Unfortunately, your denim dreams of £3 a pair will be just that soon…

The-end-of-Chinas-cheap-denim-dream

Tesco value jeans went up to £4 a few months back. I found that ^ article unconvincing. I don’t know how much a Chinese worker gets paid for the manufacture of a pair of jeans, but I doubt whether it is much more than about 50p for each jeans. So even if they were to double a Chinese workers wages, it would only add about an extra 50p on each pair of jeans. Whether you pay £3, £5, or £10, for a pair of jeans, it still represents very cheap clothing.

I do believe that the days of cheap goods from China (with their deflationary character) specially in more general manufacturing, are drawing to a close though, but that isn’t simply because of increases in manufacturing labour costs.

The global credit crunch/recession (which the Tories tell us was all the fault of Gordon Brown) has taught China the folly of over dependency on an economic strategy based on export led growth. China suffered significantly in the global credit crunch/recession, despite the fact that the Chinese economy was relatively sound.

As a consequence, China short term, started building up its internal infrastructures and capital projects, roads, railways, etc, as a stimulus to deal with the slow down in economic activity (as indeed Gordon Brown and other world leaders also did to an extent) But long term, they have recognised the importance of developing their own internal consumer markets.

Partly because they realise that western economies and their markets are not reliable, and their own internal market is potentially huge, but also partly, to head off urban/rural political pressures which their lopsided meteorical economic rise has created, and threat that poses to the Chinese political elite.

So cheap manufactured goods from China will eventually become a thing of the past. In the same way that cheap manufactured from Japan also eventually became a thing of the past.

Of course for a time at least countries such as India or Brazil might become a new source of cheap manufactured goods. But that will potentially also have a limited life. Besides by then, consumers in the West will very likely be competing with the new consumers in China. The days of Western purchasing power are also drawing to a close.

From only last week’s news :

China plans sweeping economic change

Quote :

“The latest Five-Year Plan — a throwback to central planning but a useful roadmap of party goals — calls for creating self-sustaining growth based on domestic consumption and reducing China’s reliance on exports and investment.

The leadership has said for years that China needs to alter a system Premier Wen Jiabao has declared “unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.” But they avoided major reforms until the global crisis wiped out millions of export-dependent factory jobs and drove home the danger of overreliance on trade.”

tescos £20 jeans fit amazingly well and come in many different sizes, which is handy because I am a weird length for my waist.

cherokee jeans? i`m the opposite shape to you and the £22 jeans they sell fit better than anything ive ever bought!Bought another pair and might buy a third pair as once they go,the search for jeans that fit “like the ones you used to own” can take decades!!

I wear Tesco £3 jeans.
You can’t get a higher recommendation than that. I am the coolest dude on STW.

This is true, MTG… 🙂

Are the rumours about you filling Galliano’s now vacant position at Dior true, then?

It’s already happened.
We should have the new range of Christain Dior map boards on the high street ready for the spring season.
No cycling dandy should be seen without one.

The global credit crunch/recession (which the Tories tell us was all the fault of Gordon Brown)

Did they ? 😯 Must have missed that.

Please don’t end up in an Anti-Semitic slanging match with other cafe patrons though MTG. 😐

Try to pay attention then allthepies.

No Tory politician can talk about Britain’s economic situation with blaming everything on “the last government”.

Or have you been spending time away from the reach of newspapers and the television ?

No Tory politician can talk about Britain’s economic situation with blaming everything on “the last government”.

and there isn’t a Labour politician who hasn’t been born again whiter than white with no memory and the sole line that the current government is dragging us all down.

Another turn of the handle, another chance to distance themselves from what went before. It is ever thus in politics, regardless of party.

Well I’ve heard the previous government blamed for the state they left the UK economy in but I haven’t heard them being blamed for the credit crunch/global recession.

I’m not an economics gnu but they’re two different (albeit related) issues aren’t they ?

I have two pairs of Tesco jeans and the zip is fracked on both of them, now in the cleaning bikes pile, I think they were the upmarket line at £5 or perhaps women just have to pay more like hairdressers.

My Levis are a much better fit, they are shaped better and seem to stretch to fit it’s not just advertising, and they are still going strong. They were about £60 I think.

Cant stand wearing showy designer brands, it just seems too much like vanity. I mostly wear unbranded, Tesco, TKMaxx et al. M&S do quite tidy water resistant jeans BTW.

I haven’t heard them being blamed for the credit crunch/global recession.

The Tories very clearly blame the last government for all the consequences of the global credit crunch/recession.

One can only assume that the Tories hold the last government responsible for global credit crunch/recession, otherwise why blame them ?

BTW, I use the word “Tories” as a generic term to describe members of both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

Cheap jeans usually have a horrible fit.

What, rolling around on the floor, foaming at the mouth ? Mine have never done that.

Cheap jeans usually always look cheap, surprisingly.