-=> Peter May said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "CAMCORDER REPAIRS" on 02-14-04  13:16.....

 PM> I bought my daughter an electric scooter for about $100, it got ridden
 PM> by everyone for about 2 months and then the toothed belt tore and
 PM> slipped to one side jamming the shaft of the motor, burning out the
 PM> armature. 
 PM> You have to start doing your sums at this point, the unit has two 12
 PM> volt lead acid batteries, an electronic control unit, horn, wheels,
 PM> brakes, frame, rare earth permanent magnet motor and belt. All for
 PM> under $100? 
 PM> My local battery supplier wants $120 for a small lead acid battery for
 PM> my aging National Camcorder.

There you go then! You buy another scooter and use the batteries
from that for your camcorder...

Isn't getting absolutely ridiculous when this happens!!!

 PM> Someone obviously is making the middleman money here, so what's his
 PM> profit, margin? Even more interesting, just how much are the chinese
 PM> exporting these things for?

Yes, that's the question.

 PM> Do they use slave labor or robotics to save costs? What do the workers
 PM> and downstream industries get paid?

Slave labour is my guess. I've heard of some that get paid as
little as about 80c a day -- and that is for a LOOOOONG day.

 PM> I recently bought an 650 watt electric planer with a 3 year
 PM> replacement warranty for under $60! How can they do this? 

You can't help wondering...

 PM> How can this be economically sustainable in the long term
 PM> environmental sense?

Well, obviously it can't...

 PM> You cant keep digging ore out of the ground and turning it into
 PM> "things" for almost free, so where are the costs of the
raw materials?

The raw materials are free, in terms of money. They always were.

The costs occur where humans have to put in something, usually
labour or investment, towards the end product. This will occur in
the mining or gathering of the raw materials, and in processing and
shipping.

So naturally if you can get humans whose work is cheaper, your
costs are that much lower.

 PM> What is this doing to other, well thought out industries in other
 PM> countries, where natural resources still have some value attached to
 PM> them?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about natural resources
having some value attached to them, unless of course you mean
values other than monetary ones.

Damage to the environment is usually ignored by commercial bodies
as much as possible, as trying to avoid damage is usually costly.

And after all their "bottom line" is profits and returns to the
investors!

   ,-./\
  /     \ From Greg Mayman, in beautiful Adelaide, South Australia
  \_,-*_/    "Queen City of The South"    34:55 S  138:36 E
       v

... Brain: biological anologue contraption used to think we think.
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30

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