DIYbanter - View Single Post - "Brick by brick, American business loses edge"

Percival P. Cassidy

On 02/18/10 02:08 pm, wrote:

BTW. Two very expensive and 'not cheap place' to do business, with
high salaries and extensive taxation to pay for various services
funded by their governments are Japan and Germany.
A fact that undercuts the 'cheap labour' (people working for one
dollar an hour etc.) argument that can be applied to goods from some
areas of the world.

Nobody is outsourcing to Japan or Germany. Japanese and German goods
are hardly cheap or of questionable quality. Japan and Germany are not
the "problem," and in fact they're in the same boat as the US.

In Sri lanka, say, where the women who pick tea earn less than two
dollars and day and that only when they actually work. Or Haiti where
there is little work and people try to live on a dollar a day or less!

Which would be a travesty if Sri Lanka and Haiti had the same standard
of living, the same costs of goods and services as the United States.

Fact of the matter is, if you're "only" earning a dollar a day in
Haiti, you're Mr. Gotrocks.

These Chinese people that are "only" earning a few dollars a day...
It's more money than they had before! For them it's a living wage,
with some disposable income to boot! Cell phones, digital cameras,
blue jeans and sneakers... They can afford that stuff now.

Especially when they don't have to buy health insurance as well.

Perce