AZ Nomad wrote:
On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:13:56 -0500, Percival P. Cassidy
wrote:
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.
Great for business too! Run any process you want, put the waste in
the river. Don't worry about the worker's safety. Worker's get
sick or killed? Just replace them! Take advantage of cheap
electricity from
the nearby coal plant running without scrubbers or any of that other
costly ****.
Yes, you are right. This was the case, is the case but less likely to be the
case in the future. There is a lag phase between planning and completing
construction.
Several years back, I worked in Beijing helping to advise their city
engineers and consultants on infrastructure, water and wastewater, required
for the Olympics and beyond. At that time I was concerned about the limited
environmental and quality control being undertaken.
I recall giving a presentation to the senior staff which I ended by
emphasising the need for environmental and quality control and evidence of
monitoring. I was concerned that a key recommendation that I gave might be
ignored. My last slide in the presentation reminded them that China was now
part of the international market and that Walmart was opening a new store in
the city that weekend. They would demand evidence of consistent quality of
product.
Three years later, I was invited to give a presentation at an international
conference in Hangzhou where I met up purely by coincidence(?) with a US
consultant who had been appointed to take the work forward from my report.
His solution differed from mine but had a similar impact upon the
environment.
Pollution of rivers causing contamination of drinking water, (especially
when it affected international neighbours), contamination of milk products
with melamine and production of plasterboard destined for international
markets is having an impact upon future developments. But, don't expect
these initiatives to happen overnight!