Well to me when it says "Made in China" ussually means to me that hard labour was part of it. Any third world country for that matter.

I find it very ODD that if you break the law, we go to jail. If they break the law, bad publiclity. Let me rip DRM protection and FBI will come knocking. Work people to death, nothing happens. Hmmm strange....

GrayArea has a great point. Look around your house and see for yourself how many of our everyday things are made in China. And why... because if they were made in America they would cost 10x as much and most of us are not willing to pay that for them. Where if the products are made overseas, the amount of money it cost to make or assemble these same products drops considerabely because these unfortunate people have to work their asses off just to be able to put food on their tables. It's a shame in a country like the USA, people are always complaning about how much they make but don't think twice about what is going on around the rest of the world.

The fact that they're made in China already implies to me that the workers are already being treated badly, so that's no big surprise. Basically, the Chinese work for next to nothing. Almost all the non-food items we buy were made in China. Back in the day, when Clinton opened up trade gateways with China, he made it sound like China would be buying our goods, but really it was the other way around. We send raw materials there, and they send back consumer goods, which means they're getting all our money. A few hundred years ago, England did the same thing with India, buying the Indian cotton, and taking it back to England to make textiles (clothing) and then selling it back to the Indians at a mark-up. Watch the PBS Frontline episode about China and Wal-Mart, to get a better scope of this scenario. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/

BWAAHAHAHAHA , wut munx said

This is price paid for communism, I sound repetitious with that sentence.

"I'm no Apple fan, but to single them out is kinda dumb."-

Agreed

Saw this coming after i read about the other article...wonder what will become of this...

probably nothing much as it will be kept hush hush

Anyways, it was bound to happen sooner or later, if not apple, someone else. Let's look at the U.S. for example with EA games, they overwork their employees, and don't pay their wages on time. So I guess, it boils down to cheap corporations trying to save a buck.

Im not an apple fun but US companies are there to exploit slave labor in china. The problem is IPOD should be alot cheaper because of slave labor in china. Just like nike they also have slave labor camps but I'll be damned if I'll buy a nike shoes for $120 and costing them only $10 to make.

And guys STOP buying chinese goods. We are feeding the chinese communist military. china is still an enemy NOT an allie of US. Buy goods made in Taiwan, Korea and even from India. When I buy computer parts I make sure they are not made in china and when they are I return them. Every CENT you spent on a chinese goods the chinese communist military gets audacious. Think about that ................

Trade is possible if one country has a comparative advantage over another in producing something. Both countries benefit from trade. China's comparative advantage comes from it's low wages and longer working weeks.

Although this seems like slave labour, this has been the source of China's massive economic growth. It has actually improved the lives of many Chinese people.

kfir1, although China is a communist country, it has ditched it's centrally planned economy, as was in accordance with communism and socialism, and has adopted a free market system as is seen in democratic countries. The media now seems to refer to China's political system as "One Party Rule".

I would speculate that the world's largest army is largely useless because China stands to gain more from trade than from war. It is only when trade is severed that problems will arise.

Donuts
SO makeing china a better palce is worth makeing the US into a 3rd world contry?



The US needs balance in its trade policys but sicne thier is little blaance in anythign the goverment dose thier selling everything away...


You have a point unless china gets a war happy leader china will be happy with corpate profits,with that said its not to far fetched to say the US could be paying them off to simpley avoid war....but I wonder if its worth the screwed up econimy we have,look at hidden inflation,unchangeing low wages,hidden unemployment...it all adds up it sickness me to think that we are gong thru a new kind of depresstion,,,thigns are bad could be much worse thigns are getting there tho...and thigns are far from being rosey as the slight of hand republicans have us think....soemtiems I wish teh dems would get off thier ass's and do soemthign in sted of walk around ike a headless chiken(not a pun I side with the devs on alot of isssues but hell theyve becoem mindless politions) when I stop and look at the dem leaders.....forget it...even with a head a mindless polition is still mindless we need more partys at least in a multi party system one has to be better 0-o

ZIppyDSM, you misunderstand. Trade with China does not make the US into a third world country. The US as whole benefits from trade. Americans enjoy not only cheaper products, but also more products - price is lower, demand increases, more bought/sold.

Sure jobs are lost in the importables sector, however these people then find jobs in the exportables sector. For example designing iPods rather than making them. Unknowingly, resources are allocated to where they are most efficiently used. Both countries then end up with more of everything.

Yes, ZIppyDSM it is better to have multiple parties because as George Orwell wrote, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. However, there is nothing to be gained by forcefully imposing this on China ;)

DONUTS .... I totally disagree with you. Trade with china is unbalance. The US is exporting manufacturing jobs to china but products coming from china is no where lowered in price ,eg IPOD, than making it here.

What the US needs to do is give china a bit here and there, crumbs. Just enough for them to survive. Move all other manufacturing jobs to other Asian countries that is an allie to the US. There's the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, India, and Taiwan. Countries like these have "English speaking" and highly educated workers.

Keep china as a slave labor country. Well we dont have to. The chinese communist government is doing that for us. china has to become a democratic republic before I can agree with any trades.

Remember this ..... Massive growth of china is being feed by the American consumers NOT by any other country. KEEP china A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY. Its not in the US interest to keep feeding them.

If I remember correctly, China has about 1.5 billion people. Any country with that amount of people, is bound to fail on some level, they just happen to fail on human rights. With that much people, some people are willing to work for any condition, or any price, because the country obviously lacks money.

Therefore, China is a conundrum, whereby on one hand, U.S. brings big business but working standards are undermined, and on the other hand, if the U.S. wouldn't do business with China, the people would lose out on opportunity.

Anyways, China is a great example of how a country with just too many people can drain on the ressources of the government and its society. You just can't manage a country with 1.5 billion people, it just doesn't happen, so there's bound to be a lot of problems.

kfir1, China is not a third world country. I would say it is second world. That is, they have everything, just a very small percentage of the population can have it.

hot_ice, maybe under a democracy things wouldn't be so bad regardless of population?

Donuts
and you missunderstand me alittle,Tade is a balaned relationship there is no balance in the trade deals with china all we are doing is givieng them the abilty to build our cage,becuse the coperations dont care thier init for moeny they dont care if the US wont be able to buy shit becsue china will repalce us


hot_ice
Its all about wealth power and money...and the coperations have showen they owen it lock stock and barrel,thier are contaly rapeing the middle class if its not the remove of pentions its the lowering of wages to keep the coperation afloft in one sector or another..this coprate BS needs to stop...coperations dont need help from the goverment to survive.....onyl the people do....

Donuts
Mmmm you have a point CHina is 2nd world or close not 3rd mmmm I wonder if mexico coutns as 2nd world...Mmm I guess so *L* I thought 2nd world nations have a desencet middle class tho a 3rd world nation has the right and the poor ,a rst world nation has a balaance of all 3,and we are loseing our middle class by the day when you go to collage and to add to it and have to have 2 of them to get by .....*sigh* its almost ponitless to go to collage unless you want to take a 30-59% pay cut in what is considered normal wage....

Donut, that's a very difficult question to answer. However, one thing I do know, the number one problem of any society, whether democracy or otherwise, is an overwhelming population that surpasses the capacities of the country itself. Being that China has a mind boggling 1.5 billion people, if they would switch to a democracy, I don't think it would make much of a difference, there is just too many people to handle for just about any government or nation!

I am curious now to find out how many people inhabited China 100 or maybe 200 years ago, there is clearly an overpopulation problem or else they would have not enacted a law that allows you to have one child only.

Oops just to correct a mistake, there are currently 1.3 billion Chinese people, there will be 1.5 billion in 2030 approximately. Still a lot of people no less!

Wow .... are we planning to exterminate half of the 1.5 billion chinese so that We, US, dont have to feed them? Nah .... the chinese government will do that for us.

ZIppyDSM, consider this: Country A has more Imports than exports, the value country A's currency falls as a result, hence exports from country A become more attractive, value of country A's currency goes up.

Governments also act in self interest as well, they act such that Marginal Political Benefit is greater than Marginal Political Cost. That is, they what it takes to get elected, not what is nessesarily best for the country.

Some definitions for you:
First world: Everyone can have everything, eg, US, Australia, England
Second World: The priveleged can have everything, eg, China, Russia, India
Third World: You can't get most things, whoever you are, eg. Ethiopia

hot_ice, Maybe with better management, they wouldn't need a one child policy. Imagine all those childcare jobs, lol.

LOL, this has become an economics thread on a video forum.

China is a huge country, imagine trying to run it, I know I couldn't, you can't really manage 1.3 billion people in one country!

Donuts
so that makes mexico a 2nd world nation tryign to dumb its poor on us? *L*

WHatever happened to balance and oversight?......

lets see we are sellng off many goverment run or operated thigns in order to save a dime hel dubi ports is still in the hands of dubi.

In order for the coperations that our here to make more moeny we have limited to no restrictions on china goods so we can ignore the hidden inflation and buying cheaper imported stuff.


Becuse the conrty is owend by the coperatins they set the goverments policys and intrests...oh what a wonderfull world we live in.....oy vay soemtiems I wish ol bushy wuld press the button and get thigns over with *L*

---

ZIppyDSM, it is not only corporations that control Governments. Any loud interest group controls the government. Think about abortion and gay marriage. I really doesn't effect the country if gays can get married or not, it's all about who is louder in the state/country: the church or the gays who want to get married. Abortion is actually a good thing because the babies which are aborted are usually the ones who would grow up to be criminals. (Freakonmics, by Steven Levitt) However, once again if the church is louder, then abortion will be banned. The government just wants to be re-elected.

The P2P issue can be swayed in a similar way, if P2P users are louder than the RIAA and it's equivalents, then P2P is here to stay.

It is actually recommend that corporations do not engage in "rent-seeking" activities as it is expected not to be worth their while. Maybe RIAA is an exception, but I guess that subpoenas aren't too expensive compared to how much money they want.

It seems that the church for example, is much more likely to try a control the government. Think Australia's "Family First" party, record numbers of evangelical Christians voting in USA's last presidential election.(For Bush) Yes, the world really is that horrible ;)

If Ipod factory admits to violating labor laws, that means they knew of working conditions beforehand, and were waiting to get caught, and then, do something about it, how convenient.

It's pretty bad when you can't even follow Chinese labor law. I noticed the story doesn't actually tell us how long a normal work week is in China is.