What are the manufacturing costs of common ski apparel?

[pureantigravity]

OK. Let's move on from the 'but they got a job and therefor opportunity' argument. That's just scraping the bottom barrel of economic welfare.

Who makes good ski shells, that are produced ethically ... have style and are available in North Amerrica? Other than MiCol. He's definitely an option. And it doesn't have to be Made in America. Something made overseas, with traceable manufacturing, proven to be ethical and pay more than the most minimum living wage. Who's the best of the best at ski garments made ethically?

[wooley12]

I wouldn't have a clue. The last time I was into outerwear I was selling Made in USA down/feather, single tube jackets with cheap zippers that retailed for $275. That was in 1976.

[CaliBrit]

Fuck man TGR in the summer is tough.

[Micol]

^lol
here's some stuff from a bike ride earlier today....
yeah thats the ski area behind tires.....

[Micol]

OK. Let's move on from the 'but they got a job and therefor opportunity' argument. That's just scraping the bottom barrel of economic welfare.

Who makes good ski shells, that are produced ethically ... have style and are available in North Amerrica? Other than MiCol. He's definitely an option. And it doesn't have to be Made in America. Something made overseas, with traceable manufacturing, proven to be ethical and pay more than the most minimum living wage. Who's the best of the best at ski garments made ethically?

you know.....if you looking at overseas and not made in USA , i would probably look to Canada or Europe...... but check the care label for Country of Origin.....so many reasons not to inadvertently send your money to China through US Brands (like article below) or even via China owned Vietnam, Myanmar factories. Your money invested in ski wear does not trickle down to the worker like you might hope. It ends up in hands of the ruling elite in China and their minions and finances crazy shit globally. The china factory "owners" friends of PLA and CCP then come to the USA and buy up industrial properties that help squeeze out startups (like mine) because they now control the cheap real estate where a new startup might hatch while pushing the values and resell prices out of reach (as well as leases)..... so, no more places to innovate unless you're tech and have mom's garage or Kliner Perkins money invested in ya.....oh yeah , they buy up hollywood and Bev Hills CA too of course....expensive to live in Coastal cities? How many people who do not reside in the USA have bought up a lot of real estate? It only takes two people to bid a price up. Then there is a new "market" price set.....property taxes & insurance adjust up to reflect new "value"..... The cycle continues.....


https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/...cli/index.html

Tensions heat up in South China Sea as US makes significant show of force
Brad Lendon-Profile-Image
By Brad Lendon, CNN

Updated 3:01 AM ET, Mon July 6, 2020
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cont'd...

[Micol]

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Hong Kong (CNN)For the first time in six years, two US Navy aircraft carriers are in the South China Sea, the latest show of military might from Washington as it pushes back against China's sweeping claim to much of the contested region.

The two US carriers arrived in the region as China wrapped up its own set of naval exercises near a disputed island chain, an apparent synchronicity not lost on Beijing's state media, which carried reports boasting of the country's readiness to repel any US attempt to challenge its claims.
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It is the first time two US carriers have operated together in the South China Sea since 2014 and only the second time since 2001, according to Lt. Cmdr. Sean Brophy, a spokesperson aboard the Reagan.
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An F/A-18E Super Hornet flies over the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan in the South China Sea on July 4, 2020.
An F/A-18E Super Hornet flies over the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan in the South China Sea on July 4, 2020.
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That buildup, which included the launch of anti-ship missiles from an island during exercises last year, comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to then-US President Barack Obama in 2015 that the islands would not be militarized.
As US-China relations have continued to deteriorate over the course of this year, Washington has steadily upped the tempo of its operations in the South China Sea, staging Freedom of Navigation operations close to Chinese-held islands, performing overflights by US Air Force heavy bombers, and conducting joint naval operations with partners such as Japan and Singapore.
The littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords, front, exercises with the Republic of Singapore Navy Fmulti-role stealth frigate RSS Steadfast in the South China Sea, May 25, 2020.
The littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords, front, exercises with the Republic of Singapore Navy Fmulti-role stealth frigate RSS Steadfast in the South China Sea, May 25, 2020.
But the weekend's deployment of the two carriers, each of which support 60-plus aircraft, as well as accompanying guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, appears to be a clear statement that Washington is not about to cede any influence in the region to Beijing.
"Nimitz and Reagan form the most effective and agile fighting force in the world, supporting US commitment to mutual defense agreements with regional allies and partners, and promoting peace and prosperity throughout the Info-Pacific," the US Navy statement said.
Beijing, meanwhile, has labeled the US' presence in the region as destabilizing. "Some countries outside the region often travel thousands of miles to the South China Sea to engage in large-scale military activities, and show off their power, which is the fundamental reason that affects the stability in the South China Sea," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Friday.
A US advantage
US analyst Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, said the dual-carrier exercises show off power that, at least for moment, only the US Navy has.
China has only one fully operational aircraft carrier with a second nearing that status. Both, however, don't have the size and ability to carry as many aircraft as the two US Navy carriers. And those two carrier just finished operating with a third, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, in the nearby Philippine Sea.
"The different scale of demonstrated combat power between the People Liberation Army Navy's and United States Navy's exercises will be noticeable. That sends both a military and geopolitical signal to China and the region," Schuster said. "The US Navy's exercise demonstrates who has the greater potential power."
Schuster noted that operating two carriers in the South China Sea can be a more complex operation that having three in the Philippine Sea.
"The Philippine Sea is open ocean, while the South China Sea is dotted with competing air and sea space claims," he said.
Aircraft from the Nimitz Carrier Strike Force and a B-52 Bomber from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana fly over the South China Sea.
Aircraft from the Nimitz Carrier Strike Force and a B-52 Bomber from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana fly over the South China Sea.
Adding to the complexity, the US augmented its firepower in the current drills with a B-52 bomber flying with warplanes from the carriers. The bomber flew 28 hours nonstop from its base in Louisiana to participate in the exercises, showing the US Air Force's ability to move assets quickly to world hot spots.
"This sortie demonstrates our ability to reach out from home station, fly anywhere in the world and execute those missions, rapidly regenerate from a forward operating base and continue operations," Lt. Col. Christopher Duff, commander of the 96th Bomb Squadron, said in a statement.
'Paper tigers'
China, in the Global Times report, called the US carriers "nothing more than paper tigers on China's doorsteps" and said Beijing has more than enough firepower to defend its positions in the South China Sea.
"The South China Sea is fully within the grasp of the PLA, and any US aircraft carrier movement in the region is closely watched and taken aim at by the PLA, which has a wide range of anti-aircraft carrier weapons like the DF-21D and DF-26, which are both regarded as 'aircraft carrier killer' missiles," the Global Times report said.

"Any US #aircraftcarrier movement in the region is at the pleasure of PLA," Global Times tweeted, along with pictures of the Chinese missile.
The US Navy quickly responded:
"And yet, there they are. Two @USNavy aircraft carriers operating in the international waters of the South China Sea. #USSNimitz & #USSRonaldReagan are not intimidated #AtOurDiscretion," the US Navy's chief of information tweeted.

[DumbIdeasOnly]

OK. Let's move on from the 'but they got a job and therefor opportunity' argument. That's just scraping the bottom barrel of economic welfare.

Who makes good ski shells, that are produced ethically ... have style and are available in North Amerrica? Other than MiCol. He's definitely an option. And it doesn't have to be Made in America. Something made overseas, with traceable manufacturing, proven to be ethical and pay more than the most minimum living wage. Who's the best of the best at ski garments made ethically?

Let's have robots do all our manufacturing, that way your conscience won't be bothered by "slave" labor conditions for garment workers in middle and lower income countries. When unemployment rates skyrocket in these countries and people start starving to death they'll have lower climate impact. Win/win.

[spanghew]

It’s not as though these things happen in a vacuum waiting for the tgr brain trust to weigh in: https://www.thenation.com/article/ec...n-coronavirus/


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[pureantigravity]

Let's have robots do all our manufacturing, that way your conscience won't be bothered by "slave" labor conditions for garment workers in middle and lower income countries. When unemployment rates skyrocket in these countries and people start starving to death they'll have lower climate impact. Win/win.

I assume you would be bothered by those wages and working conditions if they existed in America.
Am I right?

Global apparel production and sweatshop labour: can raising retail prices finance living wages?
https://academic.oup.com/cje/article.../2/153/1681263

This paper provides some empirical evidence on issues raised by the global anti-sweatshop movement. We first consider the relationship between wage and employment growth, finding no consistent trade-off between them. We then measure the share of labour costs in the production of garments in the US and Mexico. We find that the retail price increases necessary to absorb the costs of raising wages substantially are small, well within the range of price increases that polls suggest US consumers are willing to pay. We close by considering some implications of these results.

That study showed that paying sweatshop workers twice as much, costs consumers only 1.8% more. And studies show that buyers would gladly pay 15% to know that their high end clothing item was sweatshop-free.

Are you down for a 1.8% product price increase in order to double the wage of a worker?

It’s not as though these things happen in a vacuum waiting for the tgr brain trust to weigh in: https://www.thenation.com/article/ec...n-coronavirus/


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

That's right. Brands screw over the supply chain when the supply chain has already bended their knee to bad employment terms in the first place.
I think consumers want to know that our brands are not douche-bags that would screw their workers like that.
Have our ski brands paid for the completed work prior to covid in their foreign supply chains?

[wooley12]

Funny thing about textiles. As far as I know, no one has invented a robot that can make a jacket or a skirt.

Kodak gave me a 10,000,000 piece order for our factory to hold in stock for JIT delivery. Then cancelled half of it after it was manufactured. Kodak also wanted to know exact factory cost before placing an order. To make sure we could afford to work with them without going out of business.

[DumbIdeasOnly]

I assume you would be bothered by those wages and working conditions if they existed in America.
Am I right?

You’re wrong. I am roughly equally bothered by bad working conditions for poor Americans and poor foreigners.

My basic issue, sarcasm aside, is that you’re not even attempting to engage with reasons why poor people might WANT to work in conditions you find objectionable. My disprovable assumption is that most people are good at getting the best lives they can together. There are of course cases of coercion which limit that ability. It would be great if the best lives people in poor countries could get were better, but I think you would likely be better off serving that end by donating any money you feel you saved from buying too cheap outerwear to a global poor person via give directly than complaining about the ethics of anyone buying dead bird jackets.

None of that in anyway de-legitimizes MiCol’s business or other made in America outdoor brands or the values based component of their sales pitch to me. I just think you should focus attention more on the virtues of that model instead of the supposed vices of dead bird’s.

[DumbIdeasOnly]

Funny thing about textiles. As far as I know, no one has invented a robot that can make a jacket or a skirt.

Kodak gave me a 10,000,000 piece order for our factory to hold in stock for JIT delivery. Then cancelled half of it after it was manufactured. Kodak also wanted to know exact factory cost before placing an order. To make sure we could afford to work with them without going out of business.

Economic feasibility and technical feasibility are related but not the same. I have no expertise in clothing manufacture or robot design, but I strongly suspect if there was no cheap labor available more people would work on the robots to make clothes. As is, humans are in many instances the cheapest available power tool.

The Kodak thing is interesting.

[wooley12]

Straps for single use cameras. The factory could take someone right off the farm and give them a job with room and board putting them in little plastic bags. The more educated employees tested for photo reactivity from the dye color and did the documentation required by Kodak. I still have a few of the samples.

[pureantigravity]

You’re wrong. I am roughly equally bothered by bad working conditions for poor Americans and poor foreigners.

My basic issue, sarcasm aside, is that you’re not even attempting to engage with reasons why poor people might WANT to work in conditions you find objectionable. My disprovable assumption is that most people are good at getting the best lives they can together. There are of course cases of coercion which limit that ability. It would be great if the best lives people in poor countries could get were better, but I think you would likely be better off serving that end by donating any money you feel you saved from buying too cheap outerwear to a global poor person via give directly than complaining about the ethics of anyone buying dead bird jackets.

None of that in anyway de-legitimizes MiCol’s business or other made in America outdoor brands or the values based component of their sales pitch to me. I just think you should focus attention more on the virtues of that model instead of the supposed vices of dead bird’s.

Some people *are given no choice* but to work in a sweatshop. But what does that have to do with the expectations you have for your favorite brands - as regards their own cheap labor?

Or perhaps, ask why it doesn't bother us that high end sports wear inflates profits on the backs of workers? Is it because 'it is the least bad option' for those workers?

Economic feasibility and technical feasibility are related but not the same. I have no expertise in clothing manufacture or robot design, but I strongly suspect if there was no cheap labor available more people would work on the robots to make clothes. As is, humans are in many instances the cheapest available power tool.

The Kodak thing is interesting.

Another option is that they might just pay a small amount more for the clothes.
Yet another option is that they might require the brands to eat the cost of actually paying a real wage in their supply chains.
Ignoring the means of production make us all the cheapest available power tool.

[pureantigravity]

Straps for single use cameras. The factory could take someone right off the farm and give them a job with room and board putting them in little plastic bags. The more educated employees tested for photo reactivity from the dye color and did the documentation required by Kodak. I still have a few of the samples.

I don't see one with a whistle attached. You disappoint me!

[DumbIdeasOnly]

Some people *are given no choice* but to work in a sweatshop. But what does that have to do with the expectations you have for your favorite brands - as regards their own cheap labor?

Or perhaps, ask why it doesn't bother us that high end sports wear inflates profits on the backs of workers? Is it because 'it is the least bad option' for those workers?

I see very little evidence of compelled labor on a globally large scale. A brief google suggests about 40 million total people are estimated to be currently enslaved today. That is of course horrible. However, I doubt a very significant fraction of total global manufacturing is done by these 40 million people. So yes, I think most people are not facing a choice between being shot, sent to North Korean political prisons or sewing dead bird jackets. It may well be the only available job for a lot of people is at a sweatshop. This brings us to my next point.

I see a lot of evidence many people and countries are poor. Without jobs, poor people in poor countries have great difficulty acquiring the basic necessities of life and do seem to have preventable health problems that vastly diminish quality and length of life. If your alternative is starving to death or selling your children into prostitution, then I really do think working at a sweatshop is a great option because of exactly the point you raise - it is the least bad option available to you. In fact, you might even feel compelled to fly to a far away country where they will literally work you to death and you will have no rights at all because there are no sweatshops near enough to your rural village you can work in them. I suspect a lot of migrant workers to Qatar would on net prefer a local sweatshop in their country of origin to their actual state of employment.

I agree it would be nice if more people had better alternatives to working in sweatshops and I also feel it would be nice if the global poor generally enjoyed a higher standard of living. One solution to this problem is your suggestion where we try to pressure brands into raising wages for people currently working in sweatshops. Another solution is that you donate the money you save from buying a cheaper jacket to poor people yourself. Higher wages for the supply chain of dead bird is, almost surely, less cost effective per dollar than most of GiveWell's top charities if your goal is helping people. You can also make the donation today instead of complaining on an internet forum about it or waiting for an executive at a clothing company to make some kind of change to procurement.

I have no interest in a debate over Marxist dialectics as I don't think it is relevant to any legitimate social welfare goal. If instead your goal is to complain about rich people buying fancy ski gear and find some perceived moral high ground to look down on them, then I understand why a Marxist dialectic is a convenient framing for your personal agenda.

Again, to be very clear, I think you can legitimately choose to buy a locally made object because you feel good about it. I do it all the time. I don't, however, feel compelled to engage in moral chest thumping denigrating other people's choices when I do it.

[pureantigravity]

I'm going to take my time thinking of a response to you, DumbIdeasOnly. You have thrown out a few ideas. Maybe someone else wants to chime in too.

One thing I want to note is that currently, even if someone wanted to help those less fortunate, due to the no-see-no-talk opaque nature of brand name manufacturing origins, no one would know if such supplementary donation or corporate appeal is necessary. The information isn't provided and the consumer isn't empowered to decide how to respond without that information.

If, for example, I buy some ski jacket for $900, how will I know if it was part of an ethical and socially just manufacturing process? And how would I find out? Would asking the company that makes the goods reveal the truth needed to assuage or further motivate responsible consumers?


This is just in from the news: COVID-19 hits Los Angeles Apparel with over 300 infections, 4 deaths.
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...mployee-deaths

"A coronavirus outbreak has struck the operations of Los Angeles Apparel, with more than 300 infections and four virus-related deaths among the manufacturer’s workers. Los Angeles Apparel converted its operations to making masks during the pandemic."
...
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said that it first shut down operations at the South L.A. garment manufacturer June 27 after inspectors found “flagrant violations” of public health infection control orders and said the company failed to cooperate with an investigation of a reported coronavirus outbreak.

[pureantigravity]

[wooley12]

If you're partial to shrimp cocktail, best you don't look into who does the harvesting.

[pureantigravity]

“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something." Rep. John Lewis

I want to thank KQ for that.