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>They are dumping e-waste on us, and we pay for it. A fantastic trade trick. To be fair, western corporations were the ones who made the big move of offshoring

>They are dumping e-waste on us, and we pay for it. A fantastic trade trick. To be fair, western corporations were the ones who made the big move of offshoring all goods manufacturing to China in the first place and turn them into e-waste in a constant race to the bottom of lower and lower costs and higher and higher margins along with insane executive pay for their genius move. Hardly China's fault. Hate the game, not the player, and this game was made by the west, and China has just gotten really good at playing it. The best way to fight this is to bring back manufacturing (it's already cheaper to build certain stuff in some EU countries than in China) along with products that last longer and are more easily repaired. Western consumers would just have to stomach higher cost of goods, and western corporations would have to stomach lower margins, but it's definitely doable if desired, but it won't happen.

oytis 4y ago
Lowering costs and increasing margins is the game of the business everywhere, east or west. It is largely the policies of Chinese government that made manufacturing in China especially lucrative, even considering the bad business culture.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Lowering costs and increasing margins is the game of the business everywhere Sure, but there is no free lunch. You're getting cheaper stuff but for that you're sacrificing your local industry and the environment by offshoring the environmental damage to places with less environmental protection laws. There is no free lunch. The right way to lower cost is by pursuing automation, not by offshoring the environmental damage and using sweatshop workers in areas with human rights violations.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    If you avoid the cost, you benefit from an externality and have a free lunch for a limited time (or, lunch someone else paid for)
  - oytis 4y ago
    Thinking about local industry and environment is a government's job I would say. Government sets the rules, and businesses optimise profits under these rules. I would say Western governments did a poor jobs protecting their countries from unfair competition from China, but also the practices are indeed unfair, I can't agree Chinese government is not to blame.
  - trasz 4y ago
    >sweatshop workers in areas with human rights violations Such as USA with $11B of goods manufactured by forced labour in prison camps? (Note: this is not whataboutism, it’s pointing out hypocrisy.)
- cosmodisk 4y ago
  The service company I used to work for got acquired by a much larger US based company. So the CEO flew in to to do some presentations, answer questions, etc. One thing that stuck in my head was when he was talking about price based competition: there are people flying in private jets around the globe negotiating a single penny off a dollar and that won't stop any time soon.
pif 4y ago
You are wrong in pointing your finger to the business: we the buyers are to blame! We don't buy "good", we don't buy "local", we don't buy "our farmers are fairly compensated", we don't buy "ecological": we only buy "cheap". We lost our manufacturing jobs because we insisted on pretending Western wage but Chinese prices: 1- We discovered ourselves rich when we found out that a median Western wage could buy us much more stuff if spent half a planet away, but we never took the time to appreciate the consequences of such huge capital flows (hint: our wages made us rich up to the moment the wages were no more). 2- We stopped accepting polluted air in our cities, but did not tolerate the higher prices of those factories that installed filters. Net result: industries either outsourced or collapsed. There is no bringing back manufacturing without ensuring that a Western and a non-Western blue collar enjoy the same quality of life.
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  That would be an acceptable answer if we were all wealthy within the same country, but we both know it's not the case. People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Putting in 60 dollars in a USB hub is some privileged behavior. Many people just need those prices to be low, because they don't make much, because rent takes away most of what they have, etc. As to why they're not paid much, I'll let you circle back to said companies that keep increasing their margin with cheap chinese products, without ever redistributing that wealth.
  - pif 4y ago
    > People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Not really: people bought cheap because they couldn't afford to buy expensive, and then they lost their job, and now they can't even afford cheap. When we started exploiting poor people from far away, in a moment we found out that our wages could give us a much better life than their wages, but we never wondered why, and we never got upset that they couldn't afford the same quality of life like ours (while doing exactly the same job). The illusion was very sweet while it lasted, then outsourcing came and the illusion vanished, and we passed from being rich with a blue collar wage to not having any wage. Not being able to buy expensive does not imply buying cheap: buying fewer things is still an option. We bought cheap because we were greedy, because we hated breathing pollution and we wanted strong unions in our factories, but we could not care less about the same issues for the "others". And we just kept illuding ourselves that we could keep up with a better life for the same job, just because. We, the Western buyers, were greedy. And idiots. We swapped our jobs for cheap smartphones.

oytis 4y ago

Lowering costs and increasing margins is the game of the business everywhere, east or west. It is largely the policies of Chinese government that made manufacturing in China especially lucrative, even considering the bad business culture.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Lowering costs and increasing margins is the game of the business everywhere Sure, but there is no free lunch. You're getting cheaper stuff but for that you're sacrificing your local industry and the environment by offshoring the environmental damage to places with less environmental protection laws. There is no free lunch. The right way to lower cost is by pursuing automation, not by offshoring the environmental damage and using sweatshop workers in areas with human rights violations.
- tomrod 4y ago
  If you avoid the cost, you benefit from an externality and have a free lunch for a limited time (or, lunch someone else paid for)
- oytis 4y ago
  Thinking about local industry and environment is a government's job I would say. Government sets the rules, and businesses optimise profits under these rules. I would say Western governments did a poor jobs protecting their countries from unfair competition from China, but also the practices are indeed unfair, I can't agree Chinese government is not to blame.
- trasz 4y ago
  >sweatshop workers in areas with human rights violations Such as USA with $11B of goods manufactured by forced labour in prison camps? (Note: this is not whataboutism, it’s pointing out hypocrisy.)
cosmodisk 4y ago
The service company I used to work for got acquired by a much larger US based company. So the CEO flew in to to do some presentations, answer questions, etc. One thing that stuck in my head was when he was talking about price based competition: there are people flying in private jets around the globe negotiating a single penny off a dollar and that won't stop any time soon.

pif 4y ago

You are wrong in pointing your finger to the business: we the buyers are to blame! We don't buy "good", we don't buy "local", we don't buy "our farmers are fairly compensated", we don't buy "ecological": we only buy "cheap". We lost our manufacturing jobs because we insisted on pretending Western wage but Chinese prices: 1- We discovered ourselves rich when we found out that a median Western wage could buy us much more stuff if spent half a planet away, but we never took the time to appreciate the consequences of such huge capital flows (hint: our wages made us rich up to the moment the wages were no more). 2- We stopped accepting polluted air in our cities, but did not tolerate the higher prices of those factories that installed filters. Net result: industries either outsourced or collapsed. There is no bringing back manufacturing without ensuring that a Western and a non-Western blue collar enjoy the same quality of life.

ohgodplsno 4y ago
That would be an acceptable answer if we were all wealthy within the same country, but we both know it's not the case. People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Putting in 60 dollars in a USB hub is some privileged behavior. Many people just need those prices to be low, because they don't make much, because rent takes away most of what they have, etc. As to why they're not paid much, I'll let you circle back to said companies that keep increasing their margin with cheap chinese products, without ever redistributing that wealth.
- pif 4y ago
  > People buy cheap because they can't afford to buy expensive. Not really: people bought cheap because they couldn't afford to buy expensive, and then they lost their job, and now they can't even afford cheap. When we started exploiting poor people from far away, in a moment we found out that our wages could give us a much better life than their wages, but we never wondered why, and we never got upset that they couldn't afford the same quality of life like ours (while doing exactly the same job). The illusion was very sweet while it lasted, then outsourcing came and the illusion vanished, and we passed from being rich with a blue collar wage to not having any wage. Not being able to buy expensive does not imply buying cheap: buying fewer things is still an option. We bought cheap because we were greedy, because we hated breathing pollution and we wanted strong unions in our factories, but we could not care less about the same issues for the "others". And we just kept illuding ourselves that we could keep up with a better life for the same job, just because. We, the Western buyers, were greedy. And idiots. We swapped our jobs for cheap smartphones.