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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow do you even explain this, let alone fix it?
I just made a purchase in downtown DC, at a semi-upscale clothing store (part of a chain, but not a large or famous chain). The paper bag I received my purchase in was "Made in Korea/Assembled in Vietnam."
Think about that.
It is, apparently, cheaper and more convenient for free packaging to be printed halfway around the world, then shipped to a different country thousands of miles away just to be glued together and have little ropey handles inserted, then shipped to the other side of the globe to be given away gratis.
And this is without TTP.
Bringing back American manufacturing? Good luck with that.
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CentralCoaster
(1,163 posts)Chinese chickens.
Crazy, right?
And, do you know who loves Tyson?
Anyway....
http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2015/07/19/processing-american-chicken-in-china-smart-business-or-ruthless-profiteering/#d19c76637ba0
Absurd.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)It costs money to kill chickens humanely.
And the problem isn't necessarily the companies but the consumers. We don't want to spend the money it takes to manufacture items in the US.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)of their own people.it is that melinine thing tha killed cats and dogs inpet food. it fattens up animals for sale and brings more money but it poisons some people who eat it. Using it to produce more milk killed thousands of babies in China.
The thing to remember that a ban like that would be something the country would get sued over if they joined the TPP and it passed, Like not labeling meat, if congress did not get rid of meat labeling, We would have paid hundreds of millions to Canadian and Mexican farmers by a WTO ruling. Or the fact that it does not make sense to build the Keystone pipeline does not stop the owners from suing this country for Billions for not allowing the company to use eminent domain to take private property to build their pipeline. this under NAFTA.
marble falls
(57,081 posts)Officials say "okay" to processed chicken from China
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/officials-say-okay-to-processed-chicken-from-china/
Jitter65
(3,089 posts)CentralCoaster
(1,163 posts)I'll bet she's fine with it, even helped to create it as SOS.
Hekate
(90,683 posts)
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)but cut into chunks and packaged in China!
then transported back here to the store.
CentralCoaster
(1,163 posts)How many pennies is that worth, and what is the carbon footprint for shipping over so many thousands of miles to make a few pennies more?
Arrrrgh!
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)why you are not using a reusable shopping bag.
Back in 2001 though I was in Switzerland, so I thought I could get some cheap Ricola throat drops. To my surprise though they were cheaper in the United States. My Swiss cousin said "well, yes, we have decent wages in this country".
CentralCoaster
(1,163 posts)They'll even send chickens to china for processing, then ship them back her for sale.
And hide the label that explains where your chicken has been.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2015/07/19/processing-american-chicken-in-china-smart-business-or-ruthless-profiteering/#d19c76637ba0
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)and I don't carry reuseable shopping bags on me at every moment of every day. Ok by you?
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Good work!
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)non-recycling materialists will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
(note - check your copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to get the joke)
clarice
(5,504 posts)truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)for the answer.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)I built my kitchen to have four spaces for cans to put various type of trash for recycling into. Each can is the correct size to fit paper grocery bags since I try to use no plastic garbage bags ever - and the only ones I buy are for other purposes. I have a part box of plastic garbage bags that I bought to cover surgical bandages. Those now go in my husband's backpack to hold the trash he picks up when hiking through the woods.
Most of the time we use reusable bags for our shopping but sometimes, like recently, we've had to go out of our way to get some of our groceries in paper bags so we could replace the ones that had been in the cans for several cycles.
Our smaller trash cans fit small plastic grocery bags. Again, we have to make a conscious effort to get one or two of those a month to line the cans.
Maybe the OP was intending to use the paper bag for something else?
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)how your purchase was going to be packaged and where the packaging came from... 
to other poster
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)So odds are the paper in that bag came from here, was shipped to Korea turned into a bag, shipped to Vietnam to be glued together and handle added, and then was shipped back to the US so that the boutique could give you a handy bag.
Be sure to reuse the bag then recycle it and send it back on its crazy world trip.
Ain't free trade wonderful?
HubertHeaver
(2,522 posts)Given the facts in #4, what is the country of origin (coo)?
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Shipped around the world in a supertanker to keep from paying American workers a living wage.
What insanity.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)shipping lines are going broke because of teh severe decline in the sales of goods.
Container carriers to lose more money in 2016
Container: Growing imbalance between supply and demand combined with the container carriers' insufficient attempts to reduce capacity in the market will send freight rates down even further in 2016, projects Drewry, pointing to a new challenge in the coming year.
http://shippingwatch.com/secure/carriers/Container/article8350621.ece
Most container shipping lines have been losing money year on year since the downturn in 2009.
https://next.ft.com/content/44894f4c-642a-11e3-b70d-00144feabdc0
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And a wasteful one at that.
You can buy shipping containers cheep here in the US because we don' use many to ship over there so they pile up here because it is not economical to ship them back empty
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Bulk waste paper, bulk synthetic resin (aka plastic), and empty containers.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)I just read a great article about this on538. I just don't understand why we are obsessed over manufacturing jobs that are only going to get more automated than on well paid service jobs.
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)There's nothing special about most manufacturing jobs, including those I've done. They take no more brains, skill, or strength than flipping burgers. Yet Americans mourn lost manufacturing, but balk at raising the wages of fast food workers. What made manufacturing jobs good jobs wasn't the manufacturing but the wages, brought to you by unions. The solution isn't more manufacturing, it's re-unionizing the workforce.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)Occupies these jobs
We think of service jobs as occupied by women and teenagers whereas manufacturing is occupied by men who have families.
Loudestlib
(980 posts)That's why everyone should fight for equal pay for women and higher wages for service workers. The wages from those old manufacturing jobs could feed a family of four, buy a house, and car.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)So it will never be what it used to be. There is no reason why we can't pay decent wages for service though
Loudestlib
(980 posts)A lot of high end service jobs could hit the chopping block soon. Algorithms can already do a lot of the work of managers, low end legal work, accounting etc..... It's going to get interesting.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)But hiring one percent of what they replaced (canon vs Instagram)
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)for manufacturing jobs was the time and place at which it happened. Unions have power when place matters. It mattered decades ago. Now the world is more open. Place doesn't matter. In the ultimate placeless society, America, it matters less than most others.
If the job you have can be done anywhere, by anyone, or any thing, what is a union going to do? Unless you plan on unionizing on a global scale.
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)and pay scales of everyone. It can be argued that any job can be done by anyone, but not anywhere.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)Unions in the US were also at their strongest before civil rights and prior to women really entering the workforce. I would say one person could have a job that would support a family, not because of some grand notion of progress, but because white men were all that was out there to legally pay for a period of time. As more people got paid to work, you can get 2 people for the price of 1, or 1.5.
Then more people go to college to acquire more specialized skills to get better paying jobs. Then as more people go to college to do the same thing, the value of that college degree isn't quite what it used to be, as those skills aren't as rare.
There's more pressure on more and more people from all kinds of angles. That's what happens in a full world though. You can't sail west anymore. You can't just kill people that are in the way anymore. Humans have been trying to get more for less since we started sharpening sticks or rocks for more efficient hunting. Probably even before that. Get that extra piece of fruit from the tree for less effort.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Become automated.
Executives at Uber are planning on utilizing the coming smart cars to replace delivery drivers. Some 250 million delivery jobs will be lost to the automated machines we once lovingly referred to as cars.
And no one has commented yet on how our population's physical bodies will do, after our bodies start absorbing all those lovely radar rays from the smart car technology!
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)there was a time (I remember it fondly) when American brand name companies had a sense of loyalty to this nation. But thanks to "free" trade and the stock market, any such non-profit generating floo-flah is just that.
What Reagan sparked and what Slick Willie perpetuated (as will his wife) was the drive to make working wages roughly equal across the globe. Sadly, we're dependent upon folks in Europe, New Zealand and others to hope for a stop to this push.
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Reality, aka as facts.
Germany, when adjusted per capita, has the world's highest export rate, because the German government has kept its manufacturing base there.
That is why since 1985 the average German worker has experienced a wage hike of 172%, while we Americans have seen a whopping one half of one percent wage increase since 1985.
--->Comparison 172% to .05%
But whatever. Believe as you want to. After all, our One Percent needs you to believe whatever misguided feelings you have, and hold on to them dearly, because that is about all we have left!
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)T was unions that made manufactring jobs worthwhile.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)The right is stuck in the 1950's socially. Neither one is coming back.
If more people are doing the service jobs, then they don't need to pay people all that well to do them, as there is always another person waiting to do the job. It's all a numbers game. If you're not really needed, why would you get paid more?
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Unsupported premise.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)clarice
(5,504 posts)
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)it will say Made in USA.
jalan48
(13,865 posts)
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)It isn't the cheap labor. It's cheap energy. The reason that manufacturing is coming back to the US is because the industrial cost of electricity has gone down so much. China and much of the world subsidizes their electrical energy production and industry, especially heavy industry, uses ALOT of electricity. The US has been switching to natural gas which is VERY competitive with that cheap power. The ships that move all those goods are huge and use very little energy per carried pound. The labor to unload it is a larger concern, and even THAT is miniscule.
But as has been noted, the typical US factory is HIGHLY automated these days and takes a fraction of the workforce it used to demand. But it's still better work than the service industry.
jalan48
(13,865 posts)Generally energy costs are not that important to industries. You'll find that many won't do energy efficiency upgrades without incentives from utilities or the tax payers.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)It's why things like steel were often located close to oil and coal. The TVA brought alot of industry to their region that required large amounts of electricity. It is true lately that utilities are often providing incentives for improvements. This is mostly for their interest in "load leveling".
jalan48
(13,865 posts)zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)
moonbeam23
(312 posts)i buy recycled made in usa bags for my little shop...costs more but i like to try to vote my conscience with my dollars...
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Buy American!
Stop enabling the capitalist system!
Eventually, we'll all have to get higher incomes and raises to buy the American products made by us!
Eventually, our purchasing power will get right back to where it was when we had a global economy! 
And the standards around the world will stay as miserable as they are. 
I guess we win, they lose?
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)That is the conundrum posed by technology. What do we do when all work is handled by some form of robot.
On a side note, I heard today that Uber is working on self-driving cars. Their business model ultimately gets rid of the many low-wage drivers they use.
clarice
(5,504 posts)
Hydra
(14,459 posts)We don't need people anymore. The idea of 100% employment has already passed.
Mosby
(16,310 posts)I used to have some business dealings with a company called Victory Packaging, they are the number one seller of cardboard boxes in the US. The boxes used to be made here, but now they are all made in Mexico.
Jitter65
(3,089 posts)political charlatans who keep blaming NAFTA and all other trade agreements for the loss of industrial jobs that are never coming back. Automation, saturation, and changing lifestyles are the major contributors to job loss, and now you can add to that mix rising wages and benefits for US workers...not that they don't deserve this but the reality is what it is. If you can get people to accept the inflation that comes with much higher wages and prices, we can once again make things here. We can't have it both ways. Look what happened when oil prices dropped. We were screaming that oil prices were too high and once they dropped to where they are now all kinds of jobs dried up and people who worked int he oil industry began bitching about falling oil prices and how bad Obama was for allowing the prices to drop so low.... hmmm.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)more to poor countries and will help them progress. We went through a phase with jobs like that on our way to becoming the 1%ers of the world. They deserve a chance too. And, I'd tax the heck out of corporate profits due to that for use to the betterment of the home country. As these other countries progress, the world will be a better place for everyone, not just greedy Americans who have used more than their share of the worlds resources and wealth.
Urchin
(248 posts)You will find that industrialization of countries across the planet, will sooner exhaust Earth's resources.
The notion of "progress" is an illusion. What is termed "progress" is nothing more than the art of making more out of less, the less being of generally lower quality with each new generation of technology.
In the end, we will pollute the planet, exhaust earth's resources, and civilizations will collapse across the globe. Likely all forms of violence will erupt as the remaining humans struggle among themselves Easter Island style, for the scraps of sustenance that remain.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)countries to correct it.
Urchin
(248 posts)Be we deserve a pass on that pollution for giving the world the gift of technology.
("Gift," according to the popular conception of technology as being "good," which is not my conception; but to hoist you by your own petard, I argued from your perspective)
clarice
(5,504 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)clarice
(5,504 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)clarice
(5,504 posts)I don't care about other Countries..... The first problem is the leaning of these "other Countries" toward
the socialist agenda, or their own lack of Nationalism.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)are like that.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)everything.
Do you eat Shrimp? I had to give it up - you have the cancerous shrimp from the gulf after a business was allowed to flout the law on turn off valves and not pay the real price but a bargain reduced one, didn't even follow the law when they were told to stop pouring toxic detergent on the oil.
From south east asia where they use children slaves to fish for them and when t hey get big enough to fight back, take them out to the ocean and drop them over the side. Sorry I can't be a part of that. Or farmed shrimp filled with antibiotics because it is not like humanity needs to have antibiotics like work.
Of course eventually labeling all this stuff will be illegal, so you won't really know.
These are not treaties for the people in the countries, it is for the bribe takers in the countries and for corporations. geta clue, if and when the trade deals give real control to the people and not the corporations who can sue down your environmental laws because it might cost them more money to do business, well maybe then I will be for the, right now I nave no need to be a slave of Corps.
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)raw materials and labor are cheap in those parts of the world (no 401ks, health benefits, etc). Its why Dell and all these American companies closed up shop and went to Chindia. Shipping is already factored in the cost of the product so basically its a win-win for corporations. It's the main reason why corporations have made obscene profits after the passage of NAFTA.
TPP is only going to protect their investments from gubbermint regulation and lawsuits. Its the icing on the cake for transnational corporations who've set themselves up real nice at the expense of everyone else.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)tax revenue, construction, education, a future, etc.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)it rarely trickles down, just read the latest repots onNike, they have decided no one has to inspect their properties any more, they are back to their bad old ways that require companies to use cheapest labor - children or not pay over time but require it from their workers. never forget that old Apple factory that they supposedly fixed - the one that hung nets over the building to cut down on worker suicides.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)be taxed to hell and regulated with strict human and labor rights. But to say poor people would be better off without jobs is just wrong.
Although maybe we'd all be better off on our own little piece of land, pulling water out of the river, catching our own food, etc. But, I don't believe it.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)revolution began when pictures of purchased children chained to machines were shown to the public. How quickly we forget.
Trees clear cut, survival without a job made impossible. Water poisoned. etc. Remember these corporate jobs that these lucky people get may make life close to impossible, It is like how lucky a country is to get the olympics. When the street children are all gathered up and disappear, can have tourists see the poverty they live or possibly get robbed, so they disappear,possibly to a mass grave. we will see if they reappear after 6 months. They finances of the country was drained to have the olympics, no services for the people. Did you hear that the sailing may have to take place somewhere else - people did not want to fall off the boats in the water because bodies kept bobbing up, that is if you can find them among the utter filth of the water.
Look at CHina, the workers have more of a living, but the air pollution is so bad, you can barely see where you are going, no telling what it is doing tot he people. Can't document that you know, makes the country look bad.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)no jobs. If not, why work at all?
The TPP and the so-called May 10th 2007 agreement attempt to ensure countries improve with respect to labor rights. While it still isn't enough, it's a heck of a lot better than the Nationalists propose - "no trade or jobs for you, us America First types want it all."
So, where do you fall?
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)or harvest for somethings before they were assigned to factories. Look Nafta has worker rights in the treaty, but guess what, they are violated all the time and nothing is done about it. What good does it do to put stuff in the treaty and not enforce it?
where do I fall?
well considering the WTO ruling that we can label meat by country or we have to pay Canada and Mexico millions congress dropped that law faster than you can imagine, Or that the company that wanted to build the Keystone Pipeline is now suing the US for multiple Billions of dollars for not allowing them to use eminent domain to get land to build that pipeline on other people's land whether they wanted it or not. The fact taht corporations have been involved with these treaties since day one and the unions and environmentalists were blocked out makes me thing bad things will happen.
So I stand were until these trade deals are done openly, I do not want any of them. Especially the rules that will extend patents for medications many of which were developed with government funds and not private funds.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)the labelling to avoid a tariff war. People with absolutely nothing want the jobs, or they would not work. These issues are not as simple as you want to make it, especially if you look at it strictly from a Nationalist, America First perspective.
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)more war as people demand their share of the world's wealth.
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)If we get those jobs back pay goes up, unemployment goes down, and our exports begin to soar. Also the world isn't getting that wealth: a few trans-national corporations are the ones benefiting from these trade agreements. Everybody else gets exploited.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)and everything to do with corporations who are exploiting people in various countries. The facts are simple: we lose jobs and the rest of the world loses their lives working obscene hours and in dangerous conditions. You can spread the wealth around but it must be done in a way that benefits everyone and not just a few corporations that own the means of production.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)that you could cut with a knife. We have no idea how many that kills a year.
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)Especially with those computer parts that keep burning year round.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)It's not important that cheap stuff you see in the stores is made in China or Korea or Vietnam or wherever. What is important is that the equipment the foreign workers use to make the stuff is made in the U.S. There's much more profit in that, enough to pay U.S. workers a decent wage.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)If China, Vietnam, Korea, etc., are progressing they will buy more of what we can make better than they can. I think sometimes we look at poor countries and judge their situation on our standards. Heck, we were pretty backwards up until the mid 1930s or even later in some areas. I can remember using an outhouse on my grandparents' little farm in the 1950s. That deep hole is kind of etched in my mind.
clarice
(5,504 posts)
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)As a result of China taking complete control of Vietnamese shipping routes in the South China Sea, soon they will control all cheap labor. Then, "given away gratis" will become a meaningless, archaic phrase.
