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A Year Without Chinese Goods
Sara Bongiorni and her family attempted to live without goods made in China for a year, and found that it was no simple task. She has documented the project in a book called, A Year Without 'Made in China.
In a book? A printed book? You mean the kind of book that is made out of um...paper and ink? Good luck Sara, I love you but for at least a year -- maybe more -- I won't be reading any Chinese goods you try to send my way...
Here is the link.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 2, 2007 at 07:18 PM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Bet these guys wish they could go a year without China:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=afa326ad3e
Posted by: Affe at Jul 2, 2007 7:29:10 PM
Isn't "Discover Your Inner Economist" written on clay cuneiform tablets?
Posted by: martin at Jul 2, 2007 8:00:13 PM
Cute. But "invented by the X-ese" is not the same as "made in X".
Posted by: zlguocius at Jul 2, 2007 10:23:54 PM
A year without Chinese goods means a better chance of not being poisoned.
Posted by: RJ at Jul 3, 2007 12:13:51 AM
Those rotten Chinese. Trying to sell us stuff they made. Let them starve. Everyone knows Chinese people don't deserve to make a living.
Posted by: Dan Hill at Jul 3, 2007 12:25:47 AM
This reminds me of a NYT article about people who refuse to buy anything. (link only available for 24 hours, unfortunately. The article is entitled "Not Buying It".) These "freegans" seem to fail to realize in their anti-capitalistic rants that they are able to do what they do (ie. use other people's trash) because of other people's participation in, well, capitalism. In refusing to purchase goods from China, these authors seem to fail to realize that they still benefit from the existence of the Chinese goods, since the competition from abroad keeps even the U.S.-made products less expensive...to the degree that U.S. and Chinese products are substitutes of course.
Posted by: Jodi N. Beggs at Jul 3, 2007 1:28:33 AM
If you buy a product "made in China", do you really buy a Chinese product? According the the BIS Annual Report, Chinese exports have a high import content and thus China’s value added is correspondingly low. Indeed, 70% of Chinese imports consist of intermediate goods bought from the rest of Asia and from japan. These goods are integrated in the final products sold to the United States and Europe. For example, a doll "made in China" sold for $ 20 in the United States contains only 35 cents of value added by Chinese labour. So I ask again, does the label "made in China" really means that the product is Chinese? Made in the World would be a better label if you ask me.
Posted by: ivan at Jul 3, 2007 8:01:32 AM
'Tis a gift to be simple...minded.
Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at Jul 3, 2007 9:06:16 AM
Wow, never expected to see a book glorifying racism to be so popular.
Posted by: Jacqueline at Jul 3, 2007 12:21:35 PM
There's that word again. Having not read the book, I'm curious what's racist about it. Please explain.
Did you mean xenophobic perhaps?
Posted by: fustercluck at Jul 3, 2007 1:19:14 PM
Jodi N Beggs,
Thanks. It is amazing how many people don't realize the price lowering effect that imports have on domestically made substitutes. If everyone chose to have a year without China then it would be a lot more expensive of an experiment, noting experiment is a euphemism here for naked attempt to get rich writing a book that takes advantage of xenophobic/racist and ignorant nativism in a large segment of today's America.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Jul 3, 2007 4:16:14 PM
OK, I wondered if there was a "conservative blog" to hang this off of. I realize MR is not exactly that, and that many of the commentators are more libertarian ... but from Forbes:
"Beijing persuaded the World Bank to cut from a report findings that pollution has caused about 750,000 premature deaths in China each year, the Financial Times reported."
The irony, as I see it, is multilateral. On one level we have US conservatives calling US environmentalists "lefties" or "commies" even as China reaps what real communism bred. On another level we have US conservatives calling US environmentalists "wackos" because they think that unrestrained industry might injure us even as China reaps what unrestrained industry bred. On the final level, we have conservatives in the Bush administration moving us back from our progress, and very much toward the "Chinese" model.
W(ho)TF are the communists or the wackos here?
And, rounding back to a year without goods from china ... if a million deaths a year is at all possible ... might this become a moral choice?
Posted by: odograph at Jul 4, 2007 10:43:05 AM
P.S. - as a reminder of who I am, I support market economies with the minimum required oversight and regulation. I don't just jerk my knee and say that "minimum" is "none" in a given domain without rational investigation. Think "Grover Norquist" and you've got my antithesis.
Posted by: odograph at Jul 4, 2007 10:46:13 AM
It is shame that people today dares to spread
such racist words!
Who has the righ to tell who is deserve
to make a living!
Down with the racisim!
" Those rotten Chinese. Trying to sell us stuff
they made. Let them starve. Everyone knows
Chinese people don't deserve to make a living.
Posted by: Dan Hill at Jul 3, 2007 12:25:47 AM"
Posted by: at Jul 4, 2007 3:16:56 PM
Last I checked, Chinese isn't a race. Unless the book suggested boycotting all Asian products specifically because they are assembled by Asians (versus cheap imports being deleterious for American workers, for example), that isn't racist either.
Also, Dan Hill was being sarcastic.
Posted by: fustercluck at Jul 4, 2007 9:38:07 PM
"Everyone knows Chinese people don't deserve to make a living."
I am a Chinese. I want to say, do you wash your teeth everyday?
Posted by: Zoe at Jul 19, 2007 5:28:29 AM
