...T-Shirt Globalization: History reveals that almost all dominance in world markets is temporary and that even the most impressive stories of national industrial victories typically end sobering postscripts of shifting comparative advantage. Apparel production has moved from the American South to Southeast Asia to the Caribbean and back to Asia. For over 200 years, the United States has been the undisputed leader in the global cotton industry in almost any way measurable and other countries, particularly poor ones, had little chance of catching up. Travels of T Short focuses on Cotton production, Chinese manufacturing and the “snowflake” market of used clothes. Unlike other industries, “consumer electronics that shifted from UK to US to Japan to Hong Kong to Taiwan and to China”, the United States still maintains dominance in cotton industry along with China. Using Porter’s “5” forces, industry analysis reveals that the following factors influenced the T-Shirt globalization that drove value chain from country to country. #1) Industrialization with creativity, entrepreneurship and cooperation. • 18th century witnessed the exploding productivity of English cotton that dramatically lowered the prices and affordability of cotton products. Industrialization with the emerging technology benefitted the industry to reduce cost of production, a series of technical improvements in both spinning and weaving of yarns made large-scale production possible. • British demand during industrialization...
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...public speaking through protesting on the topic of the evils of big corporations and the explanation of how these big corporations, Globalization, The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the international Monetary Fund (IMF) are exploiting workers all around the world. One speaker alluding to “sweat shops” particularly caught the attention of the author by exclaiming, “Who made your T-Shirt”? This statement sparked Rivoli’s intrigue that is a great use of foreshadowing for what the story will lead to. The traveling of thousands of miles and across multiple continents to find out “who” really did make these shirts. We all wear our everyday cotton “tee’s” without giving a second thought about the journey each T-Shirt had to go through in order to make it here to the United States. This sets the foundation for the rest of the book and explains its purpose. The first stop in this journey isn’t on foreign soil where I expected the book to lead off, but rather here in the Continental United States at the Reinsch Cotton Farm in Smyer, Texas. Having served with many people from Texas, people often make claims about the greatness of this massive state; however, cotton production has never been one of the claims. This first stop along the T-Shirts journey came as a huge surprise to me and it was even more of a surprise when I discovered the Reinsch Cotton Farm competes with farmers from so many...
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...The travels of a t-shirt in the global economy is an excerpt written by Pierta Rivoli commenting on the expansions of globalization. Globalization has become a widely used term because of its long growing existence. Rivoli has crafted the story of how a t-shirt comes into existence through exploiting and identifying the various social groups, economies, firms and governments that have all fallen under the forces of globalization. As stated in the article, “Back at Georgetown in 1999, I watched a young woman seize the microphone, “Who made your t-shirt” she asked the crowd. “Was it a child in Vietnam, chained to sewing machine without food or water? Or a young girl from India earning 18 cents per hour and allowed to visit the bathroom only twice a day…” Her great interest in this fostered her to write about the many factors that put together a globalized community. Her story is narrated through the travels of the origins of a t-shirt. The t-shirt is a symbol for the globalized community and it does not only represent the tag of the production country on the t-shirt, but the entire process that is involved in this industry. Over the past two centuries many industries have shifted from the western civilization to the eastern, mainly because of cheap labor, however the cotton industry has been excelling and growing in the past two centuries. It was the ninth largest export in the United States in 2003. The story starts from a Miami based t-shirt production firm, which has “Made in...
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... Pietra Rivoli is a professor at Georgetown University. One day she attends an on campus anti-globalization rally. A protester confirms the evils of globalization by asking “Who made your t-shirt?” Rivoli, a classically trained economist, is unsure of her t-shirts origins and she suspects that the protester is too. Soon thereafter, she purchases a t-shirt in Florida and decides to chronicle its life, from creation to destruction, and this book was born. She gave world trade a face by tracing the life of her t-shirt. The t-shirt begins as cotton grown in the US, then it is made to thread in Asia, woven into fabric in the US, sold in the US, and then recycled or sold again as second hand clothing in Africa. The t-shirt enters its first free market in third world countries as mitumba, or used clothing donated by people in wealthy countries. It was an interesting journey and Rivoli’s style makes the story entertaining. Through her discussion of the t-shirts life, I grew disgusted with the rampant protectionism surrounding the US textile industry. Rivoli describes how cotton is subsidized and tariffs are levied against imported raw cotton and imported textiles. In addition, there are quotas for textile imports. Although Rivoli maintains a balanced perspective on protectionism and globalization throughout her book, it’s evident that these protections benefit only the US cotton and textile industry, to the detriment of many other parties. Protectionism saves US jobs, advocates...
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...choice? In the video, the T-shirt lady introduced her book named “The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy”. She shows the global travel the T-shirt has taken. The first step in her journey was the cotton fields of Texas. Technology and subsidies means that a lot of cotton is grown right here in America. Then the cotton gets graded through a very scientific process and shipped to China. In China, the state-run factories must cope with producing for a market not a quota. They get help from the workers, who despite having limited mobility feel very happy to work in a factory over a farm. This is similar to the long-gone British and American textile industries. Coming back to America, the shirt encounters many tariffs and quotas. Despite promising free trade, the politicians have developed thousands and thousands of laws regarding textile imports. However, when she is done with her shirt, it finally encounters a free market in the highly competitive fabric recycling industry. Globalization and free trade are controversial issues that cannot be seen from just one side. The T-shirt lady clearly states that globalization benefits the allocation of resources, increase income, world output, and variety of goods and is essentially good for the consumer. Although globalization is not the immediate response or salvation for the poor and less developed countries in the world. I recognize that under a free trade system equality is hard to accomplish, gains are not equally distributed...
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...molasses produced by slaves in the French and Dutch West Indies into rum. Most Africans were captured and sold to America to work as slaves. The trans-Saharan trade provided enslaved African labor work on sugar plantations in the Mediterranean (Pattison p.1). These slaves were very competent in their work, and this led to Brazil dominating in the production of sugarcane in 16th and 17th centuries. This led to the establishment of the earliest large-scale manufacturing industries to enhance conversion of sugarcane juice into sugar, molasses, rum as well as alcoholic beverages for the triangular trade. Slavery led to the success of many economic activities in the United States. For instance, the cotton plantation was part of the regional economy of the American South. In 1830, cotton was the most produced crop in the United States. U.S was competing for economic...
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...Running Head: U.S. Companies and Globalization Unit 3 Project Kaplan University CM 312 – Communications and Organizational Change At one point in U.S. business history, the work force was controlled and dominated by white males. It is my opinion that the business world has changed as human beings have evolved through being open-mined and willing. When a persons thinking expands to include something that they were closed-minded to before, we will witness changes in our world. In the history of business in this country, we have seen women kept from working certain jobs and the institution of slavery in many parts of the south. During the historical timeframe that these things were practiced, they were believed to be “the correct thing to do, “ however we have changed our minds about these practices. Our society has dealt with lots of organizational change, such as large corporate mergers, stock market crashes and economic set-backs. We are no longer a country that just consists of family-owned businesses, small businesses and large corporations. The world is rapidly changing and becoming more globalized to include free trade and outsourcing. Large companies in the United States have taken an interest in global trends and begun practicing business around the globe. Companies that were once headquartered in one state, with branch offices in other states have now taken advantage of the global opportunities that have been presented...
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...book goes through all the measures taken to assemble the t-shirts and the goes through it’s entire journey from seller to buyer to recycling. The book starts at the harvesting of cotton in Texas and ends in Africa with the reselling/recycling of the shirt. Through telling the life cycle of one simple t-shirt, Rivolo shows the reader many different issues in the global economy by putting it into something they can understand easier. In the book, Rivoli accounts for all the different steps and stops along the t-shirt’s life. The book is narrated in first-person with the assembly, sales, and recycling of t-shirts and with that goes on to explain the issues of globalization. The t-shirt’s life starts out in Lubbock, Texas, where the cotton is harvested and then sent to the second stop, China, where the t-shirt is manufactured. The third stop in the t-shirt’s journey is in Miami, where the t-shirts have to sent back to the...
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...industry can be split up into three stages: Cotton stage, industrial revolution, and post industrial revolution. In the early parts of the Textile-Mill Industry, known as the cotton stage, products were produced at home using wool, cotton, or flax depending on the area and location. The excess material was sold to merchants called clothiers who would visit the villages and buy large amounts of excess cloth from local producers. The process for making cloth involved three steps which included preparation of fibers for spinning, spinning, and weaving or knitting. In the early days everything was very labor intensive and the market was limited to local towns and passing clothiers. The second stage of the Textile-Mill Industry is known as the industrial revolution stage. During this period mass production of clothing became a mainstream industry which resulted in a growth of the entire Textile-Mill Industry. The spinning and weaving process became mechanized with several new machines introduced to the industry with the majority of the power coming from water wheels. Additionally, the industries market began to expand as exports of textiles began to rise. Presently the Textile-Mill Industry is situated at the third stage known as the post industrial revolution stage. In the current stage the industry has experienced dramatic globalization, new trade policies, cheaper production cost, and new customer preferences. Globalization has drastically changed the Textile-Mill...
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...Mali In the past two centuries Mali has been among African that reached their independences and took their political and economic destiny in his hand. Situated on the edge of the river Niger in West Africa, Mali is a country relatively big with 1,240,192 sq. km more than 15 million citizens. Mali is a developing country, with 65% of its land area in desert or semi-desert. Economic activity is limited mainly around the river area irrigated by the Niger River. Approximately 10% of the population is nomadic and some 80% work in agriculture or fishing. Industrial activity is concentrated around agricultural activities”. Immigration is a very large extra income. (CiA.GOV). Mali obtained its independence in 1960, known its first military in 1968 before to become democratic in 1992. Its economic aspect is endanger because of the instability politic and military that shook the country in the beginning of this year The beginning of the twentieth century was marked by relative financial autonomy given to colon. The World War II was an opportunity after their implication of colonies to fight Hitler and Nazi from France, the colon especially general DEGAULLE promised to give away independence. In 1960 Mali negotiate its independence from France. In June 20th 1960 Mali and Senegal declare the independence under a federation in hope to start African Union. The dream was broken two months later. In august 20th 1960 the Senegal declared its independence and so is Mali in September 22th 1960...
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...As arshad already explainied how the RTA impacted job and wasges of the meixco ppl during dat era it shows that globalization does effect the agricultuy and manufacturing workers 1) Subisidies of corn sector In 2000, U.S. government subsidies to the corn sector totaled $10.1 billion. These subsidies have led to charges of dumping, which jeopardizes Mexican farms and the country's food self-sufficiency. 2) Globalization and employment Nafta did deliver as expected: Exports and foreign direct investment tripled from the early 1990s as Mexico became a leading supplier of cars, electronics and a broad variety of industrial parts to the United States. Productivity in Mexican manufacturing rose 80 percent. But annual economic growth averaged only 1.6 percent per capita between 1992 and 2007 — low even by Mexican standards until the 1980s. American jobs did move south, particularly into the export sector. The growth in services — new supermarkets, banks, tourism — also created jobs. But overall, Mexico was unable to create enough jobs to make up for all the jobs lost because of competition from imports, particularly purchases of subsidized grains from the United States. The oversupply of labor, along with government policies that succeeded in keeping wages low, have led to a slight increase in the gap between average wages in the United States and Mexico — precisely the opposite of what Nafta was expected to do. * Unfair competition among import and domestic market ...
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... Greatest impact on the increase in the price of cotton have floods that hit the world´s major producers North Eastern China and Pakistan. Early in 2010 these floods disasters “have destroyed million acres, affecting an estimated 25per cent of the cotton crop and have pushed the price of cotton to rocket up in recent weeks by more than 700 per cent” (Poulter S., September 14, 2010). What is more, as the different taxes rise and appear the price of cotton rise as well. Other thing which influencing the price of the cotton is increasing price of import. With regular increase of the price of fuel also the price of the transport will increase and it leads to increase of the price of the imported cotton. The diagram below shows that with the decrease in the supply and no change in demand price of the cotton will increase. 3. Other things that can influence price rising are maximum growth in the price of cotton, worldwide´s higher labor costs, transport costs, producing cost and rise in VAT. In the article “Fashion chains far from cheerful about future of cheap chic” from September 2010 on the website the Quardian is stated that the increase in the cotton price has its roots in the financial crisis of two years ago, when farmers stopped planting low-value cotton and switched to higher-value crops such as corn and soya. When retail sales picked up, demand for cotton also rose and prices shot up – just at a time when major cotton-producing regions such as China and Pakistan were...
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...The US policy for cotton subsidies has affected the market internationally and domestically, united stated by producing 19 percent of world cotton production is one of the most influence country in cotton market. Although there is argument weather US should cut their subsidies on cotton or not but cutting the subsidies and replacing with the new recommended program has much greater benefit for the cotton market domestically and internationally. However the supporter of US subsidies believe that current program supports domestic farmers ,but according to below chart only 10 % of US farmer are enjoying the benefits of cotton subsidies. Eliminating billions of dollars in federal subsidies to American cotton growers each year would make competitive environment for domestic farmer to be more productive and grow plants efficiently. In addition it cause raise in prices by about 10 percent which improve the incomes of millions of poor cotton farmers in Africa especially in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Chad. The reductions in developed country cotton subsidies as a means to fight rural poverty in the developing world, the added income would help families feed and educate millions of children. This statement is very good reason that Congress should cut cotton subsidies. Current Cotton Subsidies Program and its consequences: The main forms of subsidy includes: (1) direct payments to farmers and landlords; (2) price supports implemented with government purchases and storage; (3)...
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...Globalization Project. Brazil is the most forested country thanks to the Amazon and is having a globalization problem with the environment, that can affected part of the world. Globalization is a negative change that we as a humans are creating companies and exchanging culture between countries. Through the years globalization had been impact in Brazil by different ways like the deforestation, health and also the labor. Deforestation has been affected the environment in Brazil through the years. To make space for the companies and the crop they had cut down the trees by the years if we dont take actions is going to decreased the amount of forest in the amazon. First, “Deforestation drops for first time in three years in Brazil's Amazon” sitates“But we reaching the limits.If we do not fulfill international agreements, especially for payments for environmental services, it will...
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...The globalization of healthcare has provided opportunities for many organizations to rapidly develop their products and to expand their network of customers. But with this globalization, we also need to realize there are also a number of important economic and public health concerns. Healthcare organizations have an obligation to understand the interdependencies inherent in their supply chains, and to examine their supply chain practices through a strategic lens focused on the public’s health. We are seeing changes in where and how many healthcare products are produced and this is not always in the best interest of U.S. hospitals or our patients. Mike Alkire, president of Premier Purchasing Partners, has been analyzing this trend for many years. “Today more than 90 percent of all nutritional supplements, facemasks, exam gloves, and other products are manufactured overseas,” says Alkire. “China manufactures two-thirds of the world’s aspirin and 70 percent of its penicillin. If there was a global pandemic, whose population do you think would get the goods?” The current edition of Premier’s Economic Outlook examines these important issues. According to the analysis, there have been dramatic upticks in pricing for raw materials that are foundational to many healthcare products, including oil (up 28 percent in the last 12 months) and cotton (up 138 percent in the last 12 months). The increases are largely due to political instability and increased demand for raw materials...
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