Not sure about language, but one thing is true -
the way you pronounce words of your own language is a good reflection of your education, status, origin, and who you are.
It is a good reason to stop deindustrialization of USA and Canada. Europe as far as I know produce a lot of toys themselves. At least I saw a toy truck made in Sweden. Guess what was the truck's model ;)?
How do I account number of people willing to immigrate:
1. It is way,way easier to move to USA, than anywhere else in developed world.
2. Proximity of Latin American/Carribean countries, which are verrry bad. And you do not need an expensive ticket from Haiti for example. Just find whatever floating and have a free ride.
Yes. That is why Pacific Northwest and Canada (less religious places) are lagging behind Bible Belt.
Lagging behind in corruption, teenage pregnancy,
crime and many other developmental indicators.
Looks like Germans are sensitive to privacy (for historical reasons perhaps). USA culturally less sensitive, so I think we may expect more Konzerns about privacy and aggregation of data about German citizens in American online companies.
Difficult but not impossible. Amazingly enough, not everything affordable made in misery. LEGO kits for example are mostly made in Europe. Every once in a while you can see inexpensive toys made in Sweden, shirts made in Egypt, platic containers made in Germany, furniture made in Canada, hammers made in Russia, just look at the stickers.
The problem is in my view is not that countries are dictatorships, the problems are:
1. Outsourcing everything to one country creates unhealthy dependence of recipient economy on manufacturer. Well you may say - China depends on USA as much as USA on China - and that will be false - you forgot about a big economy - European Union/Canada. Asymmetry is obvious.
2. Nothing bad in outsourcing some amount of production to poor countries - good way to help them in fact. But if you overstretch then will destroy wellbeing of the citizens of your country, forcing them out of job, and, because poor countries has poor environmental regulations, poison environment of the producer.
Oh yeah? tell it to ones who immigrate from China to Kazakhstan for example: Kazakhstan has very limited trade with USA, but quality of live is much, much higher than Chinese.
I am not talking about their intentions - that is not a domain of "simple logic" anyway. What I am saying is factual statement: the set [made cheaply] is a subset of [made in misery]. So you cannot escape purchasing stuff [made in misery] if you buy suff [made cheaply].
Yes, you sound like Nazi's on Nuremberg process - "we just executed orders". And that is true: the did not care about people whom the tortured. In fact the would in other circumstances be friendly and polite to them. Yet they really-really needed their salaries or premiums or move up on their military ladder or other stuff.
You know what, as I mentioned in other posts - inequality in USA is already as bad as in Africa and is rapidly approaching South American's numbers. Of course bottom line is not as bad as in Africa, but quality of life for poors is already totaly incomparable with Europe. So from the point of view of Africans or Brazilians - yes USA is not that bad. From Canadian/European point view - USA is rather troubled place.
Do not like it - do not buy, goddamnit.
If you think that people who buy Fair Trade are stupid - no we are not, and we are doing for a reason - we do not feel good when consume something made by slaves.
You can still shop for "free trade" stuff, nobody prevents you from doing that.
> Yeah, I tried to get a bunch of 16 year old Americans to make a bunch of shoes. Apparently they were not interested :(
Probably you tried to pay 7.25$, per hour did not you?
If you'll pay me 25 dollars per hour for making shoes - you can hire me.
American deindustrialization caused by MOVING INDUSTRIES OUT OF USA, (Even food industry partially moved to China - apple juice consumed in USA for example 75% made in China). Enginnering has _nothing_ to do about deindustrilization, in fact you do not need more than couple of engineers to run a rather big plastics factory, Drop of demand (but there is still a lot of it) for engineering position in universities is just a reflection of current state of industry in USA. Combination of very bad labor protection in USA (no health protection, third world minimal salary, [do not tell me 7.25/h is a good compensation]) and "free trade" policies supported by government results in deindustrialization.
Lack of good jobs causes enormous inequality in USA, as bad as in African countries. USA Gini (inequality index) = 46, higher than Nigeria = 43 and eqaul to Rwanda's. Canadian for comparison GINI = 32.
Guys, whoever give negative score - I do not care to be honest - I know I step on ambitions/complexes that USA is the best country in the world (whuch is not true) - it is you country, and you are going to live there. If you dislike grim reality, or lack education/life experience to understand the direction the country is going to - well that is your choice, which will pay back, and you will not like it.
Such an idiotic claim: "stop enrichment of the world's leading internet players." Why not? I mean, if the would tax google, what, a new french service will pop up overnight?
So odd...
Inexpensive (or more correctly - cheap) are almost always made in misery. So by simple logic, people who prefer cheap products prefer products made in misery.
Sounds like somebody have never been outside downtown San Francisco/Seattle/or whatever and saw real life in USA. I lived in Florida for couple of years, and I never saw (anywhere I had a chance to live) such grotesque contrast between poverty in the inside cities and absurd richness on the oceanfront.
The problem, that USA is _not_ much better in the ways how blue collar workers are treated there. There is a good book "the great squeeze", which talks about misery workers go through working on American industrial facilities. Google Books should have it.
If you like products, coming from troubled places I'd recommend to look at American products. USA is a very troubled country.
Great inequality, corruption, pollution, crime, wars.
Lack of labor law. Infrastructure is falling apart. There is chance the products are by slaves somewher in midwestern states.
No, North Korea will not be a gold mine in this case, it would be yet another nail into the coffin of the western world (USA especially) , insanely, hysterically excited about it's own deindustrialization.
1) People in USA/Canada/Other western world are _addicted_
to products made in misery (in China, for example). Less miserable of course, but still far from good conditions.
2) If there are reasons to think that it can improve their condition, than it os a good idea.
No, it is not.
But it is a result of overconfidence, caused by belief that
GPL is a silver bullet. People, who run BSD-licensed projects, in my observation, tend to be more cautious, because BSD license provides no protection against "privatization".
Well I can say this: Europeans are doing pretty good, without
their own Silicon Valleys, because the produce (contrary to USA):
1. Cars - Germany, Sweden, France, Italy;
2. Food you can actually eat (german/belgian chocolate - compare to Hershey's);
3. Sun panels/sun energy: (Germany)
4. Toys (Lego almost completely produced in Europe);
...and so on.
Hi-tech research is often run by governments. Generally
better (egalitarian/well payed) job environments
decrease incentive to be entrepreneurial.