Humanitarian..... Patriot........ Frugal Shopper.

Sadly what you say is very true. And the truth does not even begin to scratch the surface of reality. It is not just North America, I have seen this in most of Asia, Africa, Western Europe and South America as well. The unfortunate thing is that China's manufacturing pre-eminence is a direct consequence of US actions during the Cold War years. The foundations for strategy were laid during the years of US President Johnson and executed brilliantly by Kissinger during the Nixon era. China broke away from the COMECON (Soviet influenced trade bloc) and USA provided a bilateral trade agreement in exchange for a number of things. They opened up US markets (duty free) in exchange for some historical monetary claims, exit from the COMECON and "free investments" for American companies. As they say.. the rest is history. I have written much on this in Redyellow..'s post on the subject. China's inexorable march is on! A billion plus people led by a focused - strategy oriented government. Mao once said a "Revolution is not a tea party" and they are proving that through great Leap Forward. It might interest you to know that the competition is rather intense for those jobs that you refer to - the competition is so intense that there are employment syndicates that actually traffic people to fuel the industrial might of China. Anyone who has read Charles Dickens or understands the dehumanising nature of industrialization can see this sad indictment on the process. China today is the factory for the world. We see this in the statistics of energy consumption, in store shelves - and most importantly in the balance of trade. nuffsed, your post could have made a difference in the mid 1970's when it was still possible to contain the process. Today - it is a fait accompli. Policy makers need to figure out how best to retain the competitive advantage - perhaps food is the only way, since China does not appear to be able to feed itself. Cheers!

I always find this one a little tricky. Of course the labour laws in China fall far short of what we in the West deem acceptable although labour laws do actually exist there - it's the monitoring and enforcement that's a major problem. The big multinationals are keen to avoid associations with sweatshops fearing the backlash of public opinion if they are caught out but it still happens - they are just becoming more adept at covering their tracks. Wherever possible I try to buy fair trade/ethically produced products and I recommend others do the same BUT here's where it gets tricky for me! If we insist on Western working conditions (wages, paid leave, health and safety, etc) being applied to these exporters and the financial incentive for using Chinese labour is removed (which it surely would be) and production is returned to Europe/United States this is of course good news for industry here but what about China? Now I realise what I'm implying by this - better a job that's borderline slavery rather than no job/income at all! That's putting it in very simplistic terms and it pains me to make the suggestion but we need to consider this factor and THAT'S why I find it a tricky issue!

I agree, but here are the forseeable problems with that: 1. When workers complain, the factories shut down and the jobs move to Mexico and/or China 2. This is all part of B&B's nwo plan to kill the middle class and take us all back to the days of the noble and the serfs, i.e. no more middle class to interfere with the elite's plans

That's a fact? Wow.. Well then it explains the economic boom China is experiencing. They're well known to be aggressive and calculative, so it's no wonder that they could achieve a significant economy growth in a short time. I think Western economies which are more profit-driven would not take workers' rights into account when committing a trading relationship with countries that is without labour laws. They simply cannot afford it. It is the question of cost-cutting and huge economic potential that could be tapped that makes boycotting Chinese products simply a move that would be foolish.