It's so easy to dehumanize a country like China. It's a HUGE country with billions of people in it. China owns a decent chunk of our debt (although a lot less than most people think they do) and they seem so detached from our American culture. But really they are a lot more like us than some of our politicians would like us to think.Yes, many products made in China are of inferior quality and, yes, some of those products have been shown to be made from harmful materials but that doesn't make the hands that made them evil. They are not giggling under their factory masks at the prospect of killing us slowly with toxic paints and tainted baby formula. Their labor laws are very similar to ours but many work for companies that simply disregard them. Don't hate on the people.
Update: here's an interesting comparison I found. Prepared by Baogang Guo, Ph.D from Dalton State College.
Very nice chart indeed. What I find missing from it is the current minimum wage compared to local consumer price index.
ReplyDeleteAnd to be extremelly picky, the cup is rotated, but not the "made in china" :)