are loosing jobs to China, face unemployement, they are forced to go to places that have cheap stuff, ie, Wal-Mart...continuing the cycle, perpetuating it even further.

Not everything in Wal-Mart is made in China (obviously) but it just seems a bit crappy IMHO.

[patiently waits for Evan! to see this thread and chime in]

 

I dont like wal-marx because of there labor practices. A long standing history of unfair labor practices and intimidation of the employees.

 

im watching it now. and i can say some of those things going on in china isnt the scariest. its the off shoring our communications jobs to India Argentina Philippines and i am sure it will head on over to other nations. ever try to get your dsl fixed? your talking to ann in india allot of times. verizon dsl just built a huge center in india. level3 has one there verizon business is in argentina and philippines. and they have access to the networks

but i was watching this and they talked about some girl making 20 bucks an hour in QA for ethen allen? no wonder the jobs are going over sea's we are pricing ourselves out of jobs by demanding more and more money. which just causes prices to go up which causes us to want to buy cheaper items and the items being moved to over sea's production causing job losses in the states

 

I think it is awesome that I can buy inexpensive, you'd say cheap, products at the Wal-Mart. If I want something of higher quality I can go elsewhere.

With regard to the reason why a product made in China is less expensive the answer is simple; labor costs. Most of the Chinese population lives well below what we consider the "poverty line." It is not uncommon for a factory applicant to stand in line for days to obtain a position as a low level laborer.

Why would they do it? Because what we consider a ****ty factory job is much better than trying to stay alive off of what you can grow in your village. This is of course, a simplified analogy but it makes the point.

With today's global economy this trend will continue. We are no where near an equilibrium.

Is the US losing jobs to China? Absolutely.

Does a person born in Topeka have the right to a better life than a person born in Xi-an? Absolutely not.

Nationalism is just another form of prejudice.

 

I have heard this before. But the only labor complaints I have ever seen come from labor unions, and Wal-Mart is none union. My wife works at Sam's Club, and I think they treat their employees fairly. Granted this is just one store in one city, but I would still take with a grain of salt a labor unions complaint about a none union company.

 

At least the right of the Topekan to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness is protected here in the USA. The baby in Xi-an is not so fortunate.

 

Watch this:

http://www.hahahaamerica.com/HaHaHaAmerica.mp4

Makes you think.

Its long, but if you make it through the first couple minutes you will get the gist of it.

 

I did not see any of the sh!tholes I have seen in communist china before.

Typical communist propaganda. The little a-hole who made that would jump at an opportunity to come to America.

Oh yeah, gotta love their smog. We should send AlGore over there to sell some carbon credits.

 

I haven't set foot in Wally World in about 5 years and I don't plan to anytime soon.

 

Holy raging lunatics.. Evan! still hasn't found this thread?

I'm going to subscribe and get my popcorn ready.

 

Yeah, I am not disagreeing with the fact that it looks disgusting over there. The polution has to be causing health problems. I just thought the part about how king george has created more jobs and wealth in China than the US was very telling.

 

I haven't seen it so I can't really speak to it, but I will second what Arturo said. Complaining that people in the US are losing jobs while people in China are gaining them is, as I see it, no different than complaining because white people are losing their jobs to black people. Would you ever think of saying such a thing? Of course not. But jerkasses like Lou Dobbs think that the boundaries of Sovereign Statehood give them license to be a racist.

I don't support a lot of what Wal*Mart does (like how it blackmails local community governments into giving them special favors and tax breaks because of the jobs they'll bring in). But giving extremely poor people in another country isn't something I fault them on, even if it comes at the expense of workers here. Yes, it sucks to lose your job (THEY TK RRR JRBBBSSS!), like Arturo said, someone in Kansas doesn't "deserve" that job any more or less than someone in China.

Anyway, I'll DVR it (if it comes on again) and check it out and let you know what I think.

 

I have said it before, and I'll say it again. I'd rather support my local economy then shop at a big box store.
We kept Walmat out of our corner of VT, and we got the Home Depot to leave.

 

The people who complain about capitalism have no idea how it works and what the alternatives are. We've become dependent on cheap gadgets and cheap oil. If you think we could close our borders and fend for ourselves, both in goods and labor, you should think about taking economics at community college. Your iPod just went up to $1000.

 

^^^^^ Agree


I think its funny that most Americans will bash big business, but at the same time whine about how prices are going up...

 

And your Ranco controller too! No more carboys either.

 

I lived in China for 8 years and this reads like a native English speaker trying to write Chinglish. Also the domain name is registered to some dude in CA.

 

Walmart gets the bashing now, because they are everywhere. When I was growing up in Northern Michigan years ago the only big store around was K-Mart. Guess what most of the products there said on the back? Made in China.

Some people think that Target is a step above Walmart, but pick up a product in Target and what will it typically say on the back.... Made in China.

A big percentage of the [email protected] we use everyday has been Made in China, Taiwan, India, etc... for most of my life that I can remember. It's not like this is something new.

 

This relates as well to agriculture and immigrant workers in the U.S. and why I get so frustrated when some people think we can just deport all the illegal immigrants and everything will be great because we no longer support them through public services. People have no idea how much produce would cost if we lost all the migrant agricultural workers. I'm not calling for amnesty or complete eviction, just for people to have some common sense about how our system works before they complain about the "financial burdens" caused by illegal immigrants in this country.

 

Oh noes, please, don't turn this into another immigration thread. No good can come of that.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to get into the immigration thing, just commenting in general about the "they stole our jobs" theme, and how people don't understand that most of our cheap goods and services are provided by non-US citizens.

 

I know, it's cool, I get your point, but if this thing goes down the immigration road it'll devolve to sh*t in like 10 minutes.

 

I have to agree. Taking all the issues, all these big boxes buy all their crap from the same place (China). They all have roughly the same business model (save Costco). Their workers are all the exact same level of pissed-off-edness. Walmart just does all this more efficiently and with a greater degree of scrutiny. I try to buy from a mom and pop, but if they don't have it, I don't worry about which big box I go to.

On the plus side, I think all this crap will work itself out without Lou Dobbs or trade agreements. The falling price of the dollar coupled with the increasing costs of shipping cheap plastic crap overseas will move more manufacturing back to this country. Already BMW had to open a plant in Spartanburg, SC to make cars because americans can't afford a car made in Germany and shipped here.

 

I did a bad job of summerizing it, but that's 'kinda' the jist. I just found it interesting that it 'appears' to go deeper that what Wally World is doing here in the states to certain communities, etc. Just thought it was an eye opener to more things they are up to...that was all.

Hasn't that factory been open for what seems like eons? It stared as the only place the Z3 was produced...or so I thought when we were there 10ish years ago??