March 25, 2005
Wearable
In order to maintain growth in the face of eroding margins and fragmented competition, it's important for us to be ready to jump into emerging fields of application to capture business while it's still profitable. I guess it'll be up to me to bring the news of LED underwear up at the next sales meeting. Can't wait to jet off to Paris and Milan to solicit supermodels with our fine fashion-forward wares.
March 13, 2005
Off The Rack
Now that WTO quotas on clothing and textiles have been eliminated, how's this free-trade thing working out for everybody?
No surprise that China is off and running with the gun.
In the first month after the end of all quotas on textiles and apparel around the world, imports to the United States from China jumped about 75 percent, according to trade figures released by the Chinese government.
As you might expect, that didn't help the U.S. trade deficit much.
U.S. Trade Deficit Hits $58.3 Billion as Chinese Imports Surge
"We view these figures as an affirmation that we're growing faster than our trading partners by as much as 2 percent and we need them to take steps so they can grow and buy our products," Rob Nichols, the spokesman for Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, said in an interview.
I guess that makes it okay, then. Too bad the folks running up credit card bills can't explain away their debts the same way.
And if the indebted Americans thought they're in real trouble, the African textile factories are getting hit by both the lowered trade barriers and the the falling dollar (not to mention the yuan, due to the artificial peg on the Chinese currency). It doesn't help that the African currencies are pegged to the South African Rand, which has appreciated relative to the USD along with the commodities prices.
In places like Lesotho, a nation of 1.8 million that is already wrestling with AIDS and drought, the news is perhaps most wrenching. Lesotho's garment industry - and therefore its manufacturing base - rests on the faltering premise that Americans will buy all the clothes that it can sew.
Yeah, relying on the charity of American capitalism does not make sound economic policy. Interesting how many of the African garment factories were set up by Taiwan companies. And I thought it was tough to find people willing to station themselves in Shenzhen, but Lesotho? I doubt there are any karaoke bars in Lesotho. Posted by mikewang on 06:45 PM
March 11, 2005
Sanitation Engineering
Cool Tools usually features obscure but sensible and useful stuff, but sometimes they let loose something strange, just to keep the readers on their toes, I guess. This was not something I needed to see as I browsed the article summary.
The Keeper / Diva Cup
Reusable menstrual capture
Um, eewwwww?
Now, a new-and-improved toilet is something a guy can really appreciate.
Ashish Kulkarni has a doctorate in chemical engineering. He used to develop plastics for General Electric. Now he's in the bowels of a research facility in central New Jersey, dropping golf balls into a toilet.
Why am I not surprised that a toilet company is located in central-NJ? It's silly for them to be profiling an American company anyway. Just like cars, Japan is where the innovation is at in personal sanitation equipment. Namely Toto, Japan's #1 toilet maker. Without their help, the Americans wouldn't have even been able to test their new toilet designs.
Then, during a visit to the Japanese toilet maker Toto, Gauley observed researchers flushing cylinders of brown goop. It was miso, the fermented soy protein used in soup. In performance and appearance, the resemblance to the real deal was almost disturbing in its completeness. But alas, the Toto guys wouldn't divulge the proprietary recipe.
It's a shit-simulator, and it makes a tasty soup base! Anyway, it'll be a while before the American companies catch up with Toto innovations. I'm a little disappointed that our designer decided to not go with Toto for our Taipei apartment. A Kohler just isn't the same.