To the Editor,
Re: Buyer beware, Letters, May 21.
The answer to the letter writer’s lament over the deplorable quality of goods ‘made in China’ rests within that fundamental ethos of modern, economic practice – return on investment.
The ubiquity of cheaply made Chinese products, in a big-box-store-led world of cutthroat retail pricing (everyone chasing that limited number of pennies) is simply the natural progression of manufacturers focused on cutting their input costs, campaigns against organized labour, out-sourcing, and now the greater economic efficiency in overseas suppliers where labour approaches the cost efficiency of the slavery that once dominated economic policy in the Americas.
David S. DunawaySouth Wellington