What a despicable person

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

It’s been clear over the past few months that labor costs are going up in China. That’s now rippling to other manufacturing economies in Asia.

So says Bruce Rockowitz, president of Li & Fung Ltd., the bellwether Hong Kong-based trading and logistics giant that is a major buyer of toys and clothes for the likes of Wal-Mart and Target.

“Prices have gone up for us and our customers,” Mr. Rockowitz said while presenting Li & Fung’s semi-annual earnings results in Hong Kong Thursday. “We’ve mitigated it by looking at Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia,” he said. (1)

The fact that Chinese workers are getting paid a little bit more for their labour should be a cause for celebration. We're still enjoying the benefits of a grossly exploitative economic arrangement with a totalitarian regime, and the hapless near-slaves working 20 hour shifts making cheap baubles for our delectation are being rewarded with a very slight increase in pay and improvement in living conditions.

in other words, everyone wins (though we win most, and the near slaves, in truth, just don't lose as badly) and we can all relax and feel an iota less guilty because we can see that reform and change is coming. Engagement has worked. it is making things better.

But Mr Rockowitz's response to this good news? Look for some cheaper morlocks to exploit.

That isn't a human being talking, just a despicable little Eichmann doing his inhuman duty.

1 - "China Labor Cost Increases, Setting the Bar for Others," by Alex Frangos. Published in the Wall Street Journal, 12th of August, 2010. (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/08/12/china-labor-cost-increases-setting-the-bar-for-other-economies/)