Bu204 Macroeconomics Unit 2 Assignment Essay

b. Would this tax policy have a better effect, worse effect, or no different effect on American workers than the legislation banning the imports discussed in question 1? What kind of effect would the tax have on the Asian workers?

You will use the critical thinking skills you have been developing to identify violations of the Universal Intellectual Standards and Logical Fallacies in the essay, “Sweatshirts from Sweatshops” on pages 406-408 of your textbook.

It is impossible to beat a cheap price. In today’s world, finding a sought after item at a dirt cheap price is one the main motivation American’s get in the car and battle the craziness in the mall. And as the basic American human beings that we are, it is never possible for us to be complacent with the amount of stuff we currently have. Eventually, we will come across a friend that has the next must have item that will cause us to run to our local mall and purchase a similar item at the lowest price possible. With all that said, it is no wonder why the industry of fast fashion has taken off over the past decade. Felipe Caro and Victor Martínez-de-Albéniz, researchers for UCLA’s school of supply chain coordination, define fast fashion as “a business model that combines four elements: (i) fashionable clothes mostly for consumers under 40; (ii) affordable prices in the mid-to-low range; (iii) quick response; and (iv) frequent assortment changes”. Retailers like H&M, Forever 21, Target, and Wal-Mart have been able to take this business model and make a fortune. But while all these quick trends and cheap prices are great for the consumer, its cost on the foreign worker and the environment does not go uncovered. In the book Overdressed by Elizabeth Cline, she presents many arguments supporting the claim that fast fashion is unethical based on

Although globalization allows for most products to be produced at a more efficient rate, it also has the capability to mar the economies of municipalities in first world countries. In Pietra Rivoli’s book The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, she discusses the different viewpoints of opposing sides of an on-going battle to reduce the amount of tariffs and quotas put on the textile industries of foreign countries. For decades the textile industry in America has been on a noticeable decline, with outsourcing to third-world countries to blame. Although both faction’s viewpoints on the benefits of such outsourcing, both realize that there is only one way to gain the results they seek; which is to petition to the congressmen, including high ranking officials such as the president, in Washington D.C.

You will use the critical thinking skills you have been developing to identify violations of the Universal Intellectual Standards and Logical Fallacies in the essay, “Sweatshirts from Sweatshops” on pages 406-408 of your textbook.

Question 5- Jeffcott proposes that rather than simply making more conscious consumption choices, consumers should advocate for the exploited sweatshop workers by demanding school boards, governments, and universities to constitute policies for clothing companies to provide information regarding their factories and to demonstrate whether or not they are attempting to mitigate the work conditions of these factories.

Although the Chinese apparel manufacturers would lose profitability due to rising cotton prices and competition from emerging countries, they stand to gain the most from the removal of U.S. quotas and tariffs. According to the author, in 2007, 95% of the 20 billion garments Americans made were purchased overseas. Due to U.S. trade barriers, China’s share of the U.S. apparel import was only 30%. Once these barriers were removed, Chinese apparel would flood the American market due to their low cost and dominance in garment manufacturing. Experts predict that China could eventually supply 85% of U.S. apparel. As they increase their market share in the

Americans love to shop. With malls everywhere you go, shopping just might be America's favorite past time! When you are out shopping though, do you ever stop to think where all of those clothes and shoes come from? When I was younger, well, actually until recently, I always thought they were all made by machines. Shirt machines, pants machines…you get the picture. I have learned, however, that for the most part, clothes are still made on sewing machines, by people, and often under circumstances that we can only imagine.

In the book, Making Sweatshops: The Globalization of the U.S. Apparel Industry, talks about the liberal viewpoint of sweatshops at the same time explaining the contradictions and the complexities of globalization processes. Rosen organizes the book into three sections: social, historical, and political. There are three stages that Rosen talks about when U.S. apparel industries started to pop up to when the North American Free Trade Agreement became into effect. Another point that Rosen elaborates on is the political and the policies surrounding the movement to free trade between countries. Rosen uses plenty of statics that show pros and cons of the free trade from the neoliberalist and opposing points of view of markets, and emphasizes the

After researching information on sweatshops and working conditions in which my clothing in being manufactured, I have come to a conclusion that I shouldn’t support the companies that exploit cheap labor in sweatshops. I’ve had the luxury of being able to buy clothes and not have a care in the world about how it's made. But now that I know how my clothes are made I have began to question my need to buy clothing from the big companies who exploit cheap labor. Of course I need clothing but I don't need to buy as much and maybe make or borrow clothing from relatives. I believe that boycotting the clothing industry is the only way to get big company's attention and get them to stop using sweatshops in foreign countries for cheap

Everyday, millions of consumers in the United States contribute to the harsh treatment, under paid, and sexual abuse of factory workers all over the world. The garment industry, one of the largest in the world, generates over 3 trillion dollars a year yet the average monthly wage is 21 dollars a month, 80% of whom are women, and including children ages 5 to 14. While most apparel used to be manufactured in the United States, in the past decade a majority of manufacturers have moved operations overseas due to loose regulations according to the huffington post (Badal). The current trend of fast fashion comes at a much greater cost than we are all aware of, The True Cost, a documentary by Andrew Morgan highlights fashions “unadvertised sins” such as unregulated production, toxic garment dyes harmful to both workers and the environment, and attempts by the factory workers to form unions that end in violence (Wilson).

This paper will examine the role of the United States in textile and apparel production in the age of globalization and will provide an overview of trade agreements enacted in the textile and apparel industry. A discussion of the different trade agreements and how the U.S. textile and apparel industry has been affected by those agreements will be given along with ideas about what the United States can do to continue to operate in the domestic market of textiles and apparel.

Cheap labor is viewed as one of the chief assets they can offer to entice investment by multinational companies, which creates jobs and provides capital for development. It is common for clothing companies to close and reopen in order to take advantage of new tax exemptions or to smother union-organizing efforts. Activists are demanding an end to the misuse of rights of workers in the factories that are producing the garments that are sold in stores. When successful, these strategies have led to improved workplace

Inexpensive clothing has been the major trend due to the cheap laboring in Asia. Though we take granted for inexpensive clothes, we know little about how those clothes are made. In some manufacturing factories, people have died because of the companies’ neglects on maintaining buildings, providing equipment for better production and improving the working environment. Some factories use children for even lower wages. Sweatshops are the manufacturing factories with low wage, long working hours and poor conditions; they violate human rights and are unethical. Knowing this, should companies stop laboring in developing countries? The answer is no. In short, sweatshops are necessary parts of supply chains that fulfill the demands for jobs. Because sweatshops provide cheap labor and make inexpensive products available, those companies should be responsible for the welfare of the

Since World War II, International trade has gained a rapidly increasing speed due to sustained and high-speed economic development in the world. In other words, countries’ degrees of openness and total volumes of import and export have enormously increased. In this paper, I will focus on the effects of accession to the WTO on textile trade between China and U.S, test comparative advantage theory (the main idea is that, under some conditions, when two countries start free trade, a country will produce and export the good which is in comparative advantage due to lower opportunity cost). Because of textile industries’ labor-intensive property, as the country with the largest amount of labor force, China is likely to have a comparative advantage in textile production. Therefore, it can be reasonable to conjecture that an increase in China’s export of textiles would occur after trade barrier eliminations on account of its WTO membership. In order to test my predictions, I will use regression analysis to test several variables such as Balassa Index (measure comparative advantages), Openness Index and total volume of textiles trade, then explore whether the WTO membership influences textile trade between these two countries.