Page 988 - This forum is dying

14-05.-2008, 08:43 PM

#14806

jhuskey

Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2003

Location: Great Smoky Mountains, TN USA

Posts: 6,555

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crankyfeet

It's hard to follow the Jman/C FID story when 8/9's of the iceberg of communication is happening in the PM room...

You are only half correct. She sends me all kinds of suggestive pm's but I refuse to reply because of my high morals.

Just kidding C'girl.

__________________
Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

14-05.-2008, 09:21 PM	#14807
limerickman Community Team Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: at the bar Posts: 12,626	Re: This forum is dying Been watching a great series on BBC called Blood Sweat and TShirts. The consumer boom in UK (and throughout Europe) has seen the price of clothes dropping year on year. This programme asked the question, why are pricing dropping? They took six women and looking at the clothes that they purchased on the high street (high street denotes department stores selling branded products). Using their purchase baskets, the researchers traced where the clothes were manufactured. Then, having located the country where these products were made, they sent the shoppers to see how/where and under what conditions, these clothes were made. To say that the programme was heartrendering is an understatement. A womans cotton blouse, retailing for £10.00 in London - was made in a sweatshop in Bombay. The employees - if you could call them that, they were more like slaves - "earned" 6 rupees for each garment made. The garmets were all individually sown on an electric sowing machine, housed in what only can be described as a dickensian hovel in a Bombay backstreet. The conditions in these hovels where these people worked - AND SLEPT - are appalling. No health and safety, exposed electrical wiring everywhere, rats and other vermin roaming freely beside the workstations, two toilets between 6 employees, little or no running water in the place, 18 hour workday 6.5 days per week. Truly dreadful. The conditions outside these workshops were equally bad......open sewers with rats and vermin feeding, human waste washing through the streets, streets (more like corridors) cramped with people milling around, children begging and scavaging for food. Awful. The shoppers brought to this place were visibly upset at seeing the desperate conditions these people had to work in. They did not realise that their "cheap" goods actually came with a price....the price of slavery in effect. Count your blessings. I know the counter argument will be made that even those the poor unfortunates only get six rupees per day - that it is better than nothing. And that if we didn't buy their products, they would be in a worse position. Somehow I have my doubts. If you ever get the chance to see this programme - Blood Sweat and TShirts - I recommend that you view it. __________________ .."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF morelike hypocrisy.

14-05.-2008, 10:25 PM

#14808

C'dale Girl

Registered User

Join Date: May 2007

Posts: 4,079

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhuskey

You are only half correct. She sends me all kinds of suggestive pm's but I refuse to reply because of my high morals.

Just kidding C'girl.

Wow, I'm sincerely impressed and appreciative. For once somebody actually gave the courtesy of admitting they were kidding. Thanks j.

14-05.-2008, 10:29 PM	#14809
C'dale Girl Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 4,079	Re: This forum is dying Thanks for the review of the show Lim. It sounds like it would be an eye opener to watch. Really, I wonder if ANY clothing is made under humane conditions anymore.

14-05.-2008, 10:35 PM

#14810

jhuskey

Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2003

Location: Great Smoky Mountains, TN USA

Posts: 6,555

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by C'dale Girl

Wow, I'm sincerely impressed and appreciative. For once somebody actually gave the courtesy of admitting they were kidding. Thanks j.

Yes ,sometimes I am ok but don't get use to it. I feel a mean streak coming on. The meds are wearing off!

Lim, so you are saying there are some great bargains to be had in Europe.
Seriously, as long as humans walk the Earth there will be exploitation.
btw: Tell Steve I am tired of being a "registered user". After all these years I need a title with some pazazz.

__________________
Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

14-05.-2008, 11:05 PM

#14811

Bro Deal

Registered User

Join Date: Jun 2006

Location: Resting by the Tumtum tree

Posts: 6,320

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by limerickman

Been watching a great series on BBC called Blood Sweat and TShirts...

It's shit like this that makes me think that Marx was on to something. There is something obscene about less than 1% of the price of a cup of coffee filtering down to the bean growers, who live in abject poverty while Starbucks prospers, or $120 running shoes being made by children and pimped by athletes making tens of millions of dollars a year.

__________________
"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

14-05.-2008, 11:17 PM

#14812

limerickman

Community Team

Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: at the bar

Posts: 12,626

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhuskey

Lim, so you are saying there are some great bargains to be had in Europe.
Seriously, as long as humans walk the Earth there will be exploitation.
btw: Tell Steve I am tired of being a "registered user". After all these years I need a title with some pazazz.

Clothes in particular seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper here.

I can recall when you would spend €30.00 for a pure cotton shirt apprx 6 yrs ago.
Today you pay €15 - €20.

If someone can explain to me how a cotton shirt can be made, and transported to here (and remember we're an island - so transport costs are increasing) and pay a fair wage to the shirt makers employee that increases with inflation - and which allows retailer to clear a profit selling between 33 - 50% cheaper than 6 years ago, then I will disbar myself!

You're right - exploitation will always exist.
Mans inhumanity to man...........................

__________________
.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

14-05.-2008, 11:23 PM

#14813

limerickman

Community Team

Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: at the bar

Posts: 12,626

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bro Deal

I agree Bro.
Marx/Engels diagnosed the problem.
But like JH says, it's the human/greed issue which is to blame.

And I do agree that it is obscene that big corporations can source product at
exploitative rates - and then sell at massive margins.

We have "fairtrade" concept over here - where retailers guarantee that the people sourcing the product get a fair price for their output.
Personally I do try to buy as much product as I can from "fairtrade" outlets.
(you pay slightly more than you would at a non-fairtrader...but I'm lucky enough to be able to pay a little bit more).

15-05.-2008, 12:13 AM

#14814

TheDarkLord

Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2007

Posts: 3,846

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by C'dale Girl

Wow, I'm sincerely impressed and appreciative. For once somebody actually gave the courtesy of admitting they were kidding. Thanks j.

So you choose to ignore the numerous j/k notices posted by others in this thread?

15-05.-2008, 02:16 AM

#14815

jhuskey

Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2003

Location: Great Smoky Mountains, TN USA

Posts: 6,555

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDarkLord

So you choose to ignore the numerous j/k notices posted by others in this thread?

She doesn't love eveyone else like she does me.

As far as Marx, Groucho was my favorite.

__________________
Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

15-05.-2008, 02:19 AM

#14816

TheDarkLord

Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2007

Posts: 3,846

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhuskey

She doesn't love eveyone else like she does me.

As far as Marx, Groucho was my favorite.

Hmmm, this is getting interesting. That is now the second person who has claimed that C gives him "preferential treatment". Very interesting...

15-05.-2008, 02:29 AM

#14817

Crankyfeet

Registered User

Join Date: Jun 2007

Location: You are here => X

Posts: 10,717

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by limerickman

Been watching a great series on BBC called Blood Sweat and TShirts.

The consumer boom in UK (and throughout Europe) has seen the price of clothes dropping year on year.

This programme asked the question, why are pricing dropping?
They took six women and looking at the clothes that they purchased on the high street (high street denotes department stores selling branded products).
Using their purchase baskets, the researchers traced where the clothes were manufactured.
Then, having located the country where these products were made, they sent the shoppers to see how/where and under what conditions, these clothes were made.

To say that the programme was heartrendering is an understatement.

A womans cotton blouse, retailing for £10.00 in London - was made in a sweatshop in Bombay.
The employees - if you could call them that, they were more like slaves - "earned" 6 rupees for each garment made.
The garmets were all individually sown on an electric sowing machine, housed in what only can be described as a dickensian hovel in a Bombay backstreet.

The conditions in these hovels where these people worked - AND SLEPT - are appalling.
No health and safety, exposed electrical wiring everywhere, rats and other vermin roaming freely beside the workstations, two toilets between 6 employees, little or no running water in the place, 18 hour workday 6.5 days per week.
Truly dreadful.
The conditions outside these workshops were equally bad......open sewers with rats and vermin feeding, human waste washing through the streets, streets (more like corridors) cramped with people milling around, children begging and scavaging for food.
Awful.

The shoppers brought to this place were visibly upset at seeing the desperate conditions these people had to work in.
They did not realise that their "cheap" goods actually came with a price....the price of slavery in effect.

Count your blessings.

I know the counter argument will be made that even those the poor unfortunates only get six rupees per day - that it is better than nothing.
And that if we didn't buy their products, they would be in a worse position.

Somehow I have my doubts.

If you ever get the chance to see this programme - Blood Sweat and TShirts - I recommend that you view it.

I have a different take on this. It is not slavery. These people are working in these jobs of their own free will. Of course, looking from the position of a first world country, it appears as if these people are "forced" to work in inhumane conditions. But what you will find out if they went below the surface of visual shock, is that these workers actually highly valued their jobs. The poverty you witness on the streets is not the result of the sweatshop... it was there way before the sweatshop. This is a country with parents who are willing to cut the limbs off their children so that they are better beggars. If you upped the salary in these shops to the pay that you think someone in a first world country deserved, you would get a bunch of senior managers and university grads doing the work, and the current employees would be forced back out onto the street. The show also doesn't investigate what basic necessities cost in these towns/cities. They don't make a fuss about the fact that you can feed yourself three meals a day on $US 0.50. They don't point the finger at the evil western bakers who are charging 50 times the Indian rate for a loaf of bread.

Labour arbitrage is what eventually kills poverty IMHO. If one country is prepared to work for a tenth the rate as another, eventually they get most of the work that is transportable. And in situations like China, where this thing has been going on for decades, the early sweatshop cities have now become more wealthy. The middle class is burgeoning. The sweatshops are moving farther and into the rural towns. Real wages are rising fast. If you want to see the effects of poverty where the work is not allowed to flow despite the willingness of the people to work at less rate, go to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Somalia, etc.

I have the opinion that these sweatshops are a way that the world equalises wealth. Labour arbitrage. Remember, despite your visual disgust, no one working there has been forced to.

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Last edited by Crankyfeet : 15-05.-2008 at 02:40 AM. Reason: fixed a typo.

15-05.-2008, 02:31 AM	#14818
Cobblestones Registered User Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Ohio Posts: 422	Re: This forum is dying Shit, this forum really is dying. It's my lunch break and only 3 threads have new messages since yesterday. And it's not the off season either, it's right during the Giro. Where is everybody?

15-05.-2008, 02:35 AM

#14819

jhuskey

Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2003

Location: Great Smoky Mountains, TN USA

Posts: 6,555

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobblestones

Shit, this forum really is dying. It's my lunch break and only 3 threads have new messages since yesterday. And it's not the off season either, it's right during the Giro. Where is everybody?

Nah, it's not dying. It just smells like it is.

__________________
Whenever I can't get excited about riding I just fantasize about someone else's bike.

15-05.-2008, 02:38 AM

#14820

Crankyfeet

Registered User

Join Date: Jun 2007

Location: You are here => X

Posts: 10,717

Re: This forum is dying

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobblestones

Shit, this forum really is dying. It's my lunch break and only 3 threads have new messages since yesterday. And it's not the off season either, it's right during the Giro. Where is everybody?

Interesting point. I think we lost a bunch of people when the two month spam attack happened and there was little evidence of support from admin (thankfully at least we had Lim who came in after a few weeks to clean shop). Also IMO, many of the posters here in the past were attracted to the great doping debates when there were many apologists. The apologists have mostly gone now due to the reality of the last couple of years.

Also American members don't get these races unless they subscribe to a patchy internet stream.

On top of that... no new members have been able to join this forum and post in the last month or so. Unless new members are allowed to join... this forum is truly going to die.

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