Climate Action Super Hero shortens to CASH, how very apt as it says what it really is: grift and graft.
The idea of a german-french headed Klima-Jugend scares me though.
Next step will be articles where parents of youthful pioneers (will they too get to wear a special red scarf perhaps?) testify how happy they are their children tell the authorities of any suspected transgressions.
EUrope-wide DDR, with german efficiency, french bureaucracy and italian/greek anti-corruption measures...
Brings back that odd joke about hell (if memory serves):
'Heaven is where the policemen are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is organised by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the policemen are German and everything is organised by the Italians.'
Did I need to see this on a Saturday morning? Probably. I remember the "good old days" when I used to sew my own clothes. It became pretty obvious in the 90s that sewing one's own clothes was no longer viable, as the fabric, cotton, pattern and zip cost more than a cheap dress from China. Ugh. We've been suffering ever since from a tsunami of cheap rubbish.
Can I suggest to the upcoming youngster "Energy Experts" that they persuade the oligarchs to somehow give up their private jets?
As for the "Truth Talkers" the "coronavirus has shown how important it is to listen to scientists". I need to go back to bed. I feel weak. I don't think I am going to survive much more of this twaddle.
Around 1990-ish, I briefly worked inside a major swedish clothing chain, which was starting to establish itself internationally at that time.
Among other goods, we sold Levis 501-blue jeans, made in China or Thailand. We sold them at full price of course, which back then was about 500:- to 700:- crowns, about €50 to €70 today (very roughly converted with no accounting for inflation et c).
The employees regularly got to buy damaged goods on the cheap, since it was more expensive to pay for the destruction of the goods. Could be things like a button missing o the label stitched on upside down.
The price? About 10:- to 20:-. Friend and co-worker of mine back then bought a full tuxedo missing two buttons for 200:-.
I'll never forget the boss explaining that the company still made a profit. The cost per pair of evis 501s blue denim jeans, including transport from Asia to Northern Europe, packaging, labelling, tagging and delivering to stores all over Northern Europe, was below 10:-.
I mention this because when western capitalists were allowed to exploit and use what can only be called slave-labour in Asia, it became impossbile for domestic high-quality companies to compete. They couldn't "outsource", since they'd lose their selling point: quality goods that can be repaired and reused for decades.
If the Greens were serious, they'd clamour for making all domestic prouction tax-exempt. That would overnight make China's slave factories spewing poison everywhere impossible to maintain.
Just magine the savings in CO2 when you no longer transport thousands of cubic tons of old electronics to Asia, then make new stuff from them and transport it back again, all powered by diesel and coal.
All Greens are captured by neoliberal global capitalism, has been for 30 years or more now.
Same here: some 25 years ago, I was working for Nike in Austria.
Shoes that were sold for 100 euros in stores were purchased for 50 euros by retailers (generally speaking, if one ordered massive amounts, that latter price would have been lower still).
Cost of production, shipping halfway around the world (from Vietnam and the like) stood at around 20 euros.
The ratio between retail price (100) and sale-to-retailers (50) is one thing, but the cost-of-everything-but (20) included, most notably, processing fees in Rotterdam Europoort (Europe's largest port facility in the Netherlands), which made up the vast majority (more than 50% of that 20 euros) of the everything-but category.
In other words: raw materials, production costs (incl. labour!), and shipping constituted a smaller fraction than processing bulk containers in Rotterdam, which took 2-3 days, incl. fees for renting storage space within the customs-clearance area.
If economists would be 'honest', they'd tell you these differentials with regard to 'globalisation'.
If socialists and their ilk would be 'honest', they'd march exactly for what Rikard point out: domestic production.
If governments would be any use, they'd exit globalist régimes, such as the WTO, the EU, and the like the day before yesterday; they'd talk about a couple of years of hardship ahead before things would inevitably improve again.
Since no-one does any of these things, 'they' are all useless and could be gotten rid off without many, if any, loss to society at-large.
Finally, one issue about carbon savings involved: air travel has reduced emissions quite a bit, gas prices are only ever going up--but none of these issues play a role in any of the int'l discussions (so far) that relate to maritime commerce. Go figure, I'd say.
Thank you Rikard. That is very interesting: your first hand experience within the clothing industry. Everything has got so out of whack. Nobody wants to support slave labour. The problem is, all of these major changes over the years have been wrought by Governments and big corporations. It is rarely what customers want: it is imposed on us.
For example, I used to work in the dairy industry, where every day, glass bottles for milk were cleaned and reused for doorstep delivery. It was the ultimate "green", virtuous recycling industry. Next thing we know, washing glass bottles is very "yesterday" and customers were obliged to buy their milk from supermarkets in plastic bottles, instead of glass. But of course it was very handy for the petroleum industry who were able to offload some of their waste byproducts by getting everyone to buy plastic containers. Ditto a tsunami of plastic bags.
What comes next? That's right: it's all OUR fault (the customers) for using too many plastic containers and too many plastic bags. Oh yes, and buying too much cheap crap from China. We are responsible for polluting the planet.
Here, milk comes in cartons and has done so since the 1950s, after the founding of Tetra Pak. Every time glass bottles in onevariety or other has been brought up, it's been shot down by industry, authorities and retailers as being impossible to do with maintained standards of hygiene and quality. Interesting, no?
I have two engineers (real engineers, not suit-and-tie wearing bespectabled Auto-CAD users) in the family. Both have explained how easily a dual system of returnable bottles for smaller stores and cleaning-refilling machines for larger stores could be made.
But that would undercut the profits.
Want to piss off a Green feminist for real? Suggest banning one-use menstrual pads and tampons (outside health care/hospitals). Pads can be made to be re-usable after washing and moon-cups are nothard or expensive to come by.
Suggest it, and your Green feminist will rave about free choice for the customer, how one-use items doesn't impact the environment, and so on.
Creature comforts makes for comfortable creatures, it seems.
I believe that this is exactly what is needed... After March 2020 we - well I am at least - are perfectly aware that uman animal adults are pretty much children. So nothing like a gang of children to try to make the other (even if by bullying) gang to pretend they'll do something about a THING they do not control, and don't care at all!
Climate Action Super Hero shortens to CASH, how very apt as it says what it really is: grift and graft.
The idea of a german-french headed Klima-Jugend scares me though.
Next step will be articles where parents of youthful pioneers (will they too get to wear a special red scarf perhaps?) testify how happy they are their children tell the authorities of any suspected transgressions.
EUrope-wide DDR, with german efficiency, french bureaucracy and italian/greek anti-corruption measures...
Hope I live to see it burn.
Brings back that odd joke about hell (if memory serves):
'Heaven is where the policemen are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is organised by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the policemen are German and everything is organised by the Italians.'
Did I need to see this on a Saturday morning? Probably. I remember the "good old days" when I used to sew my own clothes. It became pretty obvious in the 90s that sewing one's own clothes was no longer viable, as the fabric, cotton, pattern and zip cost more than a cheap dress from China. Ugh. We've been suffering ever since from a tsunami of cheap rubbish.
Can I suggest to the upcoming youngster "Energy Experts" that they persuade the oligarchs to somehow give up their private jets?
As for the "Truth Talkers" the "coronavirus has shown how important it is to listen to scientists". I need to go back to bed. I feel weak. I don't think I am going to survive much more of this twaddle.
Around 1990-ish, I briefly worked inside a major swedish clothing chain, which was starting to establish itself internationally at that time.
Among other goods, we sold Levis 501-blue jeans, made in China or Thailand. We sold them at full price of course, which back then was about 500:- to 700:- crowns, about €50 to €70 today (very roughly converted with no accounting for inflation et c).
The employees regularly got to buy damaged goods on the cheap, since it was more expensive to pay for the destruction of the goods. Could be things like a button missing o the label stitched on upside down.
The price? About 10:- to 20:-. Friend and co-worker of mine back then bought a full tuxedo missing two buttons for 200:-.
I'll never forget the boss explaining that the company still made a profit. The cost per pair of evis 501s blue denim jeans, including transport from Asia to Northern Europe, packaging, labelling, tagging and delivering to stores all over Northern Europe, was below 10:-.
I mention this because when western capitalists were allowed to exploit and use what can only be called slave-labour in Asia, it became impossbile for domestic high-quality companies to compete. They couldn't "outsource", since they'd lose their selling point: quality goods that can be repaired and reused for decades.
If the Greens were serious, they'd clamour for making all domestic prouction tax-exempt. That would overnight make China's slave factories spewing poison everywhere impossible to maintain.
Just magine the savings in CO2 when you no longer transport thousands of cubic tons of old electronics to Asia, then make new stuff from them and transport it back again, all powered by diesel and coal.
All Greens are captured by neoliberal global capitalism, has been for 30 years or more now.
Same here: some 25 years ago, I was working for Nike in Austria.
Shoes that were sold for 100 euros in stores were purchased for 50 euros by retailers (generally speaking, if one ordered massive amounts, that latter price would have been lower still).
Cost of production, shipping halfway around the world (from Vietnam and the like) stood at around 20 euros.
The ratio between retail price (100) and sale-to-retailers (50) is one thing, but the cost-of-everything-but (20) included, most notably, processing fees in Rotterdam Europoort (Europe's largest port facility in the Netherlands), which made up the vast majority (more than 50% of that 20 euros) of the everything-but category.
In other words: raw materials, production costs (incl. labour!), and shipping constituted a smaller fraction than processing bulk containers in Rotterdam, which took 2-3 days, incl. fees for renting storage space within the customs-clearance area.
If economists would be 'honest', they'd tell you these differentials with regard to 'globalisation'.
If socialists and their ilk would be 'honest', they'd march exactly for what Rikard point out: domestic production.
If governments would be any use, they'd exit globalist régimes, such as the WTO, the EU, and the like the day before yesterday; they'd talk about a couple of years of hardship ahead before things would inevitably improve again.
Since no-one does any of these things, 'they' are all useless and could be gotten rid off without many, if any, loss to society at-large.
Finally, one issue about carbon savings involved: air travel has reduced emissions quite a bit, gas prices are only ever going up--but none of these issues play a role in any of the int'l discussions (so far) that relate to maritime commerce. Go figure, I'd say.
Thank you Rikard. That is very interesting: your first hand experience within the clothing industry. Everything has got so out of whack. Nobody wants to support slave labour. The problem is, all of these major changes over the years have been wrought by Governments and big corporations. It is rarely what customers want: it is imposed on us.
For example, I used to work in the dairy industry, where every day, glass bottles for milk were cleaned and reused for doorstep delivery. It was the ultimate "green", virtuous recycling industry. Next thing we know, washing glass bottles is very "yesterday" and customers were obliged to buy their milk from supermarkets in plastic bottles, instead of glass. But of course it was very handy for the petroleum industry who were able to offload some of their waste byproducts by getting everyone to buy plastic containers. Ditto a tsunami of plastic bags.
What comes next? That's right: it's all OUR fault (the customers) for using too many plastic containers and too many plastic bags. Oh yes, and buying too much cheap crap from China. We are responsible for polluting the planet.
The gaslighting has been going on for decades.
Here, milk comes in cartons and has done so since the 1950s, after the founding of Tetra Pak. Every time glass bottles in onevariety or other has been brought up, it's been shot down by industry, authorities and retailers as being impossible to do with maintained standards of hygiene and quality. Interesting, no?
I have two engineers (real engineers, not suit-and-tie wearing bespectabled Auto-CAD users) in the family. Both have explained how easily a dual system of returnable bottles for smaller stores and cleaning-refilling machines for larger stores could be made.
But that would undercut the profits.
Want to piss off a Green feminist for real? Suggest banning one-use menstrual pads and tampons (outside health care/hospitals). Pads can be made to be re-usable after washing and moon-cups are nothard or expensive to come by.
Suggest it, and your Green feminist will rave about free choice for the customer, how one-use items doesn't impact the environment, and so on.
Creature comforts makes for comfortable creatures, it seems.
I believe that this is exactly what is needed... After March 2020 we - well I am at least - are perfectly aware that uman animal adults are pretty much children. So nothing like a gang of children to try to make the other (even if by bullying) gang to pretend they'll do something about a THING they do not control, and don't care at all!
Yes, we will NEVER see military go full solar powered battery 🔋! Ha! Solar Tesla Tank? Smokeless Tank? LOL.
That would end the amerikan terrorist activities around the Planet... and that can't happen!