DONGGUAN, China – Unemployed worker Wang Wenming was angry at his boss for shutting down a massive Chinese factory this week that made toys for Mattel Inc., Hasbro Inc. and other American companies.
But the assembly line worker was also furious at the United States.
"This financial crisis in America is going to kill us. It's already taking food out of our mouths," the 42-year-old laborer said Friday as he stood outside the shuttered Smart Union Group (Holdings) Ltd. factory in the southern city of Dongguan.
The company, which has struggled as global growth has slowed in recent months, employed 7,000 people in mainland China and Hong Kong. It wasn't immediately clear how many have lost their jobs.
Economic upheaval in the U.S. is already changing and shrinking China's vast manufacturing hub in the southern province of Guangdong, long regarded as the world's factory floor. However, factory closures won't just be a China problem — shoppers will feel the effect in malls and stores in the U.S. and Europe.
"When these companies go bust, the outcome is higher prices," said Andy Xie, an independent economist in Shanghai. "Labor costs have gone up 70 to 100 percent in the last three or four years. But these guys have not been able to raise their prices because Toys "R" Us, Home Depot and Wal-Mart are saying no price increase. How is that possible?"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081019/ap_on_re_as/as_china_factory_woes;_y...
I shop at Wal-Mart regularly because of cost. I don't really care about customer service, or the fact that employees are eligible for government services because of their poverty. But if Wal-Mart begins to be as expensive as the store around the corner that is where I will go. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Old South End Broadway
First they moved from the US to Mexico, but when the labor costs rose in Mexico, the jobs moved to China. China's standard of living is on the rise, causing labor costs to increase, so the jobs are now flowing to Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The next stop will be Africa if their governments can get their shit together.
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"Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, andfive times out of nine I'll show you an exceptional man." -CharlesBukowski
There's a city full of walls you can post complaints at