Re: [Winona] Wal-Mart

[Rick Plunkett]

The Chinese economy has been growing at a world leading rate of 7-8% or so every year.  Over the last 20 years millions and millions of Chinese have made substantial improvements in their lives as the economy grew.  Substantial improvement may mean their children are no longer in danger of starvation. That is very important.   Globalization of the world economy and free markets have made these improvements in China.  Billions of dollars of investment, much from the West, has built industry in China.  The market system has done incredible things to improve lives there.  No foreign aid system has ever even dreamed of making similar progress in a poor nation.   This is the context in which I read comparatively wealthy Americans dismissing the benefits of Chinese industry to the Chinese.   If we could, through the force of government, create an America of purely local cottage industry creating shoes and sweaters and other manufactured goods for mostly local markets, should we do so?  Considered what affect this would have on millions of people around the world.   Rick Plunkett     ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 11:50 PM Subject: Re: [Winona] Wal-Mart I wonder if the person laboring for 13 cents an hour in a Chinese sweatshop to make the garbage Wal-Mart sells would consider it hyperbole? Dean Lanz