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Subject: 
Re: Bummer of the Week: LEGO Made in China
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 6 Sep 2001 14:53:04 GMT
Viewed: 
1106 times
  
[About politic]
In lugnet.general, Greg Perry writes:
Or are
you just saying that without China I wouldn't have any means of having my
electricity delivered or any fine electronic products to run on that
electricity?

More or less yes.  Your fine product may be assembled in some other
country, but it's componets can come from anywhere - from tiny resistors
to motors.  There is no 'pure' first world electronic products.  Also where is
your humanitarian concern for the Middle-East when you pump gas or play with
the plastic bricks?

Huh?  This is not 1970.

My mistake, sorry for being so backwards.  I forgot that China now allows
its citizens to enjoy the freedom of choice in all matters such as choice of
career, how many children to produce and what religion to practice.

So while the government took away lots of things already, you want to
take away their means to earn better live?  It must be very
humanitarian of you to remove the 'Red China threat' by pushing China back to
the day when they only had nuclear weapons and hungry people.

Many Chinese Democratic activists are in favour of more foreign trade with
China, including The Democratic Party of Hong Kong
(http://www.dphk.org/e_site/index_e.htm).  Foreign trade has been encouraging
positive changes in the mainland, forcing the government to be more open and
give the people more channels to contact the rest of the world.  They realize
that although a high number of job-less people may cause an unlikely coup, the
resulting government would be just more backward.

And in reponse to your "pay the high salaries of pampered and spoiled Europeans
and Americans", I doubt you envision your children to have a repeative job like
packaging T-shirts.

[About quality]
Well, in that case - let's lobby LEGO to move all their manufacturing to
China since doing so will have no affect on the quality of their products

We have no idea how it would affect the quality.  To say it will be 100%
sure to reduce quality is simply bigoted.  Yes a large chunk of products from
China are of low quality, and the 'Made in China' = low quality has been around
for so long it's hard to change the impression.  I would not buy a car made in
China without a long term good quality record for the brand, although they are
not exporting cars yet.

Since LEGO's plastic injection process and sorting process are highly
automated, low cost labor has limited benefit for them.  The only benefit would
be land and shipping cost.

However since most foreign investor need to bribe their way through all levels
of corrupted government officals to set foot in China, LEGO may not be up to
that.  But look at the recent Bionical Mask lottery scam, and the total absent
of extra pieces in recent 2001 sets, I wouldn't be too surprised.



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Bummer of the Week: LEGO Made in China
 
I hear what you are saying - you make some very good points. But lets put China aside for a moment. Do you think we should trade with the very worst of governments in the hope that the revenues empower workers in some small way? Or do you think (...) (23 years ago, 6-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
  Re: Bummer of the Week: LEGO Made in China
 
(...) Please keep in mind what I keep stating - I do not consider myself an "activist" nor am I anyone with any strong political convictions (or understanding - I'm an American after all). So, I do not operate on some Jainistic principle whereby I (...) (23 years ago, 6-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Bummer of the Week: LEGO Made in China
 
(...) As mentioned in my original post I'm not some foaming-at-the-mouth "activist" whose every waking moment is spent in avoiding Chinese produced items. Rather as a habit I generally check most products I'm considering buying to see where they (...) (23 years ago, 6-Sep-01, to lugnet.general)

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