Once upon a time there were a few million people who wanted to have t-shirts. Not just a t-shirt, not even three t-shirts but multiples of tens t-shirts lying on their cupboard shelves, bathroom floors, on top of dryers, in laundry baskets and left at the homes of friends. These people regarded t-shirts as an earthworm does soil: it is there for me and I shall have it (assuming that any earthworm has ever actually had a thought!) When the price of t-shirts began to move towards the $10.00 price these people began to wince and moan, and whine and moan, and groan ... until the noise they made was heard in shops, then boardrooms, accountants offices, share holder meetings and factories. An enterprising person stood before a boardroom and turned on an overhead projector (remember them?). His face glowed in the reflected light. There was a hush as he spoke, and spoke and uttered words such as 'bottom line' 'increased profits' 'China' 'India' and 'cheap labor' (excuse the spelling but in this version the speaker is American and they have no use for the letter u). The men from W-Mart rubbed their hands. The shareholders down the line heard words that lifted their spirits - words such as 'bigger checks' (again the spelling is Americanised - apparently a cheque is to foreign a word ..), 'cheap' 'more' 'cheap' reared up from the mail they received after the Big Brains had met. And all the presidents and their men said we would be doing the best thing possible for the future of our nations.
Within a few years the market was back where it should be: overloaded with cheap, thin, crappy t-shirts that you could buy for $3.00 without regard for the cheap labour - to hell with it! the word needs a u - and poor living conditions and child labour. The t-shirt was cheap and that was what counted.
A steady stream of clothing and appliances followed the path blazed by the t-shirts. Before long it was uneconomic to spend money buying material made in the USA because the cheap clothing (slightly tainted by child labour but fortunately clothing doesn't talk about where it comes from) was ... well cheap. People no longer replaced a missing button - they replaced the entire blouse. Shoes were no longer required to be of any quality because next year's fashion would be here in four months. And so the march of progress was cheered on.
Then things got even better. Now you could purchase a house without any credit, have credit cards without any security, borrow money against the house you could not afford because the market was so hot and hey you asked for it so we'll give it to you so you can pay off some of the credit on your cards so you can buy cheap clothing from China, and cheap glassware from ... China, and cheap shoes ... from China and go on holidays to the Carribean where you can eat off plates made in China, lie on beaches under umbrellas made in China and rub sun screen lotion onto your darkening skin before downing the drink in the glass made in China.
In India and China the people watched and were amazed at the greed and willingness of these pale people to wave farewell to their jobs and livelihoods because they could go to WallyMart and purchase cheap goods made in China and India and Vietnam and the Phillipines. WallyMart told everyone that it did not matter if you did not earn much because WallyMart would be there for you with all the glorious goods that your brother/sister/father/uncle used to make but which you could afford, for now, because your brother/sister/father/uncle no longer made the goods that where now a third of the price.
Ah the people sighed. Our life is good. We have t-shirts enough to satisfy even us, our feet are shod in ill made shoes that we will discard in ninety days, our medication is made in countries without any FDA, our houses are owned by banks in cities whose names we do not know but let us eat tonight at that restaurant with the giant bowls of pasta and remind ourselves of our blessings. The HMO charges us more and medicine is getting beyond the reach of many but we can buy discounted pills at WallyMart so who really cares.
Then one dark day someone blinked in the headlights of the oncoming train. Once they blinked others did the same but they could not stop the train. They no longer had control over the system that they had created.
So now the houses stand empty, the jobs are going and gone, the music has stopped and no one knows how to make it play. The people all surreptitiously glance at each other afraid that the past is the only place where jobs were plentiful and life was good. The mo-jo has gone, faded away. It was swallowed by greed and digested by others who saw the openings and rushed at the door held open by shareholders and consumers (really just one and the same). So China turns to China to sell its goods, Europe resembles the Wobbly Man from Noddy books and the USA seems to be in a coma while India thanks each of us for being so concerned about retirement funds and the bottom line that we forgot all about our neighbours and family and friends who needed the jobs to make the money to pay the rent and buy the goods even if they did mean we had less t-shirts lying around our smaller houses whilst we watched the 18 inch television and ate at home.
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