Cheap Chinese jackets at what cost ultimately?

[Technonut2112]

The workers at Bronson and other garment manufacturers in China have a living to make and families to support like anyone else on the globe regardless of the wage or conditions. It's all they have available. Also kind of xenophobic to lump the common people / workers in with the wealthy Chi-Com overlords who dictate the country's policy's IMO. To pick and choose 'acceptable' goods to boycott depending upon one's immediate needs is also merely a 'feel-good' excersise in futility when closely examined IMO as well..

 

[kirova]

Technonut2112:

assuming you were replying to me, well, I am an ethnic Chinese, so does it still make me a xenophobe to hate China?

as far as "ordinary workers" of China goes, IMHO

- they support that regime, or, at least don't care enough to do anything about it, so they are as complicit as the CCP itself (in fact, many "ordinary" Chinese I have meet loves the CCP)
- just like if anyone does not agree with me/my employer/my country, they are also free to spend their money elsewhere as well
- by supporting their livelihoods, some of my money will end up in the CCP's coffers, which in turn used to used to oppress my home town, so no thanks
- politics aside, as demonstrated all over the world in the last few months, if China comes to a stand still for whatever reason, the countries that depends on them for manufacturing are also stuffed, so I think it is time to separate our eggs into a few different baskets.

anyway, I am under no illusion that what I do will make any difference at all, but I will sleep better at night knowing that they have less of my hard earned money.

 

[Technonut2112]

By paying mandated taxes, I support political parties / philosophies I do not support.. Whether I like it or not. My $$ goes into their coffers, which oppresses certain groups of people in my country directly or indirectly as well.. I still wouldn't want anyone to go without work or starve because they do not subscribe to my views...

 

[kirova]

unless we go completely off the grid, then there is really no choice about paying tax or where that money goes, but when it comes to my disposable income, I still have a choice, and I will make sure that I will be spending as much of it as possible/practical on business and countries that I agree with.

as for Chinese workers with families to feed, well, so does everyone else on this world we live in, so why should the average Chinese worker gets preference for my money over an Indian or Vietnamese or Australian or American worker?

anyway, just having a rant, you keep doing what you are doing, and I will keep doing what I am doing, if my reply was too "heated", then please accept my apologies in advance

 

[Smithy]

Personally I’ve got no problem with cheap Chinese jackets as long as appropriate clearly
Labeled, I worry more about counterfeit goods especially safety products, pet food ect...
A few years ago there were cases of hazardous pet food and toothpaste coming from China.
what I want to see are that products considered necessities, vital, like drugs
Medical equipment, security telecommunications things be made within respective nations
These provide jobs, taxation, security and autonomy.
While the annoying restrictions we have cause prices to rise we generally know they are safe. (generally)
But (we)* need acknowledge our* hypocrisy and willful ignorance (by that I mean government, corporate and consumer)*
In our* desire For cheaper goods and bigger profits we* have made a deal with the devil
We* know the CCP is antithetical to basically every value of life liberty/freedom we* claim to hold dear
They spy on us, steal secrets and technology, then sell it back, knowingly sell counterfeit goods, the fentanyl of the opioid
Crisis is traced directly to Chinese producers whom the totalitarian goverment won’t stop.
their human rights record is one that even the devil himself if he were real probably couldn’t believe is happening
Any business we do with them props up the government giving them more power to resist change
We* really should keep them at arms length and definitely not for anything we consider a vital/necessary.
My 2 cent opinion.

I have no idea how this will turn out Mike but depending on how bad the human and economic effects are, it might come to pass that the "go back to business as before" approach won't be viable. I know how connected we have been with China in terms of manufacturing, but this might be a game changer.

Populations might demand from their governments that they won't abide what was going on before, and that will be quite a strong push I imagine from countries where the toll of this disaster is the worst. It's known now that this started in a wet market in Wuhan and when the dust starts to settle people around the world are going to be very pissed off and asking a lot of questions.

Interestingly already yesterday I read in the news that a senior British MP (sorry can't remember the chap's name) gave an interview where he mentioned the wet market thing and how this can't go on. This might be the start of talk from the man on the street about this and starting to spread to politicians.

One thing is for sure, China can't be allowed to let this wet market shit continue. They've already released two viruses on the world because some of their people have a fucked up idea about what people should eat and how they sell it. They can't be allowed to keep doing this. The global consequences of this retarded behaviour is being seen now.

 

[Smithy]

Oops I just replied to a post from Busdrivermike but he seems to have deleted it.

At least you can see what I was responding to in my post.

 

[busdrivermike]

Oops I just replied to a post from Busdrivermike but he seems to have deleted it.

At least you can see what I was responding to in my post.

Yeah I decided to delete it as I Am tired and don’t want to be political I come here to look at jackets
That said I have no issue with cheap jackets or products or Chinese people, people are just people
I firmly believe in trade, cultural exchanges and change in general.
But the Chinese government is flat out evil, they are a totalitarian government that controls everything
Yet somehow allows a massive counterfeit market to persist, they allow the fentanyl that fuels the opioid
Epidemic to be made and shipped, then add to that insane human right abuses and wet markets.
I want change but I want cheap stuff and I don’t want to hurt people, yes the Chinese people need
The jobs but these prop up the same government that allows these things to exist.
kinda like buying the bullets for the guy shooting at you.
I want to see the world agree that its got to stop, either through sanctions that are biblical in nature
Or through something anything, I’m tired, I’m willing to pay more and have less if it means this ends
I think hard choices need to be made that will knowingly hurt people, And I hate that when I look at the state of
The world now I’m fully eyes wide open willing to agree to them as I believe the change will need to be forced.
now that said and off my chest I’m gonna stick to weather reports and pictures.

 

[Centaurus3200]

excellent post!

i mean, look at vintage Florsheim Imperial V-Cleat shoes... especially the shell cordovan ones - made until the 90s. NOT cheap back in the day, BUT still bought by the middle class. why? because they (and others like them from Hanover, Nettleton, etc.) were impeccably made by true american craftsman. they were an investment.

now look at stupid high end shoes. i'm talking real ones. you'd have to go up to the level of John Lobb, Edward Green, Gaziano and Girling to level the playing field against a vintage pair of Shell V-Cleats. Alden comes close, but not quite;. Allen Edmonds can't touch them IMHO.

point being, America has lost it's edge in quality manufacturing once we started outsourcing. shit, even if some stuff came back here, we don't have the brain trust to do it anymore. wanna make cell phone here? LOL! GOOD LUCK!

China played the "long game"... much like Japan and Korea. be a bastion of cheap labor for foreign companies... meanwhile they are learning "how to do it" the entire time... until they don't need us anymore. hence the rise of asian companies to prominence - from Sony to Samsung.

remember when Japan was deemed "cheap crap"? they make some of the most quality clothing world... buzz rickson. iron heart, japan blue, Brass Shoe Co., etc.

Most western countries had tariffs on imported goods to protect local industry and in just about every country many industries have become non existent or negligible since they where removed and I doubt many countries would ever bring tariffs back again.
China did not cause these factories to close big business did.
For many younger people used to buying things now they will not remember how the quality and materials used in most things now are so poor compared to what they used to be.
I am 56 and it seems now that what used to be everyday items that working people could afford to buy are now luxury high end items if you want the same quality, yet the cost of making goods is now way cheaper now and the materials used and workmanship are lower.
Yes when I was younger you could pay more or less for something but you could see the difference and it was up you to choose, now most stuff is shit and you are paying for the name not the quality and anything made like it used to be becomes a special "premium" line, why don't most people realise that means what they make now is second rate cheap garbage.
In the USA in the early 60s a pair of levis was about $5 and the average income for American families in 1963 was $6200 or $119 per week so a pair of levis was %4.2 of the average weekly income. Made in the USA
Want the same quality now well you will pay through the nose.
A pair of LVC 1961 levis is $278 and a whopping %23.74 of the average family weekly income for 2019 which was $89,930.70 a year. Made in Turkey?

 

[SuinBruin]

China isn't only enmeshed in our manufacturing; it's also got its hooks firmly in the sports and entertainment industries as demonstrated by the Hong Kong NBA fiasco and multiple movie controversies of various scales (Top Gun II, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Red Dawn remake, etc.). There's no easy way to unbake this particular cake.

At the risk of stating the obvious I have nothing against Chinese people, but the government of China is reprehensible. The list is getting ever longer... Tianamen Square, Tibet, treatment of the Uighurs, the Hong Kong crackdown, abuse of intellectual property rights, the "social credit" system, lack of press freedom (witness the expulsion of American journalists last month), etc. And now we can add a global pandemic to the list. Western liberal democracies should repatriate their industries from China to the greatest extent possible, but for all the reasons already stated I don't see that happening.

Also, China is not incentivized to ban the wet markets even in the face of new infectious diseases. Through a combination of western political values (i.e., no complete lockdowns or quarantines) and gross incompetence the coronavirus is having a much more disruptive impact in the US and Europe than it did in China. From a purely competitive standpoint China is coming out ahead of its geopolitical rivals, and its centrality to the international economy is only being reinforced (i.e., how much PPE, medicine, etc. is made in China). I fear China will come out stronger rather than weaker from all of this, which is just further evidence of what a crazy world we're living in.

P.S. This is a good explainer of the connection between the virus and the wet markets, and just how messed up they are. Far from being a centuries-old tradition they are a relatively recent "innovation" in China catering to a small percentage of the population. They need to go away forever.

edited to add link to piece on China's role in pharmaceutical supply

 

[Spitfireace]

Technonut2112:

assuming you were replying to me, well, I am an ethnic Chinese, so does it still make me a xenophobe to hate China?

as far as "ordinary workers" of China goes, IMHO

- they support that regime, or, at least don't care enough to do anything about it, so they are as complicit as the CCP itself (in fact, many "ordinary" Chinese I have meet loves the CCP)
- just like if anyone does not agree with me/my employer/my country, they are also free to spend their money elsewhere as well
- by supporting their livelihoods, some of my money will end up in the CCP's coffers, which in turn used to used to oppress my home town, so no thanks
- politics aside, as demonstrated all over the world in the last few months, if China comes to a stand still for whatever reason, the countries that depends on them for manufacturing are also stuffed, so I think it is time to separate our eggs into a few different baskets.

anyway, I am under no illusion that what I do will make any difference at all, but I will sleep better at night knowing that they have less of my hard earned money.

As a person from Hong Kong you would know the brutality of communist China better than most. By buying cheap goods from China we are indirectly supporting that regime. A regime that would like to ultimately rule the rest of the world. They know they can't do it by force, so they are doing it economically, by making us dependent on them because we have relinquished the ability to produce goods for ourselves. We have done that willingly because of our own greed for cheaper goods. Maybe we can't choose some things like toothbrushes for instance that are made in the west because they don't exist anymore. But luxury goods where we have a choice, like jackets, we can support the local (western) economy. So as I said at the start of this thread, supporting a government that is hurting the rest of the world by not cracking down on things such as wet markets is coming back to bite us on the ass.

 

[Smithy]

If you cut through everything else, China has fucked up the entire world with this. Not just the human toll of the virus but the horrific economic and social toll.

Like Sars before this comes from people in China doing shit they shouldn't. And like Sars before, this originates from the repugnant wet markets.

So twice now the world has been shafted up the backside because in China they do shit they shouldn't and they don't seem capable of learning from that.

The ball is in the rest of the world's court in terms of what they want to do about it, and they have two options:

1) Let the Chinese keep on doing this shit and wait another few years for the next virus to jump from an exotic species to humanity in the perversity of those wet markets, or

2) Put enough pressure on the Chinese (through whatever means possible) to ensure they shut these markets down

That really is it.

We've seen as a planet what can happen when you let retards in one part of the world do shit they shouldn't. We can either let them keep on doing this sort of nonsense and wait for the next clusterfuck to come out of there or we can start doing things to make them stop.

I'm not a politician so I don't know the specifics but I know enough to know that we as a collective global community need to do something drastic to make China stop those wet markets. Otherwise we'll be in the same shit again because some braindead retard from some wet market in China thinks it's a good idea to eat bats, or pangolins, or giant slugs, etc.

 

[Centaurus3200]

And pangolins are adorable. Breaks my heart

 

[Spitfireace]

Yeah I decided to delete it as I Am tired and don’t want to be political I come here to look at jackets
That said I have no issue with cheap jackets or products or Chinese people, people are just people
I firmly believe in trade, cultural exchanges and change in general.
But the Chinese government is flat out evil, they are a totalitarian government that controls everything
Yet somehow allows a massive counterfeit market to persist, they allow the fentanyl that fuels the opioid
Epidemic to be made and shipped, then add to that insane human right abuses and wet markets.
I want change but I want cheap stuff and I don’t want to hurt people, yes the Chinese people need
The jobs but these prop up the same government that allows these things to exist.
kinda like buying the bullets for the guy shooting at you.
I want to see the world agree that its got to stop, either through sanctions that are biblical in nature
Or through something anything, I’m tired, I’m willing to pay more and have less if it means this ends
I think hard choices need to be made that will knowingly hurt people, And I hate that when I look at the state of
The world now I’m fully eyes wide open willing to agree to them as I believe the change will need to be forced.
now that said and off my chest I’m gonna stick to weather reports and pictures.

Unfortunately we can't have our cake and eat it too. We can't continue business as usual and expect change.

 

[Centaurus3200]

yeah, like STOP torture killing pangolins and other animals. need proof it's not okay? well, judging by COVID-19, mother nature sure seems mighty pissed off. in effect, indirect revenge by said animals.

Unfortunately we can't have our cake and eat it too. We can't continue business as usual and expect change.

 

[ausreenactor]

And pangolins are adorable. Breaks my heart

And they taste GREAT!

 

[kirova]

someone mentioned Hollywood/NBA censorship.

to put it into context for us jacket'ers, if China has the monopoly on making jackets (or have enough influence on our hobby ie our repro makers are addicted to the Chinese $$$ and wouldn't dare to say no to them), then we can probably say goodbye to any Flying Tigers blood chits and CBI patches, as they both contain the flag of Nationalist China ie present day Taiwan.

is that the world we want to live in?

 

[Spitfireace]

someone mentioned Hollywood/NBA censorship.

to put it into context for us jacket'ers, if China has the monopoly on making jackets (or have enough influence on our hobby ie our repro makers are addicted to the Chinese $$$ and wouldn't dare to say no to them), then we can probably say goodbye to any Flying Tigers blood chits and CBI patches, as they both contain the flag of Nationalist China ie present day Taiwan.

is that the world we want to live in?

Not sure what you mean by that as there are lots of individuals making repro patches and chits. For instance check out A2Jacketpatches on eBay.

 

[kirova]

Not sure what you mean by that as there are lots of individuals making repro patches and chits. For instance check out A2Jacketpatches on eBay.

just saying if China's censorship reach our hobby as well, then there could be "restrictions" as some things might offend them. Just like they had to change the patch on Tom Cruise's jacket in Top Gun II, or that NBA manager who got roasted for speaking his mind.

sure they probably won't be able to censor independent patch makers who are based outside of China, but say if you want Eastman to make you a Flying Tigers replica jacket, they might have to decline your order (all hypothetical of course, not suggesting that Eastman has actually bent their knees to China).

 

[Spitfireace]

Well, a number of things about that. I couldn't buy an Eastman even if I wanted one because they won't make a custom size ( I have short arms at five foot three).. Two I wouldn't pay that kind of outrageous price. Three I could make the patches myself if need be. That is to say that you can put together something without the prefab overpriced if you use a little ingenuity.

 

[kirova]

lol like I said, hypothetically, I can change it to "Westwoman" if you like