Free Shipping! Its all about free shipping.

[Stinky The Clown]

Way back when, our country was prosperous and self-sufficient. We *made* things. We paid people to make these things. The pay was enough to allow the makers to buy what they made.

This radical concept held true, more or less, through the 1980s.

That's when Gordon Gekkoism took hold and greed got the best of us. We wanted stuff, but we wanted it cheap - or free. That included workers. Big companies figured out real fast that they could overcome the cost of shipping from Asia by having factories in very low wage third world countries.

Soon enough, however, the workers in the third world countries started demanding more. And their wages went up. Ever vigilant to their bottom lines, the factory owners calculated that by 2013 - 2014, the latest - shipping the cheap shit back to the west for consumption would result in total to-market costs that could be more than the to-market costs of making the same cheap shit in the west.

And how much better would it be, they mused, if they could drive western wages down to third world levels.

To save on shipping.

Same labor costs.

Free shipping.

Yeah!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. I can't tell you how much this resonates with me.

Battling the race-to-the-bottom every f'n day.

[obxhead]

2. Yeah, my brake pads are wearing thin too. nt

[wo ooo]

3. i've already heard

discussion about abolishing minimum wage, and people actually defend it

[DesertFlower]

4. in 1961 i lived in brooklyn. the ideal toy company

was 2 blocks from our apartment. in the summer when the windows were open you could here the noise.

my aunt rose worked her entire life in a company where they made toys and beds for dogs. my aunt clara worked in a knitting mill.

my dad and my uncle worked in a gold refining plant.

i'm really tired i better stop ranting.

[BadgerKid]

5. IMO, shipping is a symptom, not the cause.

My speculations:

1. Prices in the US aren't coming down. The lower cost of production via outsourcing provides more profit to companies and CEOs.

2. Raising the quality of living in poorer countries allows companies to benefit from the growth, similar to what happened in the post-WW2 economy in the US.

It's a win-win situation for global companies, and our government, in my opinion, is abetting them.

[Billy Burnett]

6. Just watch the FEDEX and UPS ads. They BOAST of "streamlining" and our "logistics". AKA: layoffs.

What can Brown do for you? Ship your job to China - overnight.