A person can't live on 25 cents an hour.

[.... callchet ....]

I don't hear about mass starvation or any other low standards of living in China. How do they do it? How do they make things so cheap?

[ogneopasno]

1. You don't hear about low standards of living in China?

Oftentimes, in a factory situation, there is a cafeteria and dormitory by the factory -- room and board comes out of the wage. 12-14 hour days, six or seven days a week. No rights to organize, talk to outsiders, and so on. So no, maybe you're not starving. But yes, that's a low standard of living.

[Zuni]

2. read about the pollution in China. it is horrific

I recently read a book and it said the air was so foul that you could not even imagine it. Much of the freshwater in China is not even safe for industrial use.

[DrDan]

3. oh I don't know - that would be a Burger King Jr Cheeseburger every 4 hours

[.... callchet ....]

4. Is there anyway that the USA can ever compete?

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

7. Without repealing many, many laws? No.

It's simply not possible. Even if our government were to pump massive subsidized into our heavy manufacturing sector the way China does, we'd still have more expensive labor and materials and a higher cost of production than any plant in China.

I read your other post about abandoning heavy manufacture to China/India, and I agree with it in part - as things are done now we just can't compete. That doesn't mean that there's not another way to do business or make things. Of course, that will require some innovation on our part.

[.... callchet ....]

9. New goal. Find a job for the USA.

I saw an add for a small dirt auger that is used in the garden. Buy the dirt auger for $29 and they throw in a battery powered drill for the same price. There is no way to ever compete with that. Ever. There has to be a new direction for the USA to survive. No stimulus package is designed for new solutions. The situation is more foreboding than I had previously thought.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

14. Yeah, I'd endorese that as well

except I think we need a small, nationalized manufacture sector to deal with some military contracts.

[NMDemDist2]

19. the problem is the auger will break on the first rock and the drill won't last a week

after you buy one, you'll be looking for a decent auger that will work for the whole season, year after year from a country that makes quality products

sadly, by the time we realize it, all our manufacturing jobs will be gone

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

5. A combination of horrifying living conditions and a quarter having more buying power there. nt

[.... callchet ....]

8. I am thinking that there is no way the USA can compete, ever.

The goal is now to find a new product ( energy, scienece or what ever to compete ). Is there a solution ? Total isolationism and abolish all debt ?

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

15. We're good at education, we're good at financial services (ironically), and we make lots of food.

I think a good way for our country to go would to become an energy broker to rival OPEC. We have coal now, but it might be possible to export green energy/technologies and fuel an economy with it.

[bunnies]

6. See this documentary -------------->

Mardi Gras: Made in China
http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com/news.html

[AndyTiedye]

10. Bogus Exchange Rates

[madrchsod]

11. my mircoshit keyboard ,dell , hp keyboards-

the workers take home wage is 41ct per hour......

http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=613#wages

everyone pays the price.

[HamdenRice]

12. I used to travel in China a lot, and it's not hard to understand

The international conversion of currency and local labor rates makes comparisons somewhat unrealistic. You have to look at this in the context of everyone having lower wages and all costs being lower.

I used to get away from the business hotel and buy lunch at a regular workers' restaurant, where you could get a full course meal of stir fried vegetables and meat for about 25 cents. (Imagine what it cost to eat at home.) Housing was mostly government owned and cheap. Most people live with their families and pool their resources, and everyone saves almost every penny not needed for expenditure. Even poor people save around $1000 per year and have many thousands of dollars saved.

Most Americans don't realize that outside of places like Beijing and Shanghai, most of China looks and feels more like Africa than America or Europe (but an Africa without wars and with a lot of stable agriculture).

So one of the underlying factors of our credit crisis and bubble is that poor farmers in China were supporting (via international lending) Americans purchasing McMansions in brand new suburbs they couldn't afford.

[.... callchet ....]

13. Still can't figure it out.

If they make .25 an hour that is 2.5 dollars a day. If they work 7 days a week. That is $912.50 a year. If they save a thousand a year, something else must be going on. I think one of the main reasons for cheap labor must be like the dorms and cities built to supply labor with raw materials on th spot.

[tosh]

16. This is why we have the proliferation of Chinese fast-food joints

around my region. The owner/operator of one near me sends $2000 US to home to her parents in China EACH WEEK via Western Union.

[Warpy]

18. Thanks for pointing out the currency difference

that makes their labor seem so much cheaper. That's really what's at work in much of the third world, people being paid in a currency that is cheap in terms of dollars but which supports them at home.

Still, many workers in China in "factory towns" live in appalling conditions. Every cent they don't use to keep body and soul together goes back to parents in the countryside.

[Warpy]

17. Piss poor living standards

Housing is dormitory style with three tier bunk beds when they get enough time off to catch some sleep. Food is extremely poor and kitchen and toilet facilities are primitive. The only difference between their living standards and prison labor is that they can quit and go home.

Remember, this is a country where smart young things show off new wealth by going out and smoking up a pack of US made cigarettes.

There is no way a US worker can compete with this, not even living under a bridge. Our food is just too expensive.

That's why we need common sense protectionism for any new industry.