Made in China

"A new survey shows that 1 in 5 Americans believe that God steers the economy. Mystery solved: God is Chinese."
 ---Conan O'Brien
 "Chinese President Hu Jintao had dinner at the White House with President Obama and first lady Michelle. They were going to exchange gifts from the two countries, but unfortunately everything in our country is now made in their country, so they couldn't do any exchanging."
–Jay Leno
“I want to have a bunch of kids so I can open a factory and have free labor. Beat that, China!”
― Jarod Kintz
“China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese. ”
― Charles de Gaulle 

“Most imports are from outside of the country”

  ― George W. Bush

Just finished cutting my toenails. Started off using a very attractive manicure set in a leather case that has 'Roots' printed on the case. Roots is a very prestigious and successful Canadian company that manufactures clothing products and sells them through over 200 Roots stores scattered throughout the world. Each tool in my manicure set has Roots clearly marked on one side but China discretely marked on the other. The tools proved to be useless. The clippers don't open up properly and the cutting  edges are dull. In short, it is crap and a toe is bleeding as I write this. We had for many years a manicure set made in Germany and everything worked, but I doubt that the Germans make these anymore. The boutiques and the open markets here in France are filled with Chinese goods. Unemployment is high because we helped to improve the profits of French businesses by closing up their factories so that they could buy things more cheaply from China to sell in their stores and now my Chinese made underwear has the seams falling apart. Chinese tourism is up so some good will come from all of this. 

And lets accept the fact that the Chinese are a highly intelligent people with education a top priority and are now producing many high quality products at very competitive prices. After all, they now make high speed trains and can put toy sized vehicles on the moon, just like the Americans do. It is only a matter of time before they make manicure sets that meet German quality standards.

But why in hell is there such a rush in North America and Europe to throw our workers out of a job by scrapping our factories and small workshops to seek a Chinese Nirvana? Who makes these decisions for us? In North America Walmart, the largest retailer in America has made the Waltons the richest family in America by buying most of what they sell from China and paying their American employees poverty level wages. They are leaders in vacuuming manufacturing jobs out of the country. Fortunately Walmart doesn't blight the landscape in Europe because their labour practices are unacceptable, but we do suffer from some of the same disease here. I don't blame the Chinese who are quite reasonable in wanting to sell everything they grow and make; I blame our sappy politicians who pave the way to support our business leaders and bankers in their devout (and very profitable) rush into unregulated Globalization. Let's face it, if we raise our unemployment we do save a few pennies for those who have a job or are clipping coupons, and who cares about our neighbours anyway. 

I guess in all fairness to our stock brokers, business owners and conservative politicians it stuffs their pockets with easy money if companies like Apple join the rush to hand over their businesses ( and the technology that goes with it) to the Chinese. Its like winning the lottery.

I just wonder what the wise Chinese think about us for this Lemming-like behaviour.

My Strawberries and Globalization

perfect strawberry

I have a garden in southern France where I grow fruit and vegetables. The sun is hot where I live and to use my strawberries as an example, when they reach my table fresh from the garden they are fragrant and with an unmatched rich and sweet flavour. Small producers in our area sell similar locally grown strawberries in the market square.

No flavour

The supermarkets like Carrefour, Walmart’s and others don’t buy these strawberries of course and sell larger and beautifully shaped red strawberries that they have purchased at the lowest possible price from some distant country. It’s part of globalization. If the cheapest price is from large greenhouses in Southern Spain, California or an oligarch's estate in Brazil, then this is where they will buy them. They are undoubtedly genetically modified, chemically treated and harvested early to avoid any blemish and to withstand the long voyage to markets. If it is bigger than a normal strawberry they even paste a label on it. I suspect the store buyer is given a bonus if he finds a lower price somewhere else. The problem with this is that they don’t taste like strawberries!!!.
Perfectly shaped and unblemished tomatoes from California taste like red and slightly sour cucumbers in Toronto, apricots unlike our juicy local variety arrive dry and tasteless – but they are cheaper ! Let’s face it, locally grown fruit and vegetable tastes better and I think that has something to do with the quality of life. The global experts don’t know how to measure this, and probably most of them are rich enough to not care anyway because they can go to their gourmet shops.
If we carry this globalization argument further France should logically give up growing everything because there is always somewhere in the world where the local currency is depressed plus large landowners assisted by generous World Bank loans can hire penny labour and harvest more cheaply. The economists in Brussels and writers for business publications who are devoted to globalization believe this is a good thing. They obviously accept that traditional farmers in France and throughout Europe should give up their land, or sell it off for golf courses, and migrate to the cities to take up modest labour where it is available.
Let me see if I can understand what global advocates are saying. By freeing up markets from any government imposed constraints the capacity to generate wealth will be greatly enhanced. This will occur because companies will be free to invest, buy and sell wherever it is most profitable and this will support the growth of mega businesses and mega farms that will be more profitable. The question is; profitable for whom ? I guess it is the handful of oligarchs in most third world countries who control most of the land and who pay pennies to their workers, plus additional profits for the World Bank, transportation companies, and the mega retailers like Walmarts and Carrefour. To many buyers this makes sense since the wages in the areas where Walmarts and Carrefour exists are depressed and the buyer can partly benefit from lower prices. It is like going there to shoot yourself or your neighbour in the foot.
Getting back to strawberries, an article in LeMonde today claims that strawberries from China vs from Perigod in France requires 20 times more fuel to get it to market. It goes on to say that farm produce shipped thousands of miles by ship, rail and trucks for the cheapest price has become a major factor in rising CO2 gas emissions in the atmosphere. Destroy the planet but get a better price ! It’s something to think about.
In conclusion I don’t really understand all this enthusiasm for Globalization, and as I originally stated, locally grown strawberries taste so much better. I guess I’ll follow the seasons and buy locally. Saving a few farms and eating well makes it worthwhile.