sweatshop free?

This seems to have gone a bit pro or anti american goods. I've seen your cars, so I don't take American to automatically equate quality (just a joke, or is it), but in my mind there can be sweatshops in the UK, USA or third world. It's more an issue of workers being treated fairly by their employers, ont the location of the factory.

Now my cover has been blown, and American Apparel has been mentioned, I can say that although currently everything is made in LA, as the company is expanding we are looking at getting an additional factory - not leaving the LA one though - in a "poorer" country, but exporting our working practices with it.

It's about quality of life for workers, whatever country they live in.

Oooh, careful now - What's an "american car"?

Chrysler?
Shitty quality, good bang-for the buck, good styling -
owned and run by Mercedes.

Jaguar seems British, right?
*Bzzt!* Owned by Ford for years now. Jag's quality went wayyyy up when they started using Ford parts and engineering, which is a sad statement indeed.

Volvo? Saab? Owned by Ford and GM, respectively. The new Saab is GM-designed, and built on the global Epsilon platform, just like a *gasp* chevy.

Honda's japanese, right?
Not entirely. Their plant in Marysville,Ohio has made hundereds of thousands of cars and motorcycles for the US and world market since 1989...including cars destined for Japan. Honda has been seriously thinking of moving its world HQ to America for several years now.

All of the Japanese car companies have design studios in the US. Toyota, Mercedes-benz, BMW, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, have plants in the US and some have several. The quality of finished car coming from US plants is equal or better than Japanese plants.

Also worth noting is the domestic content of such cars/trucks.
There's a window label that says content, in percentage, on every new car. Accords are made of nearly 94% north american made parts.
Most other US built japanese cars are between 60% - 95% american parts.

How 'bout an American car designed, sourced and built entirely within the USA, you say?

That would be Saturn, started in 1991, whose $16,000 cars routinely tie or beat Lexus ($45,000 cars) for first place in virtually every JD Power quality and satisfaction survey in the last 9 years.

So, tell me again what an "american car" is?

- S.


edited to fix starting quote.


[Edited on Nov 16, 2003 by Stiles]

Hi Stiles,

thanks for the response.

It was a light-hearted dig in a serious thread.

thanks for the info, I'm very well versed in the car industry already.

I'm on an american website, and I work for an american company, I even like the place, can't wait to get transfered to LA. I am not burning your flag.

though I might shout abuse during dubya's visit to the UK this week...



ross

Dude you can't pick and choose like that really. we know what ron and Mag said because they said it. But the next thing you got there is speculation as to why they said it.

Hell I could say you are part of a porn site that attracts males. I could speculate you do so because you want the males to show up so you can get to know a group of people that may further your dating prospects. I doubt and don't really care if either is true, but it does show how speculation works and since your poist contained some of it, I wanted to make sure you had a a stake in it.

Oh. Okay. You were talking human nature and not specualting on those two. My mistake. And I agree with you somewhat. I mean the workers do get hurt, but if change is made the hurt is short lived and once the change is implemented there is no more hurt at all in that area. Very little in history has been accomplished without any sacrifice, great or small.

First, I'm not sure anything has been proved by those cases. Some people claim that South Africa's long exclusion from international sporting events had more of a "pariah" effect than any economic sanctions. Might be true or not -- the point is, the issue is contestable rather than proved in anything like a conclusive manner. Burma (Myanmar) face much more than economic sanctions -- they're also under considerable visible public/diplomatic pressure, and have a prominent and newsworthy dissident, as South Africa had Mandela. (Do the "Boycott China" website people endorse sanctions on Cuba? Just curious.)

Second, it's a stretch to say that a consumer boycott of Chinese made goods, in a country that is becoming liberalised, albeit too slowly and with too many exceptions, will have a dramatic impact on the regime. China is a country that the international community is (for better or worse) reaching out to include and embrace. This includes both the business community and the political one. I could be wrong, of course, but it seems to me that we're dealing with a country where we can realistically hope for incremental change, and we can't realistically hope for a major regime shift.

Third, none of this addresses the issue of buying from the third world generally. Krugman makes all the points about our selective moral squeamishness on this issue better than I could, so I'd just commend his piece to you (linked in my first post) if you haven't already read it.

*wanders off to beat up one of Santa's elves*


[Edited on Nov 16, 2003 by TheExasperator]

Be cool if they're the same folks. Heh. Tell them it doesn't seem to be working!

The Chinese government is still capable of brutality, and yet the country is being liberalised. People can come and go, in and out of the country in a way that was not possible there until recently, and is atypical of any standard totalitarian regime. (Every month or so I get a Chinese woman introducing herself to me over ICQ. One is currently sending me a postcard! Whoo!) Slowly but creakingly, it's opening up.

I don't fault your motives here -- compared to boycotting all "sweatshop" merchandise from any country whatsoever -- but any serious boycott that has affected a country detrimentally has been governmentally imposed and enforced, usually in concert with other diplomatic and cultural sanctions. The idea that a voluntary consumer boycott of Chinese products is going to scare the regime just doesn't fly with me.

We agree to differ here, I guess.