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Reread the article you cited. All the manufacturing was done in Saipan, USA.So, one famous maker of blue jeans hired Vietnamese workers because they could be paid in peanuts. The jeans were manufactured, finished, ready to wear. Then they were shipped to Saipan.
That's a way of circumventing US labor laws; nevertheless, those workers were employed in the USA, which is all that the label "Made in the USA" communicates. It represents jobs, not wages or working conditions.The island of Saipan is in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). Beginning in the 1980s, many clothing manufacturers had their garments made in Saipan because such items could be labelled “Made in the USA”. ...
In 1999, three separate lawsuits were filed in US state and federal courts against numerous American retail apparel companies and Saipan-based garment factories.
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/complying-made-usa-standardFor a product to be called Made in USA, or claimed to be of domestic origin without qualifications or limits on the claim, the product must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S. The term "United States," as referred to in the Enforcement Policy Statement, includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories and possessions.
That was then. Now:According to U.S. government reports and information contained in lawsuits, garment workers from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand and elsewhere pay $2,000 to $7,000 per worker to obtain jobs in the Mariana Islands that frequently have them working 12 hours a day, seven days a week for $3.05 an hour, often without overtime pay.
...
in 1998, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt spoke of the relationship established between the U.S. Congress and the Mariana Islands in 1976 that was intended to provide a transitional economic stimulus but which has produced an experiment “gone horribly awry. It has created a plantation economy, dependent upon the massive importation on a continuing basis of low-paid, vulnerable, short-term indentured workers.” Babbit called the situation in the Northern Mariana Islands a “disgrace.”
Most of the garment workers in Saipan come from China.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-105271.pdfThe Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 ... included a provision to apply U.S. minimum wage to the CNMI [Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands], increasing the CNMI’s minimum wage in periodic increments until it reached the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which it did on September 30, 2018
Thanks Yogi - Should have checked date of interview. A bit surprised it’s that old. So much has happened in both the equity & bond markets since then. The 10-year is quite a bit lower in yield (higher in price) than earlier in the year. A lot of other investment grade bonds keys off of it. So I wouldn’t be backing up the truck on AAA / AA stuff at the moment, but what do I know? Giroux’s bond recommendation is for lower rated stuff - the reason I thought it worth posting. And some here understand the lower rated tier much better than I do. Perhaps they’ll chime in.”All Barron's Roundtable interviews were done in NYC on January 9. Info is released piecemeal in 2-3 weekly installments (3 this year).”
Thanks @hank. I was reading this segment of the round table this morning. A quick look at PWRCX's top 10 equity holdings shows about a 2% stake in Amazon. It also shows he's owned it since 2016. It' gone up a ton since then. I actually hope he bought more at the start of this year. I bought a little myself.Extra-topical - But makes you wonder why he was high on AMZN a year ago when it was 30% more expensive but fails to mention it this year?
Exploiting Overseas Foreign Workers still goes on today. Perfectly legal in many places. Permitted, acknowledged, expected. But if the economy turns south and there's a cut-back in hours, those workers, under contract, are slaves, tied to that location. Bed and food provided. But when they don't make much money? Well, they simply don't make much money. It was happening under the U.S. flag in Saipan until the GWB years, when the gummint put a stop to it--- in THAT particular place. No cheap labor? Then we'll go elsewhere, said the clothing companies.+1 I think capitalism in the US became too used to free/low cost labor based on the prevalence of slavery, indentured servants and convict leasing-and thus American capitalism doesn't value labor.
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