On 5/30/2015 8:09 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| Using an inflation calculator, that is equal to about $850 today. We
| really can live better today. We also help the economy in China.
|
Yes and no. It's not all roses. There was a movie
released yesterday documenting the mistreatment
of people in SE Asia that allows us to buy shirts
and pants for less than the cost of the material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGp5_Sfbss
I've also seen documentaries about Apple's exploitation
of people in China, living in dormitories like cattle, with
nets on the windows to prevent suicide. Would you rather
be a poisoned, overworked slave for Apple or live a
subsistence life in the country? I'd prefer the latter.
The workers in China don't know any better. They're
enamored of glitzy materialism.
Another way of looking at that: Would you pay
someone $2/day to paint your house because you
knew they'd accept that pay? How about if the
painter was your friend's kid? Where's the line between
people who are OK to exploit and people who are not?
Many would say that the people in China are lucky to
get $2/day because that's good money for them. It
can certainly be viewed that way, but then why are
they working long hours and trying to jump out of
the dormitory windows if they've hit Easy St.?
Cars are another item that hasn't gone up much
in price. How did that happen? Could it have anything
to do with the decimation of unions in the US?
Your AC is probably not American-made. Most
manufacturing has left the US, while the bought-and-
paid-for Congress greases the wheels for US corporations
to set up factories in 3rd-world countries where they
can ignore human rights and environmental issues.
(I once read that Hewlett Packard had a factory all ready
to open, over the border in Mexico, one week after
NAFTA passed. I wonder how they knew to start work
on it a year or two ahead of time? And now Carly Fiorina
wants to be president. 
So the AC prices may be good for you, but what about
the people who can't get by on two minimum wage jobs?
The one thing that seems to keep going up dramatically
is food. A tomato can cost $5/pound these days, and that's
for the genetically modified ones that are always ketchup
red, always tasteless, always juiceless and will never ripen.
Food from Peru, Chili and Mexico is no cheaper than food
from California. (I wouldn't buy it anyway, even if it were.)
I'd very much like to see an honest documentary about the
agriculture industry in Peru. Maybe it's honest. Maybe it's
US corporate imperialism destroying the culture and
environment of another country. I really have no idea.
What I do know is that they're producing an awfully lot
of food for the US market that didn't used to exist.
I don't mean to criticize you. I just bought some new
shorts last week at Target for next-to-nothing. And I
bought linen-cotton shirts at Sears, made in Bangladesh.
But we shouldn't forget that while we enjoy our good
luck there are millions of poor people supporting our
lifestyle. Anyone who's travelled out of the US should be
aware of that. Most of the world lives *very* poor. If
"Juan Valdez" got a fair price for his coffee then we'd
have to pay a lot more for ours. It's just simple math.
Fortunately for us, or maybe unfortunately, we don't
have to know how Juan Valdez lives in order to enjoy
his coffee. It's the American myth that Herbert Marcuse
so colorfully called the Toilet Assumption: If you don't
see it then it's not there.
A well thought out post, I have to say. It makes a person feel like such
an insignificant speck on the face of the Earth because we don't always
have the choices we want, and while we as individuals have to do the
best we can to take care of ourselves, at times, in the process of doing
that we end up having to buy our "stuff" from countries who practically
have slave labor wages. The label may say "made in Bangladesh", but who
really knows when they buy such a product if that's a good or bad thing?
Even if we did know what it meant, we still have to make our dollars
scream.
--
rebel