How do you feel about buying products made in china, considering....

euser1984

the conditions in which the people that make them work. thanks.

GerardKeating

euser1984 wrote: »

the conditions in which the people that make them work. thanks.

You mean compared to goods make in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand etc?

L1011

I don't see this as a consumer issue. Do you want this moved to politics?

euser1984

m'eh, you know what i mean...

euser1984

whatever you think moderator....

archer22

euser1984 wrote: »

the conditions in which the people that make them work. thanks.

As far as I am aware the vast majority of Chinese workers have reasonably good working conditions.It is after all the world's second largest economy and getting to be quite wealthy.
An example of that being the huge increase in Chinese tourists you now see...and the fact that all nations are trying to get a share of this market, including Ireland.
Its no longer "9 million bicycles in Beijing" more like 9 million Audi's nowadays.

TimeToShine

It is virtually impossible to avoid buying products made in the manufacturing capital of the world that is China.

Skommando

Try finding anything not manufactured in a low wage country. Manufacturing jobs all but vanished from the west years ago.

euser1984

given the fact we live in a consumer society mean individuals should take some responsibility...are you best to not think about it at all?

endacl

Workers get paid very little. On the other hand, if we all stopped buying, they'd be paid nothing at all?

euser1984

if Donald Trump brings manufacturing back to America, will that just make the country uncompetitive?

goz83

euser1984 wrote: »

if Donald Trump brings manufacturing back to America, will that just make the country uncompetitive?

He will just hire a bunch of Chinese to do the manufacturing

cbreeze

Everything that whirrs, bleeps, whistles and buzzes seems to come from China and if its wearable comes from other Asian countries with big populations. But, I got a free biro on the ECB stand at the Ploughing and it was actually made in Switzerland.:D

5rtytry56

OP, where else can I buy a disposable film camera now?

euser1984

yeah but loads of customers are looking to get the cheapest products/ for free if they could; in euro stores....

coylemj

archer22 wrote: »

As far as I am aware the vast majority of Chinese workers have reasonably good working conditions.It is after all the world's second largest economy and getting to be quite wealthy.
An example of that being the huge increase in Chinese tourists you now see...

You're not seriously suggesting that workers who assemble iPhones can afford to take holidays in Europe?

I have no idea what their working conditions are like but as someone else has pointed out, China is not the only low-wage economy where they manufacture clothes, gadgets and other consumer goods for western markets.

archer22 wrote: »

...and the fact that all nations are trying to get a share of this market, including Ireland.
Its no longer "9 million bicycles in Beijing" more like 9 million Audi's nowadays.

They're not quite at that level yet. In the first 10 months of 2016, the UK exported £11 bn worth of goods to China, exports to the Republic of Ireland in the same period amounted to £13.6 bn. That gives you an idea of the relative wealth of Ireland vs. China in terms of consumer spending power.

Relative to the general population, a tiny number of Chinese entrepreneurs are extremely wealthy. The vast majority of the population are involved in subsistence farming or they work for (in European terms) low wages in large industrial cities.

Nody

coylemj wrote: »

You're not seriously suggesting that workers who assemble iPhones can afford to take holidays in Europe?

I have no idea what their working conditions are like but as someone else has pointed out, China is not the only low-wage economy where they manufacture clothes, gadgets and other consumer goods for western markets.

China is not a low wage economy though; that's the part people seem to glance over. China's production costs for factory workers are expected to make it more expensive to produce in China than USA or in some cases already are. What China still do "cheaper" is steel, solar panels etc. due to state aid. Now if you want to talk low cost you'd need to consider Bangladesh and the like where the monthly salary is less than $40 a month to make those clothes, shoes etc. you wear on a daily basis which is less than a tenth of what a Chinese worker would make.

archer22

coylemj wrote: »

You're not seriously suggesting that workers who assemble iPhones can afford to take holidays in Europe?

I have no idea what their working conditions are like but as someone else has pointed out, China is not the only low-wage economy where they manufacture clothes, gadgets and other consumer goods for western markets.



They're not quite at that level yet. In the first 10 months of 2016, the UK exported £11 bn worth of goods to China, exports to the Republic of Ireland in the same period amounted to £13.6 bn. That gives you an idea of the relative wealth of Ireland vs. China in terms of consumer spending power.

Relative to the general population, a tiny number of Chinese entrepreneurs are extremely wealthy. The vast majority of the population are involved in subsistence farming or they work for (in European terms) low wages in large industrial cities.

Your views on China are seriously out of date...about 40 years I would reckon.
All I suggest to you is take a holiday to a Chinese city like Shanghai and you will realise that you are in the heart of a mighty Superpower.
Then when you come back take a look around Dublin and see if you think we are wealthier :eek:...and you certainly wont get a Superpower feeling back here.

Stealthfins

euser1984 wrote:

if Donald Trump brings manufacturing back to America, will that just make the country uncompetitive?

Made im the USA like it or lump it,anything I have with that stamp is top notch....

Made in china,made of china...delicate and rubbish....

My penn 525 mag fishing reels the original is almost bomb proof....

Still have the original,my made in china one is in bits....

archer22

Stealthfins wrote: »

Made im the USA like it or lump it,anything I have with that stamp is top notch....

Made in china,made of china...delicate and rubbish....

My penn 525 mag fishing reels the original is almost bomb proof....

Still have the original,my made in china one is in bits....

When the USA was a major manufacturing nation I bought quite a lot of its products...Some were good quality and some were poor quality.
Now I buy Chinese and some is good quality and some is poor quality.

The only times I ever remember where "Made in" was almost a guarantee of quality was when the last name read "Germany".

Btw what many people don't realise is that it's the western importers who dictate the quality of a lot of the products coming from China...the factories there produce the product to their customers specification

euser1984

if you were looking at this issue from a expert pov; would you be trying to come up with a solution by way of a social issue.

5rtytry56

archer22 wrote: »

Btw what many people don't realise is that it's the western importers who dictate the quality of a lot of the products coming from China...the factories there produce the product to their customers specification

As in the case of 00 scale Model Railway makers, not focusing on any one particular manufacturer

L1011

Not that I've spent the entire Christmas period thinking of this, but I can't decide if this is more a Humanities or Politics Cafe issue. It certainly isn't a consumer issue under the meaning of the forum, though.

coylemj

archer22 wrote: »

Your views on China are seriously out of date...about 40 years I would reckon.
All I suggest to you is take a holiday to a Chinese city like Shanghai and you will realise that you are in the heart of a mighty Superpower.
Then when you come back take a look around Dublin and see if you think we are wealthier :eek:...and you certainly wont get a Superpower feeling back here.

This thread started off discussing working conditions in China, you're pitch is that you can judge the country by traipsing around one of it's biggest cities

Which is like saying that you can judge the working conditions in Sports Direct factories by taking a walk around London.

I don't doubt that China is a superpower, that might have something to do with the fact that there are over a billion people in the country but according to the World Bank, the per capita GDP in China is almost one-eight that of Ireland.

the_syco

euser1984 wrote: »

the conditions in which the people that make them work. thanks.

Fine. Compare their usual 7 day 12 hour week in the rice fields to working in the plant. The pay isn't that much better, but it's generally better conditions.

the_syco

archer22 wrote: »

Then when you come back take a look around Dublin and see if you think we are wealthier :eek:...and you certainly wont get a Superpower feeling back here.

When you look at the ghost cities in China, full of property that people can't afford to rent, and then you look at Irelands ghost estates, and you'll see that "doing it bigger" isn't always a good idea.

eeguy

I suppose like many places the working conditions vary. Plenty of youtube videos of factory conditions and they vary from slums with children sewing shirts on the floor to clean labs and organised assembly lines.

What I will say is the manufacturing skills are mostly gone from the west. If you want something made well and cheap China is the best place to get it made.
Nearly everything is made in China, good and bad.
On the topic of Trump, he may bring manufacturing back from China, but the only jobs it'll create will be for automation, manufacturing and robotics engineers. The days of hundreds of blue collar factory workers are long gone.

This is old enough, but the points are still valid http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/&refURL=https://www.google.ie/&referrer=https://www.google.ie/

lawred2

euser1984 wrote: »

the conditions in which the people that make them work. thanks.

Best of luck trying to live in a Chinese product free bubble

duffman13

archer22 wrote: »

All I suggest to you is take a holiday to a Chinese city like Shanghai and you will realise that you are in the heart of a mighty Superpower.
Then when you come back take a look around Dublin and see if you think we are wealthier :eek:...and you certainly wont get a Superpower feeling back here.

You should take a trip an hour north of Shanghai or any other place outside of the big cities. There is still huge poverty in China and also the workers in manufacturing tend to work in fairly poor conditions. I've seen it first hand and although Shanghai/Beijing/Hong Kong all have huge financial services industries etc the rest of country does not feel like a superpower. Holidays and working conditions for the average chinese worker is pretty poor.

TOss Sweep

Stealthfins wrote: »

Made im the USA like it or lump it,anything I have with that stamp is top notch....

Made in china,made of china...delicate and rubbish....

My penn 525 mag fishing reels the original is almost bomb proof....

Still have the original,my made in china one is in bits....

You do realise that most electronics including the device you are using to post are made in Asia, China especially. In fact the The interior components of the majority of electronic devices are made in China or Asia.

As for stuff built in America. Same as any other country you get some good some bad. My Ford Focus came out of the Detroit plant and was built badly and had major issue. The same Focus that came out of their Mexican plant had a had a lower % of the same issues. Of all of the Focus stock with the issue my car had the majority of the Issues came out of the US.

But hey US products are far superior right? Love when an American tells me that and they are using 99% of products in their daily lives that work quite well not made in the US.

the_syco

eeguy wrote: »

On the topic of Trump, he may bring manufacturing back from China, but the only jobs it'll create will be for automation, manufacturing and robotics engineers. The days of hundreds of blue collar factory workers are long gone.

Trumps bragged about his low campaign expenditure versus Hillary, but leaves out that most of the stuff gets made overseas. So I wonder how much of what he'll do whilst in power will be to strengthen his own business, to the cost of the country?