PRICE

Doesn’t matter whether he said, “There's a sucker born every minute," or "There's a customer born every minute."  

Either way, P.T. Barnum would have loved me.

I was their target consumer.

Did just what the manufacturers hoped I’d do.

Filled my rooms my yard my life with stuff.

 
Honestly. Can you ever have too many serving platters, candles, wine glasses, garden tools?

We were their target consumers.

Did just what the companies hoped we’d do.

Filled our desktops our pockets our backpacks with Mac Books, Ipods, Ipads, Smart Phones.

Shiny new pieces of brilliant technology arrived soon after the shiny big announcement was televised.

Honestly. Can you ever have too much technology?

The Great Pause led to The Great Reassessment.   

My house is too big. Too full of stuff we don't use. Don't need. 

Honestly. How did this happen?

Global economy. Cheap labor. Cheap goods. Cheap credit. There's a war on! Everybody go shopping.

We followed the consumer trail; snowed.

This week, Apple reported staggering profits in its first quarter earnings report. Executives said sales would have been even higher if overseas factories had been able to produce more inventory.

Overseas factories?  President Obama wants to know what it would take for American companies to bring their manufacturing jobs back home to onseas factories.

Today's NY Times article In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad, by Charles Duhigg and David Barboza, answers the president's question.

 

N-E-V-E-R.

Because price has a price.

And a low price has an even higher price.

Follow the story of 22-year-old Lai Xiaodong, who carefully packed his college degree and left his childhood home to move to southwest China. There, he became "one of the millions of human cogs powering the largest, fastest and most sophisticated manufacturing system on earth." 

Mr. Lai's college degree enabled him to earn about $22 a day, including overtime — more than many other factory workers. He labored beneath almost blinding lights-- shifts run 24 hours a day, so the factory is always bright. Mr. Lai spent 12 hours a day, six days a week inside the factory.  After a few months he was put in charge of a team that maintained machines that polished iPad cases. The iPad had gone on sale just weeks earlier, and thousands of cases needed to be polished each day. The factory was frantic, aluminum dust was everywhere.

The evening the explosion that killed him occurred, Mr. Lai had stayed at the factory to work a second shift. He was so badly burned, his family didn't recognize him at the hospital. He survived only two days.

   

Two weeks before the accident, an advocacy group in Hong Kong published a report warning of unsafe conditions at the plant where Mr. Lai worked, including problems with aluminum dust.

Seven months after the explosion, an iPad factory in Shanghai also exploded. The cause? Aluminum dust.

“It is gross negligence, after an explosion occurs, not to realize that every factory should be inspected,” said MIT occupational safety expert Nicholas Ashford. “If it were terribly difficult to deal with aluminum dust, I would understand. But do you know how easy dust is to control? It’s called ventilation. We solved this problem over a century ago.”

We solved this problem over a century ago.

Imagine the outcry if Mr. Lai's story had played out in a factory in the United States.

 

Executives argue that overhauling this system- suppliers cutting corners, replacing expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or pushing their employees to work faster and longer for minimal wages- would slow innovation. "Customers want amazing new electronics delivered every year," they say. 

Customers. Like. Us.

“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said a former Apple executive. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

Heather White, a research fellow at Harvard says that "until consumers demand better conditions in overseas factories — as they did for companies like Nike and Gap— or regulators act, there is little impetus for radical change."

A current Apple executive agrees. "...right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”

Price has a price, and a low price has an even higher price.

 

Are we willing to pay a higher price for a lower human price?

Pause. Time for a Greater Reassessment.

QUING Hereby Decrees: The bottom line in the Story of Life does not include 'Profits'.