OT Do you care were the products you buy are made

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by rextorres:
I think from political stand point China is a lot more noxious than France.

I understand why some people don't like France - but China was right behind it on the Iraq issue -France just took the lead.

France doesn't let it's corporations run defacto work camps and dump untreated toxic waste into the environment. Not to mention that China is an authoritarian regime.

Anyway all those jobs lost are never coming back until American workers are willing to live in the same conditions that workers of third world countries live OR we force any corporation that sells in the U.S. to provide their workers with the same wages and follow the same environmental laws that we expect them to have here.

They can come back the day when third world countries have the same standard as the I-world nations..
Last year 30% of the worlds population took the step up from poverty, 17.7 billions now have the same living standard as the "west".

[narf poit chez BOOM]

raising the standard of living world-wide and introducing democracy will benifit the world.

[Kamog]

Last year 30% of the worlds population took the step up from poverty, 17.7 billions now have the same living standard as the "west".

17.7 billion doesn't sound right because that's more than the population of the whole world.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
raising the standard of living world-wide and introducing democracy will benifit the world.

So apparently you agree with the Bush Jr. adminstration's current reasons for the Iraq war.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

reason's? sort of. methods? not really. results? debatable.

[Puke]

quality and craftsmanship. while politics amuse me, and i certainly have my share of views on them, i dont let them effect my day-to-day life. which is probably why my world view disgusts so many people.

but back to quality and craftsmanship, there are some regional and national determinations for that. Asia tends to have crap for metal. Some good craftsmen and companies to buy tools from, but you better do your research and make sure that their metal is imported.

A handfull of European countries produce fine clothing. Lots of places produce quality and durable casual-wear, but i sure as heck wouldn't buy suits from "lots of places."

All told, im a big supporter of the global economy. it has its down sides, but I like it both as an idea, and in practice (realizing full well its a very different animal in theory and in practice [assuming that you take theory to equal propoganda, it could be argued that theory and practice are actually identical])

what i REALLY hate, are people who use nested parenthetical statements in forum Posts. jackasses.

[dogscoff]

I tend to boycott companies rather than countries- for example, I won't shop at Asda (Walmart-owned) or buy Nestle products or get petrol from Shell. I don't touch Mcdonald's any more, and if I did smoke I'd have real trouble finding someone I was prepared to buy tobacco from. It's kind of haphazard since I don't go and inform myself on every single supplier's ethical history, so I'm probably taking money away from one bastard corporation and just feeding it into another, but it gives me that lovely smug feeling and where possible I do aim for companies that go out of their way to be good.

I always buy free range and biodegradable, and I do like to go for locally produced stuff (especially food) for environmental reasons, but then at the same time I'm also kind of rebelling against the blind stupidity of "Buy British Beef", so I'll sometimes buy foriegn meat just to be awkward. People here seem to think that British meat must be BSE free because... well... because it has our flag stamped on the packet. Morons. The BSE outbreak here was handled extremely badly, and seemed to rely on rallying patriotism rather than, say, getting rid of the disease. I hope you yanks deal with it better than we did. We're now looking at yet another food scare with salmon and- guess what- it all stems from the fact that these animals are being fed ground-up offal from members of their own species. When we we learn that forcing cannibalism on these creatures might cut costs but in the long run it isn't doing anyone any favours?

I'd like to boycott US products until GWB is out of office because of the Iraq war, but if I did that I'd have to boycott UK products until Blair was out of office as well, but since I live in the UK that would be difficult. That said I never buy american beer but that's only because it's crap.

[ January 14, 2004, 07:38: Message edited by: dogscoff ]