Here's what happens when you buy "made in foreign country X" clothes & shoes

[Blart]

Locked doors.

No fire escapes.

No windows.

More than 120 people - almost all teenage girls - burned to death while making clothes for Walmart, Disney and Sears for the Christmas rush. The ones who didn't burn jumped to their death. Access to and from the building is purposely restricted for fear of theft and union organizers weaseling their way inside.



This is not uncommon. Many developing countries have "FTZ's" - Free Trade Zones, which are patches of land that are made to attract corporations: No taxes, no unions, no regulations.

Young, rural girls are lured into FTZ's with promises of high pay, enough to send back to their families. Instead they're paid barely enough to feed themselves 1000 calories per day, and are routinely abused. Those who protest and try to unionize are often assassinated.






Should you buy Disney for your kid, knowing that someone else's kid had to be abused to make it?

I don't believe consumer choice is the answer to these problems, as most consumers are only able to respond to price, but if you can afford it - consider "MADE IN USA" or second-hand stores next time you shop.

http://www.newbalance.com/
http://store.americanapparel.net/
http://www.carhartt.com
http://www.allamericanclothing.com/
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/13/living...ica/index.html

Any other good Made in USA retailers?

[lonestar]

****ing bleeding heart liberals.

Just how many clothing lines are made in the USA.

But good try. If the unions had not driven the jobs out of the USA. More would be made here.

[Blart]

If you have sympathy for someone jumping to their death rather than burning (and I'm thinking 9/11 here - don't click if you're squeamish), does that make you a bleeding heart liberal?

Anyway, how do you correlate unionization with industry leaving the USA? Do you have any data to back that up?

Last I checked, in 1950, many things were "Made in the USA". 40% of American workers belonged to a union.

Today, barely anything is "Made in the USA". 7% of American workers belong to a union.


Personally, I see direct correlation of foreign-made goods with the advent global free trade. Call me crazy.

[lonestar]

Originally Posted by Blart

If it makes me a "bleeding heart liberal" to have sympathy for someone jumping to their death rather than burning (and I'm thinking 9/11 here - don't click if you're squemish), then yeah. I guess I'm a big weepy pansy.


How do you correlate unionization with jobs leaving the USA?

Last I checked, in 1950, many things were "Made in the USA". 40% of American workers belonged to a union.

Today, barely anything is "Made in the USA". 7% of American workers belong to a union.


Personally, I see more correlation with the advent global free trade. Call me crazy.

I just know that where I live we used to have 20 or so clothing manufactures in town with a gazillion square feet of plants. Levi, Farrah were the biggie plants thousands of workers all gone now the last of the plants torn down, one just this last year that was damned near three city blocks long. Will now be a shopping mall.

Why? Because of the constant union drives. Now none are employeed.

While the number you stated may be correct the threat and hassles they had to deal with was enough along with NAFTA to shut them down.

[Blart]

Levi's, GAP, Tommy Hilfiger, Disney - these companies no longer make anything. They literally make nothing, they are just brands. Ideas.

Union, non-union, sweatshop - it doesn't matter. They've shut everything down. Their company is their brand name and they know it.

There is only one guarantee: those who make their goods will be the lowest bidder. If you want your country to make those goods, your living conditions need to be the worst in the world.

[houghtam]

Originally Posted by lonestar

****ing bleeding heart liberals.

Just how many clothing lines are made in the USA.

But good try. If the unions had not driven the jobs out of the USA. More would be made here.

I love this response. I really do.

A tragedy of human life that is no one else's fault except the company who employs them, and his first response is "****ing bleeding heart liberals, it's the union's fault". True character, right there.

Excuse me, did the unions force the companies to provide **** working conditions for their employees? Is it the unions' fault that these companies are violating basic human rights?

Sorry, cockbag. Nobody forced these companies to do this. They're not going to face crippling economic failure for, you know, not locking their employees in a combustible sweat shop.

[Rohirrim]

Once again, Lonestar opens his yap before engaging his brain.

The American textile industry is slowly dying, and U.S. free trade policy is killing it.

NBC local affiliate WSLS 10 in Roanoke, Virginia, recently detailed the loss of Dan River Inc., a textile factory going out of business because it can no longer compete against foreign competition.

The company is hardly unique, however. The entire industry has been decimated by American trade policies that allow for an influx of cheap imports.

The textile industry has been a historically vital part of the nation’s economy. Employing over 600,000 Americans in 2005 alone, the industry contributed $23 billion to the nation’s gross domestic product. Competing with nations like China and Vietnam due to America’s trade policy has taken its toll on the industry, though.

From 1997 to 2010, 1,298 textile mills closed, according to the National Council of Textile Organizations. Most of those closings were in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, but factories across the country have also closed. And in the five year period between 2004 and 2009, a seasonally adjusted 39.4 percent of the industry’s jobs were lost.

“We like to ask a simple question,” Auggie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, told WSLS. “Is a country made great by what it consumes or what it produces?”

American policymakers apparently decided that the former was more important. In 1994, officials signed the Agreement on Textile and Clothing. The agreement phased out export restrictions over the course of 10 years. It allowed the first wave of cheap imports from undeveloped countries.

Later that year, the U.S. also entered the North American Free Trade Agreement. It allowed for cheap imports from Mexico. It also gave American textile companies incentive to move production south of the border at a lower cost while still having duty-free access to the U.S. market.

“The Washington gurus decided that it was in the best interest of the country to sacrifice textile and garment industries for high-tech industries,” Linwood Wright, a former company official, told WSLS.
http://economyincrisis.org/content/t...d-trade-policy

What killed all those people? Greed.

[lonestar]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Once again, Lonestar opens his yap before engaging his brain.


What killed all those people? Greed.

RIF

I just know that where I live we used to have 20 or so clothing manufactures in town with a gazillion square feet of plants. Levi, Farrah were the biggie plants thousands of workers all gone now the last of the plants torn down, one just this last year that was damned near three city blocks long. Will now be a shopping mall.

Why? Because of the constant union drives. Now none are employeed.

While the number you stated may be correct the threat and hassles they had to deal with was enough along with NAFTA to shut them down.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by lonestar

RIF

Read the article. It started long before NAFTA. It wasn't the unions, although they are a convenient scapegoat for the Right.

If you want to know where the blame lies for lost American jobs, you need look no further than Washington DC. They're on the dole, and those who pay them order them to write the legislation, policies and tax codes that stuff money in the plutocrats pockets, whether it's good for America or not. Keep backing the plutocrats. See where it gets ya. It's the legislators you elect that write this garbage. Don't start whining about the unions.

Simple stuff. When was America at its most prosperous in history? After WWII. When were the unions at their pinnacle of membership? Same time. Unions are a fraction of what they were then, while corporate power has grown exponentially. Blaming unions for our economic problems is idiotic.

[Rohirrim]

Amid the ash, broken glass and melted sewing machines at what is left of the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory, there are piles of blue, red and off-white children's shorts bearing Wal-Mart's Faded Glory brand. Shorts from hip-hop star Sean Combs' ENYCE label lay on the floor and are stacked in cartons.

An Associated Press reporter searching the factory Wednesday found these and other clothes, including sweaters from the French company Teddy Smith, among the equipment charred in the fire that killed 112 workers Saturday. He also found entries in account books indicating that the factory took orders to produce clothes for Disney, Sears and other Western brands.

Garments and documents left behind in the factory show it was used by a host of major American and European retailers, though at least one of them — Wal-Mart — had been aware of safety problems. Wal-Mart blames a supplier for using Tazreen Fashions without its knowledge. http://www.nbcnews.com/business/wal-...tory-1C7297922

Plausible deniability. It's the life essence of the modern corporation.

[Rohirrim]

The corporation is the institutionalized form of this shirking of responsibility. The primary purpose of the corporate form is to insulate a certain class of people from responsibility for actions taken on their behalf.
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic41/rowe/

[cutthemdown]

I buy nothing but American Apparel for the band tshirts etc. They are the only made in america left in Los Angeles. From what I have learned they are the last big sewing shop in southern ca. Don't know about all the usa and what we have left. new Balance shows right? but they don't fit me well.

Not sure Americans can afford to pay more for clothes. Using cheap China made stuff is how our govt convinces us their is no inflation.

[cutthemdown]

I'm trying to figure out what Rho wants? a Tarrif on imported clothes? what?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

The corporation is the institutionalized form of this shirking of responsibility. The primary purpose of the corporate form is to insulate a certain class of people from responsibility for actions taken on their behalf.
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic41/rowe/

And Lone Nut's sole raison d'être is to blow that "certain class of people" in the hope of getting their table scraps.

He's nothing more than a sycophant and a useful idiot for plutocrats who are laughing their asses off at him.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by houghtam

I love this response. I really do.

A tragedy of human life that is no one else's fault except the company who employs them, and his first response is "****ing bleeding heart liberals, it's the union's fault". True character, right there.

Excuse me, did the unions force the companies to provide **** working conditions for their employees? Is it the unions' fault that these companies are violating basic human rights?

Sorry, cockbag. Nobody forced these companies to do this. They're not going to face crippling economic failure for, you know, not locking their employees in a combustible sweat shop.

Lone Nut's response leaves little doubt that Teabillies are sociopaths.

[Rohirrim]

You can start with rewriting trade agreements so they benefit the American people. That's what the Constitution says is the job of the government, to serve the interests of the American people. First. Not corporations.

Second, rewrite the laws governing corporations. You know why this fire happened? Because the corporate bosses know that nobody can touch them no matter what their corporations do. They have the corporation standing as a buffer between them and the law. Like Willi Cicci tells the Senate in Godfather II, "Oh yeah. Buffers. The family had a lot of buffers." Financial corporations brought down the economy of the world. It was the worst ponzi scheme in history. You know how many got prosecuted? Zero. You know how many went to jail? Zero. In fact, the taxpayers paid them off so they wouldn't have to feel any economic ramifications from their criminality. That's how insane our system is. There are two sets of rules in America; One is for citizens, and another is for corporations.

[lonestar]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Read the article. It started long before NAFTA. It wasn't the unions, although they are a convenient scapegoat for the Right.

If you want to know where the blame lies for lost American jobs, you need look no further than Washington DC. They're on the dole, and those who pay them order them to write the legislation, policies and tax codes that stuff money in the plutocrats pockets, whether it's good for America or not. Keep backing the plutocrats. See where it gets ya. It's the legislators you elect that write this garbage. Don't start whining about the unions.

Simple stuff. When was America at its most prosperous in history? After WWII. When were the unions at their pinnacle of membership? Same time. Unions are a fraction of what they were then, while corporate power has grown exponentially. Blaming unions for our economic problems is idiotic.

So instead of voting for the same morons that at on the dole.. Vote them out of office.

You got what you voted for do not poss and moan about it.

I've seen unions from both sides of the fence and IMO they drove more jobs out of the country or in lots of cases companies ether into bankruptcy or business all together.

Just look at the airline industry. Every one of them has been through bankruptcy and the first thing that happens is a labor reduction and new contracts for those that are unions.

I would have no issues with unions if they did not protect the lazy/stupid/totally incompetent of the workers that should be gone. But the constant we need more money and benefits kill even the best run companies.


I also have to blame the US citizens, because if they would not buy imports china would not exist today as a world power. They wanted cheap well they got it along with unemployment that it fed.

[cutthemdown]

We need to unchackle big business in America is you want more manufacturing. Maybe not banks, i can see why people fear them being loosened but its really hard to do things like run a sewing factory in USA. I will look for an article about American Apparel and all their struggles to compete. Sometimes they can't find people who can do the job. Its a skill to sew and most Americans dont want to do it.

One problem is cotton prices really expensive. So right off the bat its tough to make ends meet in the USA.

[Requiem]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6gq7vog0uw

[DAN_BRONCO_FAN]

well then why dont we offer tax breaks to companies who make stuff in the us

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

You can start with rewriting trade agreements so they benefit the American people. That's what the Constitution says is the job of the government, to serve the interests of the American people. First. Not corporations.

Second, rewrite the laws governing corporations. You know why this fire happened? Because the corporate bosses know that nobody can touch them no matter what their corporations do. They have the corporation standing as a buffer between them and the law. Like Willi Cicci tells the Senate in Godfather II, "Oh yeah. Buffers. The family had a lot of buffers." Financial corporations brought down the economy of the world. It was the worst ponzi scheme in history. You know how many got prosecuted? Zero. You know how many went to jail? Zero. In fact, the taxpayers paid them off so they wouldn't have to feel any economic ramifications from their criminality. That's how insane our system is. There are two sets of rules in America; One is for citizens, and another is for corporations.

You don't think prices would skyrocket if you did those things? Also what trade agreements spefically do you want to end? When you fight trade wars like Obama does on certain products you just get it back in the face from China. Right now they are holding out on Rare Earth metals.

Look i am a nationalist Rho you know that. I am all for figuring out how to screw other countries and get more for the USA. If we are going to fight trade wars, call China a currency manipulator, blow off Canada and Mexico and scrap NAFTA etc then we would have to unshackle our mining and oil business on public lands. Private lands doing well on oil, if we added public land to that we could rule the oil market while we transition to alternative over next what? 40 yrs probably? Also we have to have rare earth, cant rely on China if you want to go your route IMO. Interesting thing is though we closed all those mines. We have to let some big biz rape the earth under your plan IMO. China will really fight back on tough trade tactics.

Also Canada and Mexico IMO make great partners for us. We should keep out agreements even if they may not be perfect. I would rather work on manufacturing in Mexico then China. I get what you are saying. We need some big industries to drive up employment. I disagree though that textile and manufacturing is where its at. Those days are past for us.

We need engineering jobs, doctors, oil, mining, high tech stuff. I don't see why we didnt sell the f-22 to Japan. Eventually the tech gets out anyways might as well make the money. We cant afford to build enough to make lockhead hire etc etc. So instead we lost that money, japan built own fighter.

We should unshackle oil and mining. They could really create jobs. There is a huge mine ready to open in CA. Maybe that will be enough. They say it could provide the world with about half of its rare earth metals. That could jump start a lot of industries as both electric cars, wind turbines, and solar all need those metals.

[Pony Boy]

Don't Buy cheap NFL jerseys made in China

How to Spot a Fake Jersey:

Another sign of a knockoff jersey is a "Made in China" tag. Authentic jerseys are typically made in El Salvador, Korea or Vietnam.

.... does that make you feel better ....

http://shop.cbssports.com/NFL_Jerseys

[DAN_BRONCO_FAN]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

We should unshackle oil and mining. They could really create jobs. There is a huge mine ready to open in CA. Maybe that will be enough. They say it could provide the world with about half of its rare earth metals. That could jump start a lot of industries as both electric cars, wind turbines, and solar all need those metals.

BUT BUT GLOBAL WARMING, POLAR BEARS , SANTA ,evil coal mines will cause the ice caps to melt drowning snow ball and kill santa , we need to manufacture cars that run on liberal loony left love

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by DAN_BRONCO_FAN

BUT BUT GLOBAL WARMING, POLAR BEARS , SANTA ,evil coal mines will cause the ice caps to melt drowning snow ball and kill santa , we need to manufacture cars that run on liberal loony left love

We can combat global temp rise with geoengineering. We will never do it through co2 reduction. It's silly to think so.

[Blart]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

I buy nothing but American Apparel for the band tshirts etc. They are the only made in america left in Los Angeles. From what I have learned they are the last big sewing shop in southern ca. Don't know about all the usa and what we have left. new Balance shoes right? but they don't fit me well.

Good work on the band shirts, and yeah, some New Balance shoes are Made in USA - you have to check the tags.

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

We need to unchackle big business in America is you want more manufacturing.

Which regulations, if abolished, would allow the US to compete with countries like Bangladesh - where pay is 22 cents per hour?


I see the move offshore as a result of changing business strategies in the 90's - when corporations began posting huge profits by shutting down their "physical" selves. For example, Levi's no longer "makes" jeans. Tommy Hilfiger doesn't "make" clothes. They don't own a single factory in the world.

Without being encumbered by factories, employees or any production process, a business is smaller, more agile and entrepreneurial.