Ugg Boots – Where they come from

December 4, 2010

I bought a pair of Ugg boots a few years back at Big 5 for less than $30 to keep my feet warm.

I didn’t consider where the boots were made, and I never intended wearing them to go shopping or outside. Since I work at home and save money by leaving the heat off on cold days, my feet get cold so it made sense to wear a pair. (I just Googled Big 5 and saw Uggs on sale for $39 a pair).

Uggs do not appear designed for outdoors, yet I see many young American women looking sharp shopping in Ugg boots. It seems to be the latest fad.

Curious, I did a bit of research to learn more about this popular fad.

I learned from Business Gather.com “Make no mistake about it: Ugg boots are not just for girls. Sure, they may look cute and snuggly, but with football quarterback Tom Brady on board as the brand’s new spokesperson, Ugg boots are poised to attract hoards of manly men all around the world.”

Then I wanted to know where Ugg boots came from and what it costs to make a pair.

I discovered this video on YouTube of a factory in China where the material and labor come together to make Uggs. The conclusion of the description below the video says, “These boots are the most cheap and excellent quality boots in the world.”

The New York Times recently reported “The salaries of factory workers in China are still low compared to those in the United States and Europe: the hourly wage in southern China is only about 75 cents an hour.”

Chinese factory workers often work overtime as long as sixteen hours a day for six days weeks.

However, in 2009, the US federal minimum hourly wage was $7.25, which pays about $15,000 a year for a full time job not counting hidden benefits, which don’t exist in China.

In China, the Ugg factory workers in that video are probably earning less than $3,700 (US) annually and working twice the hours to keep those Ugg prices down so American women and men may buy a cheap pair to look stylish while shopping.


This is a video explaining how to detect fake Ugg boots

After I watched this video, I checked the Ugg boots I bought from Big 5.  They were fake. Does that mean they weren’t made in China?

Who makes a profit from the real Ugg boots? Deckers Outdoor Corporation holds the Ugg trademark in more than 100 countries worldwide and reported sales of 689 million US dollars under the Ugg brand in 2008 and sales were up in 2009. Source: Source: Wiki.Ugg Boots

How many Americans would be willing to pay four or five times the price for a pair of Ugg boots so those low paying minimum wage jobs would come to the US?

Then, how many Americans are willing to work for the federal minimum wage without benefits? Not many since there are about eleven million illegal aliens in the US working those jobs.

So, if you live in the US, next time you hear political ads or someone bashing China for stealing jobs from Americans, look in a mirror.

Update:  After I wrote this post and up-loaded it, The Walking Company sent me an e-mail advertising “Zealand” slippers (another “Ugg” type product) on sale at 70% off.  Instead of paying $65 a pair, I paid less than $20. I stocked up and bought four pair and was surprised when the shipment arrived to discover that the “Zealand” product line is made in China instead of New Zealand.

Discover The India, China battle to eliminate poverty and illiteracy

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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7 Comments | America, business, capitalism, China, cultural differences, economy | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Building Things and Going Places

December 3, 2010

I discovered this time-lapse video at zerohedge.com of a fifteen-story hotel being built in a few days in Changsha, a city in south-central China.

While watching, I thought of all that China has accomplished in more than two-thousand years that no other country or civilization has achieved.

There’s the amazing miracle the world has witnessed since the early 1980s as China rebuilt and reinvented itself from a medieval kingdom to a modern nation with the only maglev line in the world.

It is obvious that the Chinese don’t give up easily once they start something.

After all, the Chinese spent more than two thousand years building the Great Wall and about a thousand years building the Grand Canal.

The largest palace on the earth, the Forbidden City, is in Beijing and was built more than five hundred years ago. 

The first emperor of China had a tomb and a Terra Cotta army built that makes the pyramids of Egypt seem insignificant.

Then there was the great fleet commanded by Admiral Zheng He during the Ming Dynasty.

In recent years, the Chinese announced they are going to build a space station, since the West won’t share theirs with China.

China has also said they are planning to build a colony on the moon, mine for rare earth metals and send a Chinese expedition to Mars within a few decades.

The Chinese recently proposed building a bullet train from Beijing to London while building thousands of kilometers of rail for bullet trains in China.  America doesn’t have one bullet train yet.

Does anyone doubt the Chinese won’t accomplish these tasks once they have announced the goals?

No wonder the Western democracies want China to have a Western style democratic government.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Economic Landscape Taking Flight

November 29, 2010

In June 2010, Al Jazeera reported how Chinese workers demanding improved conditions at Foxconn, a Taiwanese owned company operating in mainland China, brought about changes leading to mandatory workdays off and raises in pay that doubled in October, last month.

One former Foxconn worker says there is a big difference between his generation and their parents, who worked harder for less.

He says the younger generation is never satisfied with the status quo and is always pushing for a better life. That’s why this young man left Foxconn for a better paying job.

Qin Huai Zhou, general manager of Star Interspace Door Co, says the relationships between bosses and workers have changed too.

When you need to keep special and talented staff, you must recognize them with more money and respect.

In fact, that’s what happened at a Honda plant in southern China where the workers staged a strike shutting down car production around the country leading to a 35% pay raise.

Harry Fawcett, an Al Jazeera reporter, says that this success was due to the size of China’s working population, which has peaked leading to a shortage of workers along the coast.

Another factor was politics.

Lee Chang-Hee says, “Ten years ago the government response would have been harsh.”

Now, the government wants to address income distribution because they see if income doesn’t improve for workers, there will be no more sustained economic development in China.

To avoid what happened to Japan, the goal is to transform China’s economy from one that depends on exports to an internal economy driven by a large middle class.

Learn more about China’s Middle Class Expanding

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China in Africa – Part 2/2

November 29, 2010

Richard Behar, the American reporter, starts out by answering a question from an e-mail that came in about sweatshop, slave labor in Africa. 

Behar says that African consumers can buy cheap goods—that’s the good news.

The bad news is that most developing countries need light manufacturing industries such as textiles to develop, and China is making that almost impossible for African countries.

Riz Khan turns to Dr. John Afele and mentions something Behar wrote in China Storms Africa that claims what China is doing is a replay of imperial colonialism.

Dr. Afele says he sees this as an economic situation and if it is economic, than Thomas Friedman, the author of The World is Flat, is right that economics is not like war and can be a win-win situation.

This is not a time when Africa has no voice, Afele says. This time the world is watching so I do not think we are going back to an era of colonialism. There are international organizations to help that didn’t exist during colonialism.

Then Khan turns to David Shinn, the former US ambassador to Ethiopia, who is now a professor at George Washington University. The question has to do with countries like America that are reluctant to do business in Africa due to Africa’s negative international image.

Shinn replies that the perception of Africa for American businesses is negative. However, he does not think China is bothered by that image.

Referring to Behar’s claims of colonialism rearing its ugly head, Shinn says this infers political control and that is not part of today’s equation. Colonialism is not happening.

Turning back to Behar, Khan brings up the perception of corruption of businesses in China.

Behar uses Mozambique as an example saying that within five years the best wood will be gone as the trees are cut down. He says the same thing is going on in the Congo with copper. (I ask, How is this corruption?)

Shinn responds by saying the upside (or win-win situation Afele mentioned) is that China offers Africa long term, low interest loans that were only being offered by the West with political strings attached.

China doesn’t make the same demands the West does.  (What no one said is that China was also a victim of colonialism for more than a century starting with the Opium Wars.)

Return to China in Africa – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China in Africa – Part 1/2

November 28, 2010

Al Jazerra explores topics about China seldom heard in the Western Media. Riz Khan, the host of this program, moderates a panel of global experts discussing China’s role in Africa.

If this is a topic that interests you, I suggest you read Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild for a balance and comparison.

Khan says that between 1998 and 2006, Africa’s exports to China increased 2,126% while exports only increased 139% to the European Union and 402% to the US.

Due to China’s incredible modernization growth rate, China has become dependent on resources from Africa, South America, Australia and Southeast Asia.

Some critics, which is to be expected, complain that China is robbing Africa of its natural resources and ignoring human rights violations and other humanitarian concerns.

However, supporters say that due to this trade with China, economies in Sub-Saharan Africa have grown an average of six percent a year since 2004.

Khan’s program explores if China is exploiting Africa or creating opportunities for economic growth.

Khan’s guests are Richard Behar, an American reporter, who wrote China Storms Africa. He says China is doing both good and bad at this time, and there is no way to predict the outcome. He feels China is copying what the West already did.

From Brussels comes Dr. John Afele, author of Digital Bridges, Developing Countries in the Knowledge Economy. 

Dr. Afele says there is a difference. African governments opened to China. China did not invade Africa as the West did in the 19th and 20th centuries. China was invited in.

From Washington D.C. comes David Shinn, a former US ambassador to Ethiopia, who is now a professor at George Washington University.

Shinn says the US buys more oil from Africa but China buys more minerals and hardwood timber. All of the major players in Africa have the same interests—resource extraction and selling goods to Africans.

Juliana, a caller from Paris, asked, “Why is China being demonized?” She mentions that all Western countries did this. She points out that the differences are that China’s interests are for good because China’s focus is to invest in Africa.

Richard Behar replies that no one is demonizing China here.

Then Behar spends time criticizing China by slipping in the standard complaints from a Westerner’s point of view.

I suggest you learn more about Oil and Death in Africa to discover more on this topic.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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