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[OM] Re: iStock

Subject: [OM] Re: iStock
From: Chris Crawford <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:54:21 -0600
Andrew,

The problem with that argument is that ANYTHING can be done cheaper by
people in very poor countries. Anything. So how can any of us compete?
Answer is we can't. Here in the USA people like me who remember when it was
possible for a man to graduate from high school and get a job paying a
decent family-man wage have seen it become impossible for even college grads
to survive because almost everything pays $6.50 an hour for new hires except
Law, Nursing, Accountants and business managers, and teachers. And there
just isn't enough of those kind of jobs to employ all the adults in a
country with 300 million people.

No one wants to pay workers a living wage but the 'low costs' we keep
hearing about don't exist. Things aren't cheap here. In Santa Fe, a one
bedroom apartment costs $800 a month. That's why the Mexicans will rent one
and have 20 people living in it. Americans can't or won't live like that, so
yeah we're rather angry that our government has allowed the business elite
to export every job they could and reduce the remaining workers to poverty.

Old men like my father still make good money but when they retire, their
jobs are either not replaced or they hire a young person and pay him $6 an
hour. As a small-businessman, I have some control over my earnings, and my
refusal to give my work away is a responsibility I have to every working
person in this country.

If we refuse to work for starvation wages, they'll have to pay us decently
again, or refuse to hire us at all and face 300 million unemployed,
starving, angry people who own more guns than any other population on the
planet. And if we look at the history of countries that keep their people
unemployed, poor, and hungry I see a future I'd rather avoid.


-- 
Chris Crawford
Photography & Graphic Design
Santa Fe, New Mexico

http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com

http://www.plumpatrin.com  Something the world NEEDS.



On 8/29/07 12:23 AM, "Andrew Fildes" <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> Once upon a time I tried leadlighting as a sideline (what you call
> stained glass but isn't). Except that the cost and effort of making
> certain types like lampshades was soooo much lower in Asia so that
> was the end of that and the only survivors are the truly, highly
> skilled doing commission work and churches. And they struggle as the
> bread and butter stuff disappears overseas. Ah well, try something else.
> The cost and effort where? No point in making a beautiful product if
> no-one can afford it or can see that value in it.
> Otherwise we'd all have Leicas and Wetzlar would be making some great
> products.
> Andrew Fildes
> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> 
> 
> On 29/08/2007, at 3:19 PM, Chris Crawford wrote:
> 
>> A realistic price is one that justifies the cost and effort
>> involved in
>> making the product.
> 
> 
> 
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