?The entire supply chain is in China now,? said another former high-ranking Apple executive. ?You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That?s the factory next door. You need a million screws??

Change will come from the companies like Apple and the?

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company?s dormitories, according to the executive. Each?

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-child-labor-2012-1

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-shocking-conditions-inside-chinas-brutal-foxconn-factory-2010-5

They're as entitled to those aspirations as much as any American worker is.

On a tangent, a wider aspect to workers aspiration is that with NZ having a freetrade agreement with China what "NZ" is wanting is?

Loads of people, and understandably so. Not every job at Foxconn is on an assembly line. The company provides training and education, conducts R&D, subsidises offsite housing and?

And those that are on the assembly line? They sound particularly delightful. I dunno, the things that we seem to find acceptable from a far. Hmmm.

Every gadget you own involves an assembly line. And until robots get better that will continue to be the case. The key is to?

Or, perhaps, "Comparing apples with apples" (or something like that).

I don't know about all this. At least, I don't find the argument that there are even worse jobs in the world tremendously convincing. This report from the [[http://fr-fr.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=156848724349172|South?

That wasn't really my point though. It was more that the West should also look to itself.

For a prime example look no further than the US auto?

They missed a market. And it is a disruptive one.

The "customer" section of the world is already spending as much on toys as they ever will, and they're getting poorer. So how can companies like Foxconn continue to grow – and normally, growth doesn't just slow down nicely, it?

Yep, but there's nothing wrong with moving that process along a?

They were listening to the mobile operators, who only saw voice call revenue and didn?t care for the anarchic world of apps and software. (Remember Telecom pushing 3G as a vehicle for video calling?

Would the assembly lines be appreciably more delightful to work on if they were in Wiri or Detroit? Most of us here are privileged?

And they earn their money how? By working at Foxconn?

The classic model of embourgeoisment involves technology improvements being used to create (often unproductive) white-collar jobs whose holders identify with the ruling class.

That relies on a few?

As for why anybody would want to work at Foxconn, perhaps I should've taken a few photos of a village I visited over Chinese New Year. And that wasn't even dire poverty.

And for all of Foxconn's abuses (and Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korean bosses in?

The western geek community has developed, possibly unconsciously, some very effective strategies to fight back against mass-produced programmer teams in the developing world.

Software frameworks that minimise typing and maximise head-scratching (Rails, I?m looking at you, but Spring is almost?

Really? Cos I could walk 3km up the road and be in an area where most of the collars are white. Those that aren't are in jobs like security, maintenance, hospitality and transport to support those white collar jobs. China now?

I knew about it, but possibly only because I was in Asia at the time.

And it seems they've done far better at that than NZ has over the last decade.

So who will actually make things?

I'm guessing that a firm like Foxconn has a way lower proportion of headcount engaged in making powerpoints, mulling marketing strategy and schmoozing customers than a typical western firm. A?

I think that everywhere wants to do that (you hear it here in NZ?

As for whose going to make stuff, for all the talk of the Pearl Delta's cheap manufacturing?

In some respects, certainly, but it seems to me there are areas where NZ still has an edge over China, and not just in dairy. Weta would seem to me to be far ahead?

Really?! Cos the China I live in is trying to work its way up, and so far as I can tell the current NZ government is trying to repeat the mistakes of the past with only a couple of minor tweaks in?

So effectively, Nokia is the IBM of the smartphone world -just as IBM failed to predict the personal computer boom and never regained pole position since, Nokia seems to have done the same with the Internet. And Apple is the?

Pretty much what I was noting above. We may be ahead in some areas, but this nation has?

Until we address systemic matters like our low quality of leadership, we won't change fast enough to avoid becoming serfs to foreign capital (even more than we already are).

Bingo. But we threw the baby out....

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/6332446/Researcher-in-awe-of-trailblazing-training-system

Apparently there was a time when the acid test for that was when a factoryhand earned enough to buy the products they built – I believe it mostly applied to car?

And now New Zealanders have a reputation here in China for shite business skills. Coincidence?

I am presently studying my reflection in the mirror and as much as self-praise is no recommendation, I must say I look exceedingly good.

I would like to own a Mac for the garage band program but the 0.70 c and hour thing?

I wouldn't bother – I found it deeply average compared to Ableton. Although that runs way better on a Mac than a PC with similar levels of grunt.

Note the date the programmes ended: 1985.
Not a lot went right that year – or, rather, matters started to lurch rightwards in ways us unsuspecting Labour voters couldnt forsee-

I did note that, and that's about the time my political memories begin and the era I started developing my political leanings.

This?

With you on that one. I'm still waiting for each of them to say something I can either agree or disagree with.

fascinating

Seems like a very fair assessment to me.

I acknowledge that China in China will do some good stuff and?

So yeah, I guess the questions is, who built the resistors I used?

The more one thinks about?

Yes really ? the fact that China is not hindered by the restrictions of human rights and Labour laws has been advanced as reasons for its success and the basis of why the West,?

Unfortunately, China has now found itself poor in [ETA: home-grown] resources, if not in absolute terms, certainly in per capita terms. Water, especially.

Water – is – finite.
We all know(well, thinking people)that water is NOT an infinite resource,
The seas seem limitless?
Um, not so.
Aquifers? Groundwater? Glaciers? The very Antarctic Ice?
Are going.
Earth is a blue & watery?

There are massive pine plantations that have been felled, BURNT, and the shingle-based land smoothed down. For dairy farms. Based on the adjacent?

So if Foxconn were (somehow) required to comply with developed world labour practices, then that might send the price of a finished article up by 50-100%, depending on the amount of this that the?

Well, AFAIK humankind hasn't managed to speed up the process of atmospheric water loss into space, which is the only way it actually?

The NY Times says "half the nation?s rivers and lakes are unfit for human contact"

And "Cadmium poisoning has been a persistent problem, especially among those working at battery plants or living near them."

Only in China could you?

Well, as you can probably figure out for yourselves this is a brilliant idea because once you have used the water up north it flows back down south again thus?

It's one of history's greatest ironies?

Also, 'methland', which notes the close links between the amphetamine trade in the US, and the meatpacking industry. Basically, the only way to make?

Sure, and just between us, I suspect those workers would __love__?

No, fair points very well made. And I?d like to think that as consumers we have ultimate power (and responsibility) to say to retailers and manufacturers that ?price? PLUS ?decent pay and conditions?

But you did have basic labour standards. It's interesting?

Which is why, over the last few years, there have been reports of a labour shortage in the Pearl River Delta as migrant workers have collectively told the factories there that pay and conditions?

I?m one of those people who doesn?t accept that ?capitalism? and ?the anus of the body politic? are the same thing, or that consumers are just powerless drones. It seems to me that happy, well-paid, healthy workers are productive ones. Productive workers?

I can see your point.
;-)

about 230,000 of whom produce products for Apple, the others assembling for Dell, HP, just about every electronics company in fact

Exactly. If you're gonna do a boycott you might as well do it properly and give up all your gadgets. Back to pen and?

Hell, we had Lofty Urlich and Frank Barnard dragging us into the central courtyard at least once a week telling us to down tools and head home over what always seemed to be a slight infraction by the management.

I can still fondly?

In fairness, Apple' practices in China are American practices, and a legitimate subject of US journalism. Outsourcing, and the concomitant demise of US manufacturing, is an American problem. The country is trying to?

I don't accept that either. Sometimes it works quite well. Sometimes it fucks up badly. Most of the time the question of whether it is working well or fucking?

I'm pretty sure what he's saying is that American media sources are choosing to focus on worker rights abuses in China while ignoring fairly severe problems on their home turf, even?

And yet, according to Human Rights Watch, nothing has changed. Isn't that a story?

I haven't been to the US for a while,?

Our local Whole Foods (a store I patronise only when I really need something out of the bulk section, because?

Wow, so customers quite literally line up in order of who gives a?

Well, like I said, all the chicken is in the "worst" section, and all the pork?

It's fascinating to see shows on Chinese channels playing up the horrific conditions in US jails and the lack of access to heathcare for so many workers in the US.?

and everything tastes like them

That doesn't mean US journalism ignores domestic human rights issues. Fast Food Nation spent two years on the The New York Times bestsellers list. The New York Times is one of the good guys. I don't?

The second is that the American concern about China is drawn at least in part from its own fear of decline. You've alluded to?

But it also feeds into a strong American narrative that seeks to frame the current unemployment rates in the?

That was what I was?

Yes, hopefully, as an optimistic worst case. Personally, I'm trying my best to work out how such a gradual convergence could be avoided, and how countries like the US, which have a long history of productive industry, could get that back?

With the possible exception of gated community developers and other branches of the security-industrial complex.

I?

That would depend on who's bottom you were talking about.

No solution? Of course not. But the system as it is (in America especially, but more generally as well) __doesn't?

Yes, poverty is the bug. Unemployment is inevitable. In fact, it should actually be desirable, the very thing that shows that production is more than sufficient. We get more and more desperate?

Bingo! When the economy/society is based around consumption rather than sufficiency, the rest is inevitable.

This is not to say Soviet Russia had the answers with their 5 year plan(s). The problem for them was that they tried to out do the US without the?

A similar?

Yeah. You've got hope it works out. Things haven't been looking too?

"We're Better Than Those People" is the unofficial motto of 99% of human?

The?

Word. Especially since one of the easiest ways to maintain position is to?

Sadly true. Once again, Paul Graham's Why Nerds Are Unpopular comes to mind.

__"Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better. When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water?

True.
He says...
we only know a large number of people were throwing themselves off of the roof of the workplace, again and again....
...if people kill themselves over and over in the same dramatic way at?

Food fight @McD's = chemical warfare?

Which as far as I can see has never been shown to be toxic or mutagenic by ingestion.

OTOH, go and buy the most expensive organic fillet steak from Moore Wilson, BBQ it until nicely charred at the edges and you just made a whole load of benzopyrenes, which?

Burnt bacon is definitely my favourite carcinogen, steak is nicer rare.

So's bacon, While it's still, y'know, meat.

I think we should go the experts on this one.
Yahoo Answers

I suggest you keep your head clear of the desk while you read some answers.
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
No. Having your body's chemistry turn?

[[http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/02/17/apple-manufacturer-foxconn-hikes-employees-wages/|they?ve responded by giving all their employees a 25% raise, up to 1,800 yuan per month according to Reuters. Foxconn points out that this is the third such raise since 2010, and that three years ago, their workers received 900?

What a load of bullshit. Daisey traded endlessly in the media on the fact that his was a first-person account, and he was scathing of anyone who sought to question or qualify it. Now, it turns out that he fabricated quite a lot of it and deliberately frustrated fact-checkers.

880,000?