Sarcasm at its most brilliant.

Sarcasm or a head in the sand. What do you think will happen when the exploited low cost labour forces wakes up and demand the same wage levels and working conditions we enjoy in the west.
There is only a finite time before cheap manufacturing comes to an end .The enivitable result will be a move by the Apples away from the mass market back to products which only the better off can afford.
It is called economic evolution.
So long as the shareholders are happy nothing else will matter. The tens thousands who would end up unemployed will not matter because they could not afford the products .

Huxley will probably be proved to have got it right.

Unfortunately I am impulse buyer and have bought several cars on that basis. My best mate takes forever buying anything despite my cajoling. He has been contemplating buying a new car as long as you and I just do not understand why he hasn't bought one. In fact the one he wants will probably be out of production by the time he decides and the process will start all over again.

Well in 15 years the only time it has let me down is when I left the lights on overnight, €10 for a jump start from a garage, similarly a new car would do the same.

Now what is "efficiently"
The extra cost of fuel doesn't come anywhere near the cost of a new car.
My car returns around 9ltr to the 100km. one I nearly purchased a couple of years ago is advertised at Combined (l/100km) (4.9) This was 20 month old car and the computer showed it had averaged 8.6. l/100km

You are probably right, the marketing have got to me again!

I have just had a PX quote on my current car. Halved in value in 3 years!

Diesel 73.7p/ltr

I understand that there is concern in the aviation world that many of the new planes on order may not make it to construction. They were sold with the fuel savings in mind whilst the recent fall in fuel prices has negated that advantage.

Well, Asia is most certainly doing that. It's one of the metrics closely watched by virtually all economists monitoring China's growth, for example.

Still, their newfound prosperity certainly isn't the result of low working hours, high salaries and generous benefits, and in the light of our own economic decline, it appears quite the opposite, actually.

Luckily, they have us to thank for it, since we still consume their low-cost output like water, because in our ivory towers, we would never stoop to those levels, enabling us to produce it ourselves.

After all, we're far more sophisticated - and therefore "entitled" to being provided with the most we can get, with the least risk and contribution. At least that's what we've increasingly led ourselves to believe for the past generation or so.

And economics is only part of it. Just like our well-being, most things are someone else's responsibility - and whatever our lot in life, it can't possibly be our fault - and that exemplifies how anyone who thinks differently is a target for blame - surely (as exhibited here often) others, particularly those more prosperous that we, can only be completely self-centered and driven by greed. Because in our assessment, that's likely how we'd be if the tables were turned.

But I suppose one could argue that we aren't self-centered at all. We simply believe it's inhuman to have to do anything we don't tangibly profit from, like work a 44-hour week, or anything less than 6 weeks paid holiday, or perhaps a 14-month pay year, or even guaranteed employment. We don't have to, it's our right, and it's someone else's responsibility to make sure we get it.

And like most things we've become accustomed to, it's others' responsibility to provide us with iPhones and other consumer items at prices we can afford, because we'd never be able to produce that stuff ourselves whilst still maintaining our ivory tower standard of living. Nothing self-centered about that is there?

Besides, as we now enjoy some of the highest salaries and lowest work hours on the planet, there's no disputing that we've always had the better plan - and so we deserve to have that prosperity for ourselves - if it weren't for all those greedy Asians stealing it from us - and the yanks too.

So you do agree that much of the foundation of the prosperity we in the west enjoyed pre crash and many still enjoy was down to the low cost manufacturing in the farcEastvparticularly China.
My wife's cousin works for a global drugs company and has lived in China for some years.
What he could tell us about working conditions. Health and safety . working hours in the tens of thousands of small companies who supply the Apples etc would make your hair fall out.
We are all more than happy to take advantage of the cost advantages provided by the far east but nothing lasts for ever and one day the worm will turn.

China sneezes and the west gets pneumonia.

No.

I equally presume you therefore agree that dogs quack?

My PAYG phone cost me a fiver off E-bay.
It's a phone, I can make and receive calls.
If I want to take photos I use my camera, if I want to access the internet I use my laptop.

If you went to the UK you would see that some of the fastest growing high street discount chains are so reliant on cheap Chinese products that they may as well fly the flag of the peoples republic.
In Portugal almost every town had one or more Chinese shops some now as big as the supermarkets.
If walks like a duck, quacks like a duck it is a duck.

That's nice. I've heard that Gibraltar is doing well too. No doubt equally as evil.

Without any signs of a Chinese shop.

BANG and the keys are gone...

Not suggesting that the Gibraltarians are racist are you ??..

It won,t be long Poundland and and their like are not going to miss the opportunity of supplying you .