Chinese Capitalism

[W. Gray]

Koppel: People's Republic of Capitalism is a very interesting program that started on the Discovery Channel last night and will continue for three more nights.

Part of the program concerned a Chinese couple buying an upscale American sofa.

They were happy to have the American made sofa in addition to an American made Whirlpool refrigerator they had just purchased. They expected to hand both down to their children.

The sofa was delivered by a Chinese delivery company sending five men in uniforms and white gloves to deliver the one sofa.

The sofa came from a factory in North Carolina.

Cotton from a US cotton processor was sold to China.

Fabrics were then made from that cotton and shipped back across the Pacific to the sofa factory in North Carolina.

Upscale wood trim for the sofa was lathed in China and sent to the same factory.

The sofa was designed and put together by the North Carolina factory and shipped to China, where the couple purchased it from an Ethan Allen store in Chongging, a city of 13 million folks.

The couple paid $2,000 for the sofa.

The point of this segment was that the couple could now afford this type of furniture because they were part of the new capitalism in China.

Another story involved the closing of a Briggs and Stratton engine factory in Rolla Missouri.

The engines are now made in China and shipped back to the US and sell cheaper than they did before.

[Rudy Taylor]

Most of the plywood we purchase in the United States is processed on ships.  The Chinese buy the lumber from Americans, take it a couple hundred miles off shore, make it into plywood then bring it back here and sell it.

[pam]

Isn't that stupid?

[sixdogsmom]

Yup, it sure is!

[W. Gray]

When I was a kid, people were complaining that 4 x 8 sheets of plywood was a cheaply made sheathing product and would never ever replace the board-by-board 1 x 12 diagonal sheathing construction of the time.

Turned out that for sheathing it was stronger than board-by-board, lighter, cheaper, and allowed for faster construction.

Nowadays most projects cannot afford plywood going instead for the manmade by product and glue stuff.

At any rate, people want something, including plywood, for the least possible cost whether it is made in the U.S., on a ship in international waters, or in the heart of China.

[frawin]

The Chinese are our biggest suppliers because they work for 1/30th of the wage that our people do, they don't have labor unions to force the wages higher and higher. The result of demand for cheaper plywood, clothing, furniture and almost everything else in our society is higher unemployment and higher fuel costs, China and India now buy up all of the excess cargoes of oil everyday.
Frank

[twirldoggy]

It is very interesting to think of the cotton being produced in the US, then shipped to China.  Fabric then being shpped tp the US.  It speaks of a larger issue that experts at producing certain items exist iaround the world and that certain economic factors generate the shipping off to far away places.  Another rtelated issue is the development of Chinese culture and the wealth of some in that culture that they want good pieces of American goods and that they want a life that is similar to ours. 

[Rudy Taylor]

Stop the world!

I want off!!

[W. Gray]

The manager operating the cotton processing plant said that his company no longer had an American market.

His company processes and presses cotton into huge bales.

All of the company's cotton bales are shipped overseas.

[pam]

until we start producin our own again it's not gonna get any better. I've never belonged to a union but the original idea behind them was good. You want to pay me chinese wages charge me chinese prices.