Aussie/China relationship........

[J_D 2.0]

kind of like what the US has been doing for the past I dunno almost 100 years?

the way the US (and her allies) have treated China over the last 20 odd years with importantly no regime change in China means they remember full well how they have been treated (as a source of cheap labour for rich overseas companies). Big companies like Walmart that "negotiate" by walking into a room and telling you what they want and what they will pay. The abusive relationship might be over. We are at their mercy now having destroyed all our local manufacturing capacity for the most part.

End of the day, is the west reaping what they've sown here? I have no idea how people are not surprised that China would wake up one day and say, I'm done with this abusive relationship.

Where we are now was always China’s end game. They play the long game and would have known full well that Wall Street greed could be used to their advantage to decimate western manufacturing and exert their authority when they accomplished this. That’s exactly what we are seeing now and they will continue to get more belligerent the more powerful they get.

 

[mpower]

Where we are now was always China’s end game. They play the long game and would have known full well that Wall Street greed could be used to their advantage to decimate western manufacturing and exert their authority when they accomplished this. That’s exactly what we are seeing now and they will continue to get more belligerent the more powerful they get.

it's funny to see how people react when the shoe is on the other foot.

for so long now we have benefited from the wage slave economy of China, now China has real genuinely massive economic power that is theirs to wield as they choose.

 

[J_D 2.0]

it's funny to see how people react when the shoe is on the other foot.

for so long now we have benefited from the wage slave economy of China, now China has real genuinely massive economic power that is theirs to wield as they choose.

“We” haven’t benefited at all. Multinational corporations have been the ones who have benefited (and sold us all out) for cheap Chinese labour to pump up their profits.

The capitalist system for the most part runs on market withstand pricing. That means that the price we pay is determined by how much they can charge us, not the actual value of the goods. This is why we pay the “Australia tax” on nearly everything that gets imported.

Prices didn’t come tumbling down when manufacturing moved to China, the corporations just kept charging the same price and pocketed the difference for themselves!

 

[mpower]

“We” haven’t benefited at all. Multinational corporations have been the ones who have benefited (and sold us all out) for cheap Chinese labour to pump up their profits.

The capitalist system for the most part runs on market withstand pricing. That means that the price we pay is determined by how much they can charge us, not the actual value of the goods. This is why we pay the “Australia tax” on nearly everything that gets imported.

Prices didn’t come tumbling down when manufacturing moved to China, the corporations just kept charging the same price and pocketed the difference for themselves!

Rubbish, "we" get consumer products at quite frankly stupidly low prices. We as a nation also got to chase Ford, GM and Toyota out of our country as well so we'd get cheap cars - oh wait that never happened did it?

I agree though, large multi-nationals are the biggest beneficiaries.

 

[Immortality]

kind of like what the US has been doing for the past I dunno almost 100 years?

the way the US (and her allies) have treated China over the last 20 odd years with importantly no regime change in China means they remember full well how they have been treated (as a source of cheap labour for rich overseas companies). Big companies like Walmart that "negotiate" by walking into a room and telling you what they want and what they will pay. The abusive relationship might be over. We are at their mercy now having destroyed all our local manufacturing capacity for the most part.

End of the day, is the west reaping what they've sown here? I have no idea how people are not surprised that China would wake up one day and say, I'm done with this abusive relationship.

There probably is some truth to this but China has been a willing partner. China cares not for it's citizens, the party sees them as a means to an end. China sells their citizens as cheap labour to any country that will take them to this day.

China was once a dynasty and make no mistake they aim to get back to that status.

 

[J_D 2.0]

Rubbish, "we" get consumer products at quite frankly stupidly low prices. We as a nation also got to chase Ford, GM and Toyota out of our country as well so we'd get cheap cars - oh wait that never happened did it?

I agree though, large multi-nationals are the biggest beneficiaries.

The only area I can think of that is ridiculously cheap on a historical basis is clothing which is thanks to Kmarts vertical integration with the Philippines IIRC and their willingness to pass those savings on. When you look at the price of most goods they don’t bear any reality to the cost of producing them and could easily be make in western countries at modest profit but companies want outrageous profits and not just modest profits.

 

[mpower]

The only area I can think of that is ridiculously cheap on a historical basis is clothing which is thanks to Kmarts vertical integration with the Philippines IIRC and their willingness to pass those savings on. When you look at the price of most goods they don’t bear any reality to the cost of producing them and could easily be make in western countries at modest profit but companies want outrageous profits and not just modest profits.

we've become so accustomed to cheap goods that we see it as normal now.

 

[Immortality]

we've become so accustomed to cheap goods that we see it as normal now.

Maybe for some, I'm at the point that I'll look for better quality at a higher price if it's going to last more than a few uses. We have become a throw away society to the detriment of the planet and the people who live on it.

 

[mpower]

Maybe for some, I'm at the point that I'll look for better quality at a higher price if it's going to last more than a few uses. We have become a throw away society to the detriment of the planet and the people who live on it.

not really the point, but everything is now much cheaper than in years past - and it's like that thanks to cheap cheap labour in overseas sweatshops.

 

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

The only area I can think of that is ridiculously cheap on a historical basis is clothing which is thanks to Kmarts vertical integration with the Philippines IIRC and their willingness to pass those savings on. When you look at the price of most goods they don’t bear any reality to the cost of producing them and could easily be make in western countries at modest profit but companies want outrageous profits and not just modest profits.

Availability is another factor. When you have millions of people manufacturing clothing as opposed to thousands in Australia, we are never going to keep up with demand, prices will still remain high.