The Cheap Plastic Crap From China Bubble Has Burst

[WeDidIt]

It struck me today that the entire world economy for the past eight years has been predicated on one thing,...

Americans buying cheap plastic crap from China.

The Cheap Plastic Crap Bubble was bound to burst because of the viscious cycle ineherent within that system.

Americans wanted their plastic crap to be cheap, so American manufacturuers looked for cheap labor. They found cheap labor to make plastic crap in China, thus moving American cheap plastic crap jobs from America to China.

This meant American factory workers who used to be employed in the manufacture of cheap plastic crap lost their jobs and had to get jobs from McDonalds, basically accepting McJobs. Because Americans couldn't afford to pay as much for cheap plastic crap, more jobs got sent to China to lower the cost of cheap plastic crap, thus moving more American workers into McJobs...

You just knew the Cheap Plastic Crap from China bubble was gonna burst sooner or later, and that's what we're seeing now.

So now that we can't afford as much cheap plastic crap from China, we aslo cannot afford cheap artery hardening crap food from McDonalds.

So what's happening? McJobs are being outsourced to China. Drive-thru lines are increasingly being manned by outsourced jobs.

I don't want to be around when the McJob bubble bursts...

[murielm99]

1. Off topic, but,

you like Alexi?

I do, too. We have to keep that seat.

[WeDidIt]

2. Well, he's already proven he can win a statewide election

and the guy currently holding the seat couldn't win a wet-paper-bad-wide election.

[Historic NY]

3. As if we didn't see it coming...bad tootpaste, bad dog food, poisoned childrens toys,

bad sheetrock....the lists goes on. The American pursuit of cheap crap has flushed our own on-shore companies & jobs we need along with the economic engine of America.

[WeDidIt]

5. Do you know how I KNEW it was gonna burst big time?

Dungeons and Dragons miniature figures used to be made of pewter and manufactured in the US. You used to prime, then hand paint the,

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, decided to have them pre-painted and made out of plastic. On top of that, isntead of being officially for Dungeons and Dragons, these miniatures supported a skirmish wargame modeled after the collectible card games. Thus, it was a comllectible miniature tabletop wargame. Certian minis were common, others uncommon, others were rare. To get them all you needed to buy a couple fo cases and trade for the ones you missed.

These things were handpainted, too. The job was done in China. So here were Chinese people doing crappy paint jobs on soft plastic miniatures for D&D.

WoTC made a mint on them, and after market dealers marked up some of this cheap plastic crap to like $100 for a little hunk of poorly painted plastic crap.

You just KNEW the cheap plastic crap bubble was gonna burst after seeing that.

[Vinca]

13. Don't forget lousy, cheap toasters that don't work. nt

[ksoze]

4. McD's is actually doing well in this economy and their service jobs are not being outsourced

Unless I missed something in your post.

[WeDidIt]

6. They outrsourced service jobs years ago

You used to get hamburgers fried up on a griddle on site.

Now, they're heated up in a microwave.

Also, the people who take your order at the drive thru aren't necessarily on site.

[ksoze]

7. What McDonalds do you go to - Northern Siberia?

At all of them around my metro area and everywhere else I have been the burgers are cooked on a grill and the drive-in person sits in a window and looks human to me (well, most of the time).

[WeDidIt]

8. Chicagoland

Not a single grill in any McDonald's here.

And they have tested the idea of an order taking center servicing mutliple drive-thrus and transferring data through broadband connections. It works. The guy at the window takes money and makes change.

[ksoze]

10. Same Difference

JUST KIDDING - that is unreal. Good to know what may be coming.

[DrToast]

9. It's the dollar bubble...and it's been around longer than that

Before it was other countries, the manufacturing just recently became concentrated in China.

It's the dollar. It's overvalued. The bubble deflated a bit the last few years, but there is still a way to go.

[tomreedtoon]

11. It isn't only "cheap plastic crap."

Did you spend any time in shopping malls in the last five years? It's also been Expensive Rare Polished Wood Crap. And Elegant Soft And Flowing Fashion Crap. And Flashy And Star Trekky Looking Electronic Crap.

Everyone I know, especially poor people who've been unemployed and living off friends, go ga-ga when they walk through malls and boutique stores. They see all this wonderful stuff, exhibited as if it was a non-actress like Madonna being lit for a music video. They stare at it, and dream of having it in their homes (that they also dream about owning), and proclaim its quality and beauty and utility.

By portraying our problem as "cheap plastic crap" you are arguing as an elitist, saying that poor people or people who can't shop daily at Ikea or Bloomingdale's are worthless trailer trash. Get real. It's the very principle of buying ANYTHING, of feeling that buying things can make you a better person or make you loved, that is the core problem.

In other words, it's the basic delusion under which we have been living for perhaps a century, maybe more. We believe there is something intrinsically wrong with ourselves, and it can only be fixed by something outside ourselves.

[demokatgurrl]

12. We do have a serious disorder in this country

we have been led and fed the need for the cheap plastic (and non-plastic) crap from China, because we have allowed ourselves to be persuaded that we need more, more MORE STUFF. Every kitchen appliance in existence including electric can openers (I never did get that one, except for people with arthritis), 20 pairs of shoes instead of 3 good ones, dust-collecting nick-nacks, a cheap watch for every day of the week rather than one good one... etc. Couple that with the greed of retailers, who realize that they can have clothings and housewares made in China for a whole lot less and continue to charge us the same prices because we need that retail fix, and you end up with cheap crap from China that is not necessarily cheap, I mean inexpensive.

I do agree on the nature of the disorder: We believe there is something intrinsically wrong with ourselves, and it can only be fixed by something outside ourselves.

[WeDidIt]

14. Here's a few pictures of cheap plastic crap

[Occam Bandage]

15. Actually, McDonalds is doing really well. So is Wal-Mart, cheap-plastic-crap king.

[SoCalDem]

16. Manufactured "need", supplied by mass-marketed greed

before WWII, people bought what they truly needed, and they used it until it broke/wore out..and then they REPAIRED it.. Shoes were re-heeled and half-soled, clothes were let out and taken in..or cut apart to make clothes for kids or fabric for quilts.

If an "expensive" item was needed, people SAVED UP, until they had the money to BUY it..

Of course there was no TV around then, searing pictures into our brains. A couch, in black & white in a grainy newspaper photo, or talked about on radipo, did not set couch-envy loose within our souls.

Post-WWII, the "ad-men" had the perfect storm on their hands..MILLIONS of young families with GI Bill money burning a hole in their pockets, and TV....

the rest is history