Too happy., I can directly access the community!

[byo]

It's already started here in Australia with regard to children's toys. It's been discovered that a lot of Chinese-made toys have lead in the paint, and there have been massive recalls in place for the last few months. People are avoiding Chinese-made toys in droves now.

But it's always been like that, hasn't it?

Well, at least here in Brazil we can find (since the 90's) lots of imported fake stuff from China or bad quality products. I'm not saying China just sells that (I have some components/products made in China which are really good value).

But we tend to associate Chinese products (especially electronic stuff) with cheap and easily breakable/bad quality.

[hardfalcon]

It's our very own fault that some chinese products we import are not exactly what you would call "healthy". As long as the mainstream in the wealthy countries around the world keep to their absolutely foolish "I'll turn off my brain if the price is low enough" attitude, you can't expect to get high-quality stuff. Amazingly, those who helped most turning China into a sweatshop of the western industry nations are those who are now complaining most about the consequences. Even more astonishing, these fools still haven't learned that they need to change their consuming behaviour if they want better quality. But after all, what can you expect of people you even lack the brains to get the meaning of the saying "You only get what you pay for". They pay crap prices, to they get crap stuff, it's just as simple as that. I you want to change that, change change your consumer attitude.

As far as the US citizens are concerned: you don't have to visit China to see a sweatshop. Just have a visit to the other side of the Mexican border. If that's too far, you could also have a trip to any Californian fruit farm, and ask the (illegal) immigrant workers there, what sacrifices they have to make to lower the price of your can of pineapple rings...

[byo]

Interesting read.

But this is not just a matter of changing people's minds.
This is how CAPITALISM is.

Competition dictates what VALUE is and for how much.
Unexpensive products attract consumers and that's natural, because we are all overloaded with taxes, fees, etc. and we have not much time to search for the best price, quality, opinions.

I buy what I buy because of demand and lack of time.
I tend to research well what I buy but that's not always the case. Sometimes I need to pick what's around me. Especially in very small towns where people don't know what money or quality really are.

Internet is here to change that a little. Let's see...

.

[DoubleDutch]

Cheap Chinese goods is mainly the fault of the European Union and them ripping up import quotas about 3 years ago. This led the the closing of almost every factory in Europe as it was no holds barred importing from China.

Before this the quota system used to keep things stable and European factories open as it was cost effective. The Chinese factories had to keep up quality otherwise they would sell even less. I have no idea why it was stopped, it's too late to bring it back now as it would be impossible to reopen the factories and the Chinese know it.

[pdwyer]

Cheap Chinese goods is mainly the fault of the European Union

I'm not quite sure I'd go that far.

[byo]

Just remember: cigarettes, drugs, prostitutes, products made in sweat shops will ever exist because there's always a customer. If we don't buy they don't sell.

[Rook Zimbabwe]

There were some pet food recalls but if I recall correctly those were products imported from Canada, not China.

Actually thats how most of the fake products get in to the US, they other way is Mexico... NAFTA baby!

Was it two years ago we siezed 900 palettes of Fake HP Printer cartridges (that would BURN in everyday use?)

And Xerox Inc even bought FAKE parts from its manufacturer in Guangdo... Though they make the real parts too... They didn't switch vendors but if you have a 5500 you had better hope the Charge Roller wasn't made in China.

I have even heard now of FAKE SHOES!!! {shakes head} http://www.onesweetpair.com/fakesinfo.htm

[pdwyer]

I remember a classic one here in Japan.

When there was a mad cow case found a few years back the govt had this buy-back scheme to protect local companies that had lots of stock.

Once local meat packer bought a whole lot of meat cheap from australia and parsed it back to the jp govt as expensive jp beef for the buyback money. tonnes and tonnes of it.

They got caught though and now their name is mud.

[DoubleDutch]

I'm not quite sure I'd go that far.

The whole situation (and past) with China is more complicated than you may first think.

I have an import company, for almost 8 years Double Dutch Designs Ltd has also imported goods from China. The free quota system used to keep things ok, if Chinese goods became too cheap for UK/European manufacturers to compete then the free quota was lowered and less goods could be imported the following year, if they kept prices higher and paid proper wages then free quota was increased. A company could only import it's free allowance (slice of the cake) each year and no more without paying huge taxes to make it unprofitable. The system kept EU (inc. UK) manufacturing alive - it could not possibly compete with China. Greedy big "buying" companies didn't like it and put pressure on various EU officials to increase limits or get rid of the free system altogether - allowing unlimited but slightly taxed imports.

Anyhow, eventually the free quota system was scrapped about 3 years ago by the EU. The UK DTI didn't want to get rid of it, but it had to because of the UK commitment to the EU policies. Imagine how many manufacturers left the EU to create factories in China over the last 3 years, I don't think there is one left now?

Makes you think who is running the Asylum?

The good ol' USA still has a quota system for China (I think they saw trouble brewing or they simply just don't like China), but because goods can come in through the "backdoor" of Europe (making a few people in the EU *very* rich) the only thing it can do to stop it all is introduce a quota system against Europe - which it cannot do without causing chaos. Now there is also a new South American alliance being introduced to compete with China (possibly part of an effort to destabilize China - who knows?), this will drive prices even lower and risk of lower quality higher.

I don't blame the actual Chinese. It's not good for the Chinese people who find the whole population in some areas working for a single factory for 18 hours a day for virtually no wages. It's almost slave labour.

[pdwyer]

I didn't mean to say that what you said has not had some impact but these issues go back further and in many ways are culture related.

I don't know how much interaction you've had with the chinese on a personal level but you will find they have a rather special relationship with money and business that despite their communist govenment makes them much more capitalistic and Entrepreneurial than even the Americans.

Thats a generalism of course though.

[DoubleDutch]

It's pretty strange, buy most of the (male) Chinese people I know personally are obsessive about gambling, not so much the money - it's the actual gambling. The girls don't seem interested in gambling at all.

[Rook Zimbabwe]

I should not speak for my wife here... but I had to pry her off the slot machines last time we were in Vegas.

Her ex is in big debt to the Chinese Mafia...

Her brother dreams of buying a HUmmer, though he has no place to park it at any 1 of his 5 apartments.

He buys the apartments because they are cheap and I keep tellin him to sell now!!!

For a real ride look at the chinese stock market! Stocks go on sale as an initial IPO and start trading at 6.00 US, by the end of the day they are at 12.00 to 23.00 US

Paper value... Her family thinks thats what you have to do to make money.

Pyramid schemes would work extremely well in China... what happened to AmWay?

[hardfalcon]

I don't blame the actual Chinese. It's not good for the Chinese people who find the whole population in some areas working for a single factory for 18 hours a day for virtually no wages. It's almost slave labour.

If that's 'almost slave labour' for you, I don't want to know what you call 'real slave labour'...
The EU would be a great thing, but it lacks the possibility to kick foolish politicians in the ass, when they start getting too politicious... :roll:

[Psychophanta]

This thread has been moved to Anouncements
And it is shown with only 1 reply
Anyone knows why?
Mystic

[blueznl]

Cheap Chinese goods is mainly the fault of the European Union and them ripping up import quotas about 3 years ago. This led the the closing of almost every factory in Europe as it was no holds barred importing from China.

Mmm.

DoubleDutch must live in that one specific country where they have the biggest uneven trade balance in the world, the same one that did not sign any environmental contracts, accepts B-grade actors as presidents, and manages to get into fights they can't win.

But then again, it gave us McDonalds, the Chevrolet Corvette, Ben & Jerry's, CNN and MythBusters on DiscoveryChannel, so not all is bad...

(Blaming Europe for such a thing as this is utterly bull. Get real. Europe is not even a single country. It's like: all Americans are stupid and fat. I'm not saying that is the case (I mean, the Mexicans would object but it's generalising in no small way, and may be more wrong than you can imagine.)