IT sweat shops in CHina

[alexruiz]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
Allright, well, I actually live in China, so I have more right to comment on the wage issue than anyone else in this thread. (most likely) and the fact is that it costs about 50$ a month to live a half decent life here.

I'm gonna comment on the living in Qingdao because that's where I live. It's a port city with a decent city standard of living. (before you comment on how good my english is, I lived in America for 13 years before comming over here. I have an American passport. I am an American. Heh. Okay?)

You can live offa a dollar a day, if food is the only issue.

A decent apartment costs 1200$. That's not bad at all. A single room apartment fit for living by a single would cost about 20$ a month to rent.

A decent meal over here costs 50 cents. If you wanna go really low, you can get food that'll keep you going for about 30 cents. While that'll lead to mal nutrition, i've personally survived offa 50 cent meals when I was at my friends house eating out. That'll get you like, 15 mini dumplings, and a mini coke, and that was personally enough to keep me from starving.

Now, with the 20$ a month house rent issue, I am not spouting crap. That is true. Even a fairly good house fit for a family is 50$ a month. I know my friend and he lives with his mother in a single room apartment (it's like, 100 square feet, yes, but it's still livable. ) and his family makes no more than 120$ a month. And they live fine. I mean, if you cook your own food, you can get off with nutritious meals for 2 people for like, 3$ a day. Or less. Infact, 3$ a day for 2 people is overkill over here, if you don't eat alot of meat. I mean, vegetables go for like, 20 or 30 cents a pound over here. And a pound of vegetables is a hell of alot. And rice can sometimes sell for as low as 10$ for like, more than 20KG. And that's before it's cooked.

Most people don't own cars, they don't have car insurance, or *any* insurance for that matter. Like, 40% of the people over here own cellphones, and most own color TV's. I mean, hell, a used 21'' color TV over there is like, 50$. If you saved up for a year, you could buy one no sweat, even on their pathetic salary. Almost all transportation is like, done by bus's, where 12 cents will get you nearly from one end of the city to the next. And even the Taxi's charge like, 25 cents a mile. There goes alot of your reason for living expenses.

Transportation is a non issue. 12 cents to get on the bus to get to work, 12 cents to get back. like, 25 cents a day round trip.

When you think about that in that sense, it completly doable to survive offa that kinda salary. Now, wheather or not you'll be able to have some of the upper level conviences (Hell, we don't even have drinkable tap water over here. >.<) i'd say that to live decent, you'd need 120$ a month over here. That's more than enough to support a person in the middle class. So these people can lead very comfortable lives offa their 30 cent an hour salary.

That being said, it's obvious that it's cheaper to produce things over there. And those people can live decent lives offa that salary. But China's developing at an insane pace. Economically they'll catch up with the U.S.A. within 50 years. Don't laugh at their 30 cents an hour wages, it's enough for them. Even in a big city like Qingdao, 30 cents an hour isn't terrible. It's enough to live. It's enough to have some luxiries. And to the average Chinese, it's enough to be happy. Any questions, just PM me. I know alot about life over here.

Excellent post!! I really liked what you wrote..... to get the most important things in life you don't need to have tons of money.

 

[NeoSolo]

If you want them to pay these people $7/hours, are you willing to pay $700 for motherboard?

If you really want to make difference than, why not create your own company paying $20/hour wage, and charge end user $1000+ for motherboard or something. See if you can survive the competitive market.

I am sure that purchasing power and life is different.
I do not think it is good thing to compare one part of world to another.

So basically, are you willing to pay extra to provide living condition that is par with your living standard?

I would like to see everyone in the world living comfortable environment, but life is not fair.....

For those so call average person (including me), if someone with few billions of dollar in their pocket, I am sure that they feel sorry for me when I do not drink out of bottle water.

point of view.. point of view..

life goes on and hoping for the best.

 

[Geekbabe]

What's scary about this is the number of US companies that will ship work overseas or import temp visa workers at wages far,far lower than what US IT professionals are getting.

 

[lowtech1]

Lucky - What more prove do you need?

FishTankX - Could you please elaborate what the average farmer or field worker get per day (my number could be off because I was there in the mid 90s).

Any, just to let you know that rice here in America is range from $5.75-20.00 per bag of 20 kilograms, but most good ones can be had for $10.00-$12.00 per 20 kilo bag. I'm using rice as a comparision, because a person that live the life style like the average peasant in China here in North America can get by easily on $50.00 a month on rice, pickled cabbage & salted fish-head. (I have lived for as little as $75.00 CAD or $50.00 USD per month for 2 months during my college days here in Canada).

According to the above number the average person make about $120.00 per month in the "city", and that buying power could purchase them 12 bags of rice a month. While the average Mcdonald worker here would make well over $50.00 per day if they put in the kind of hours people over there work, and it mean that they could easly purchase 5 bags of rice per day or 130 bags per month if they work 6/7 week.

Please look at the number & see how the poor over there is at least 10X poorer than the have not here in America. It is supposedly a ?communist? country where everyone is equal (may be it is only mean that the peasants can be equally poor), and the goverment (fat murderous thief) claim that the Cultural Revolution is for the people & wipe out blood sucking capitalist pigs.

 

[badluck]

Most businesses in the U.S. only care about maximizing profit. They are in business to make profit for their shareholders and/or execs. If a company is able to pay someone a low wage, they are going to exploit that. If China didn't allow U.S. companies to do this they wouldn't be able to. Therefore, the responsibility is on the Chinese Government to negotiate standards that PROTECT their workers. If they fail to do that, the people of China need to revolt. If they are unwilling to do that, then it is their problem.

It is not the fault of companies in the U.S. who are simply abiding by laws setup by the Chinese Government. Moreover, if the U.S. was so worried about it, they would enact laws that require companies based in the U.S. to provide certain wages, benefits when employing outside of the U.S.

Bottom line: If you want to argue the moral aspect of it, don't bother. Business has never worked on moral responsibility and never will.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: lowtech
Lucky - What more prove do you need?

FishTankX - Could you please elaborate what the average farmer or field worker get per day (my number could be off because I was there in the mid 90s).

Any, just to let you know that rice here in America is range from $5.75-20.00 per bag of 20 kilograms, but most good ones can be had for $10.00-$12.00 per 20 kilo bag. I'm using rice as a comparision, because a person that live the life style like the average peasant in China here in North America can get by easily on $50.00 a month on rice, pickled cabbage & salted fish-head. (I have lived for as little as $75.00 CAD or $50.00 USD per month for 2 months during my college days here in Canada).

According to the above number the average person make about $120.00 per month in the "city", and that buying power could purchase them 12 bags of rice a month. While the average Mcdonald worker here would make well over $50.00 per day if they put in the kind of hours people over there work, and it mean that they could easly purchase 5 bags of rice per day or 130 bags per month if they work 6/7 week.

Please look at the number & see how the poor over there is at least 10X poorer than the have not here in America. It is supposedly a ?communist? country where everyone is equal (may be it is only mean that the peasants can be equally poor), and the goverment (fat murderous thief) claim that the Cultural Revolution is for the people & wipe out blood sucking capitalist pigs.

Lowtech you can keep believing your untrue so called facts or you could read the link I posted and then you might change your mind.

 

[Lucky]

Lucky - What more prove do you need?

Uh, any? I posted statistics showing the levels of poverty, and the gap between the rich and the poor, are lower than in the US. You denied that and posted links that disproved nothing of what I said.

 

[Daovonnaex]

q]Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
30 cent minimum wage...that's really depressing [/quote]Not really. There should be no minimum wage. It ought to be more surprising than anything else.

AndyHui: Their overall buying power is NOT the same. Cost of housing and food is much lower in China, but they still spend a much greater percentage of their income on housing and food than Americans do. China as a nation, despite the fact that its GDP is about US$1 trillion (our GDP is about US$10 trillion), has a purchasing-power parity GDP of US$5.5 trillion.

The way to solve this is quite simple. Companies will gladly stay in the United States or come to it if taxes are lower. Our Federal corporate tax rate is 39% (35% for corporations with annual profits in excess of $10 million), the Federal capital gains tax is 20%, and there are too many regulations (and too few where they are really needed). Add state taxes and regulations and you have a disaster on your hands. If we slash these rates and regulations, corporations will see little reason to go to China (other than very labor-intensive manufactuing, such as the manufacture of transformers).

 

[ndee]

that's what I meant when somebody asked "would you pay an extra if the motherboard would have been manufactured in your own country. Those sweat shops are sad.

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: Geekbabe
What's scary about this is the number of US companies that will ship work overseas or import temp visa workers at wages far,far lower than what US IT professionals are getting.

If the company can get the labor cheaper they should to keep costs down. It keeps the costs of thoose goods down and gives the majority of people the ability to buy cheaper products. WHile this practice may suck for thoose in the IT field it is the harsh reality of life. THe company is there to serve it's customers and stockholders and employees are a way to do that.

 

[axelfox]

I visited a shoe making factory in China, and they had a movie theater, reading rooms, dorms and were going to build a golf course. If they had their own purification plant, they could have been a self sufficient city.