: . . . I have opted not to purchase anything made with cheap labour.

Next we weill be discussing animal rights, and the need to produce items with machine power instead of using animal labor.

Well, I still eat eggs, and those are produced by cloistered, sexually deprived females, (around the world) for the price of chicken feed.

Face it. It is not low priced labor which is the issue. Certainly it is not the availability of low priced items. Everyone loves a bargain. Instead, it is the fear that a person might have to alter their lifestyle by taking a cut in wages to meet competition from places (or populations) with lower employee salaries.

Economics change all the time. At one time China and Egypt were the major cultures on this planet, and didn't know the other existed. At that time the western hemisphere was another unknown part of the world. Now we have global connectivity, and tough as it is going to be, there is a developing global economy which it will be our burden to hammer into shape.

Of course the easy way to do this would be to have a big war, and let the winner decide who got what. In the past we've done things this way.

Unfortunately, the process starts a series of more wars.

Hopefully, this time we'll get it a bit better, and not have a war. It should be possible for a peaceful change in global economics. One way to do this is to embrace the change. And work to make it happen.

A couple of years ago this board had a visitor from Vietnam who was interested in setting up a workshop for boatbuilders. It was to be a work/training deal where people would learn new trades. The poster was interested in strip-built boats. Last summer, while traveling through the southeast, I stopped and talked with a man who had two strip-built kayaks on top of his car. He said tehy were built in Vietnam, and that he had a hundred of them. He was traveling around trying to sell them. Unfortunately he had no details on what designs they were. Also unfortunately, I've misplaced his business card.

Are we now to worry about imports of strip-built kayaks from Vietnam? Is this touching too close to home? I don't think so. The economy is incredibly complicated. There is room for both high-priced and low-priced items to co-exist. Surprisingly, the addition of lower-priced items into an economy can stimulate the demand for higher-priced items. Look at wristwatches over tha past 75 years. Timex and Swatch haven't knocked Rolex out of business.

The website that Duane links to has a message of boycotting Chinese-made merchandise. That is unfortunate. It smacks of racism. If the goal is to help the underpaid workers, or to keep highly paid workers from taking wage cuts, then it probably is counterproductive, too.

Years ago my mother told me to clean the plate when I ate dinner, because there were starving people in China, and I shouldn't waste food. Well, if more of those Chinese can get jobs making kayaks, then my blessings on them. Now I can feel good about pushing away from the table a bit earlier, and not letting America's abundance go to my waist.

(Jumping off the soapbox--It's probably filled with soap made in Brazil)

PGJ