When “Made in China” became expensive

I walked down the street to a local mall to buy a very common shirt - you know, one of those inner shirts that I wear that absorbs the sweat from under my arm - yes I sweat in the Minnesota Winter. I looked at it and did not have to guess twice as to where it was made - it had to be one of those morbid looking East Asian sweatshops. I am the kind of person who would buy a product of “reasonable” quality and prefer paying a sub-par price for it. I was not perturbed that it did not have a price tag on it - I knew it was made in China and the Chinese have an interest in getting my money - not making me poor. I walked up to the counter, the beautiful Mexican lady scanned my shirt and said - “Fourteen Dollars, please.” This did not bring to my mind Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” and how he feels that the theory of a universal market has been expounded by him - but the idea that the tag “Made in China” does not necessarily mean cheap reasonably decent goods for the average American customer. China’s inflation is at an all time high - new labor laws instituted this year means that the hiring process is going to be more stringent, which in turn is going to increase costs. Secondly, China is also experiencing a shortage of labor, which in turn means that the reader and I might just have to either forgo that undershirt or expect to pay more for something that has not risen in quality. The weaker US Dollar has a lot to play in this as well - the lower the American Dollar goes, the more expensive Chinese imports become. China’s GDP in 2007 went up by 11.4% up from 11.1% in 2006, but the Inflation rate went up to 4.8%. Sources such as Standard Chartered Bank expect China’s growth rate to stem down to 8.6% - of course a lot has to do with the crisis here in the United States which further supports the idea that both these economies are so intertwined.

I had to switch windows for a couple seconds just to look at some of the stocks up there - the usual big giants which I like to check on the fly - Google (which I cannot afford for sometime), Cisco, Microsoft, Apple and etc. The big news I read was that Motorola, the giant consumer electronics goods maker, is stepping away from the market of mobile phones! Motorola is something one would associate with phones, but the company, sadly, has not been doing too well. Once the news was announced, the value of the stock rose up! This can be both disturbing and good - disturbing because one of the major players in the market has not been able to keep its product line - its like when Ford will stop making the iconic F150 or McDonalds stops selling Cheeseburgers - the point I am arriving at is what would happen with the companies on the fringes? The smaller markets -  secondly the good part is - that focus is shifting to more important aspects within mobile technology - such as apps on the phone rather than the hardware aspect of the phone. Expect more Research in Motion like companies dotting the market with cool new apps for your phone.

Well.. that does it -  I have spent my money on the shirt - gotten a candied smile from a young Mexican woman - and now, its time to sweat.