[ExI] undercover at Walmart

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> At 03:30 PM 2/12/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote:
>
>> ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average,
>> than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or
>> American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the
>> low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they
>> cannot demand much.
>
> Ah, I see--and this is why these inefficient slobs can turn out tools that
> Spike can buy for
>
>>> ...Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new
>>> tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist!
>
> even after cost of shipping 1/3 of the way around the planet. Imagine how
> much more expensive they'd have been if those inefficient slobs were as
> slick as their US equivalents.

### Labor productivity is usually not measured in the weight of
products that are made, but as average output per worker or per
worker-hour measured in price terms. Especially in international
comparisons it may also be approximated by the GDP per capita, which
in 2007 was 46,100 in the US (see http://www.bls.gov/fls/flsgdp.pdf),
and 5,325 in China
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita).
As you can see, workers in the US are 8.7 times more productive than
workers in China. This explains fully why Chinese products are cheap
in the US, in relation to the prevailing US wages.

Obviously, if the Chinese were as productive as Americans, then
ceteris paribus the same box of tools made in China may be even
cheaper (since the amount of time and effort expended by highly
productive Chinese would be less than it is now).

Isn't it funny that I am claiming the exact opposite of what you write, eh?

Rafal