Keep on striking! Walmart workers...

I am so glad to see that Walmart workers are finally taking some nationwide action against their employer. 

The attitude of most employers in America today has become like this:  "Well, you are very lucky to have a job right now, so many people are out of work, so you won't mind if I defecate on your head.  Please bow your head to the ground, while I pull down my pants."

Walmart is notorious for treating its employees in such a fashion and underpaying them.  Walmart's everyday values come at a great price to its workers.  I try to avoid shopping there. I prefer shopping at Target which has a slightly better reputation.  Sometimes you really don't have a choice because your wages are stagnant, and discount stores are usually very convenient and have the best prices, what can you do?

I got a kick out this Jibjab animated video called "Big Box Mart" which sums the situation at Walmart and how the powers-that-be are purposely driving the United States into the ground.  And it does a great job of explaining our current predicament in under three minutes to the tune of "Oh, Suzanna."

Please check it out here:  

http://www.jibjab.com/originals/big_box_mart

It is time that Walmart workers unionize at fight for better wages and working conditions.  And if this eliminates Walmart's competitive edge in the market that's too bad.  Maybe it will make it easier for smaller retailers to compete.  Markets do best when there is competition, right?

Made in China: You get what you pay for

During my childhood when the term "Made in Japan" went from being synonymous with cheap imitation to being synonymous with a quality product, I was thrilled. I had grown up loving Japanese monster movies and anime. These were the people after my own heart, and I felt they deserved to become the successes they were because to me their pop culture was much more interesting than American pop culture. Perhaps a silly reason to be rooting for them, but I was rooting for them.

While all of this was going on I think the powers-that-be, evil people who control the means of production in the West, started to rub their greedy hands together and say if the little island nation of Japan can go from zero to manufacturing whizzes in a matter of years, then their Chinese cousins on the verge of numbering in the billions could do so also. And they can do so in a lot cheaper fashion because there are so many of them. So many workers will mean millions upon millions of people willing to manufacture things at minimal cost.

This came to pass in the 1990's and the early 21st Century. And now we get tons and tons of cheap manufactured goods from China. But they are not only cheap in price, they are also cheap in quality. But I think for many Americans, it doesn't matter, one TV breaks go out an buy another one. This is the dream for those who profit from a consumer driven economy. The consumer driven economy requires that people keep consuming and this new model of consumerism made possible by cheap labor and production costs.

I am also noticing that China is becoming the clothing manufacturer of choice for many name brands on both the higher and lower end of things. And from my personal experience I do not think it is a good thing. A couple of years ago I had bought this one Stratford dress shirt from JC Penny because JC Penny marketed it as a very durable product. And it was. It was made in Vietnam and it was a great deal for the price, I still wear it on a regular basis to this day. When I went back a year later to buy another shirt, I had found that they had changed their manufacturing to China, but I gave it try expecting the same quality. Unfortunately the "made in China" version did not really live up to the quality of the Vietnam shirt. While it has held together OK, the fabric has become pilled. It is also a lot thinner fabric than the Vietnam shirt. I feel that this was sort of a bait and switch on the part of JC Penny, but I guess they are just trying to keep the price down, which is OK if the quality doesn't go down with it.

I had a similar experience with a Tommy Hilfiger rugby shirt that I bought a few years ago. It was made in Sri Lanka, and it was terrific, very durable and comfortable. And again I went back to the outlet store where I bought it with the intention of buying several more like it. Unfortunately, Hilfiger also switched to China as its manufacturer. The new line of rugby shirts appeared to be so poor in quality, I just walked out of the store disappointed.

Also for electronics, I am only buying products made in Korea as they seem to get the whole quality over cheapness thing that Japan had gotten for while. Nowadays Japanese have also seemed to have outsourced their electronics manufacturing to China with the same poor quality results.

But as long as people keep buying, I guess manufacturers don't care. I would say that we should not buy products made in China just based on the poor quality issue, but sometimes I realize you don't even have a choice. I can no longer find headphones made anywhere other than China, perhaps in the $100 range, but who wants to pay that much for headphones. Therefore, I can totally understand the lure of cheap Chinese goods. Of course the government could add tariffs to Chinese goods to make them less appealing, but why would they do that? It would be nice to see made in America once in a while as well, but without an attempt to balance trade this will never happen. The corporations rule and plutocracy will prevail as the middle class are crushed under a pile of broken consumer electronics made in China.