I just think as consumers our priorities are often kinda fucked. Realistically I could be perfectly happy with two bikes, and if I had chosen to go that route and put the various money I have spent on bike crap over the years into having two nice bikes (one heavy/practical one and one fast/light one), “affordability” would not be an issue.
didn’t mean to comment on nike stock performance. just pointing out how most “profit hungry” corporations don’t make all that much profit.
i’ve said this before but every dollar your earn goes to buy something, i think if that something gets you places, doesn’t pollute, and gets you in better shape, it’s pretty good way to part with yr $.
so i’m curious which fixie will allow 700c barspins and lessen my carbon footprint?
^stimulate my economy baby
[quote=dmotoguy]
The ex-head of supply chain management for Nike gave a presentation at our school last year, he was able to justify their “sweatshops” pretty easily.[/quote]
really? try to summarize. i expect he pretty much imagined the workers as an abstract mass and worked from there. pretty easy to do whatever you want to someone once you turn them into an abstraction instead of a human.
[quote=grindmaster flash][quote=dmotoguy]
The ex-head of supply chain management for Nike gave a presentation at our school last year, he was able to justify their “sweatshops” pretty easily.[/quote]
really? try to summarize. i expect he pretty much imagined the workers as an abstract mass and worked from there. pretty easy to do whatever you want to someone once you turn them into an abstraction instead of a human.[/quote]
Just read this:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_38/b3900011_mz001.htm
The short answer is that Nike doesn’t actually directly employ laborers. They have developed increasingly more stringent standards and inspections for their suppliers over the course of the last decade. They got killed with bad publicity at some point which had a very real and quantifiable effect on financial results. At this point, their inspection regime is a cost-center that can be directly offset by the money they would otherwise lose to bad publicity.
I don’t buy that Nike inspection bullshit.
Yes, brands don’t really own factories now because factories are hard as hell to manage. What’s funny is that they let factories have such a tiny profit margin and yet still dare to bitch about the factory conditions? I find that to be totally hypocritical, if they were really concerned with the conditions of workers they should just pay more for their products.
this fucking thread
It’s great to have your perspective in this fucking thread tzusing, this is interesting reading.
Thanks mander. Just with the situation i’m in you can’t help but think about such things.
hey
this is not a “white guilt” issue at all
it’s considered funny and ok for people in the US to group a large amount of different people into the group “white people”, stereotype that group as wealthy, complacent, and whiny, and then bitch out that whole group of people for being wealthy, complacent, and whiny.
there’s poor people of all races and by no means are white people automatically wealthy. my dad came from an immigrant family of italians and irish, both 1st generation, from a coal mining town, and went to college, then dental school. his family lived on welfare. and he got to dental school. now, today, even with all of his hard work, my family barely has enough money to keep the lights on in our house.
now, none of these things matter in a discussion. why? i’m “white” (at least half…? what counts? what doesn’t?), so all of the difficulties in my life are automatically negated. now, the question is… should i care about social and economic conditions in other parts of the world, and get labeled as wealthy, complacent, and whiny? or should i not care, and get labeled as wealthy, insensitive, and exploitative?
it’s hard to be white in america
i feel for you bro
you’re coming off kinda whiny there broham.
What in the fucking hell are you talking about? Nike stock has been recovering well for the past six months, but is today precisely where it was a year ago after having suffered terrible results in 4Q08.[/quote]
The numbers I saw for fiscal year 08 were far from terrible, something like 2.6b gross revenue… up ~12% on the year… but it could have got shitty from there I guess.
[quote=grindmaster flash][quote=dmotoguy]
The ex-head of supply chain management for Nike gave a presentation at our school last year, he was able to justify their “sweatshops” pretty easily.[/quote]
really? try to summarize. i expect he pretty much imagined the workers as an abstract mass and worked from there. pretty easy to do whatever you want to someone once you turn them into an abstraction instead of a human.[/quote]
They were able to show before and after of the villages where they had operations, not only were they crazy about keeping everything “green”, but they really helped out in many aspects. Bringing running water, schools, electricity, stable food sources etc into areas where those weren’t all gauranteed.
[quote=dmotoguy][quote=grindmaster flash][quote=dmotoguy]
The ex-head of supply chain management for Nike gave a presentation at our school last year, he was able to justify their “sweatshops” pretty easily.[/quote]
really? try to summarize. i expect he pretty much imagined the workers as an abstract mass and worked from there. pretty easy to do whatever you want to someone once you turn them into an abstraction instead of a human.[/quote]
They were able to show before and after of the villages where they had operations, not only were they crazy about keeping everything “green”, but they really helped out in many aspects. Bringing running water, schools, electricity, stable food sources etc into areas where those weren’t all gauranteed.[/quote]
These niceties were not done to be good citizen of the world, IF they did those thing it was because it was still cheaper than producing someplace ells. Corporations DO NOT do anything that is not in the interest of the bottom line
[quote=luno]hey
now, the question is… should i care about social and economic conditions in other parts of the world, and get labeled as wealthy, complacent, and whiny? or should i not care, and get labeled as wealthy, insensitive, and exploitative?[/quote]
The answer is simple, you should eat a jar of dicks.
[quote=balonya]
These niceties were not done to be good citizen of the world, IF they did those thing it was because it was still cheaper than producing someplace ells. Corporations DO NOT do anything that is not in the interest of the bottom line[/quote]
Jacques’ quote of Adam Smith sums it up pretty well. But to expand, your idealistic views show the immaturity of your thought process. The world cannot be one giant volunteer organization, grow up and live(think) in the real world.