[ExI] undercover at Walmart

[spike]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org 
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
...
> Walmart is only the peak of the mountain.
> 
> >From the 1970s onward, western society changed from making things to
> buying things.
... 
> Why spend time making something when you can buy it cheaper 
> from China?
> 
> Well, now we know why. And the millions unemployed and 
> homeless know as well.
> 
> BillK

BillK I see that problem but remind me, why this is Walmart's fault?  We
westerners have environmental standards, labor unions and high prices for
workers in our country which would make it nearly impossible to produce
goods as cheaply as China can churn them out and ship them over.  The
difference isn't small.  

Last month I bought some Chinese power tools, two drills, two jigsaws, three
grinders.  Each one cost me 11 bucks.  Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new
tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist!  Their quality wasn't stellar,
but acceptable.  The only possible way western manufacturing can compete
with that is to have a completely automated assembly line, a lights out
factory, employing approximately one person.

This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not building the robofactories
when capital was still available.

spike