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ASUS Running Out of Hard Disks
The hard drive crunch continues; reader Thorfinn.au writes "ASUS has said it only has hard disk drive (HDD) inventory until the end of November. 'Substitutes for HDD are very few, so if the situation persists, not only notebook production will be affected but also desktops, and other component shipments will also drop,' Asustek CFO David Chang told Reuters."
He didn't say U.S. workers were greedy, he said that $15/hour+benefits "cannot compete with conditions overseas where the wages are pennies on the dollar". And he is right. People do not realise how low Chinese wages are. A factory worker gets about $0.50/hr. They work 100 hours a week. They have limited benefits, but sometimes the employment does include housing and food. They have massive factories where tens of thousands of young people (mostly women) do nothing but eat, sleep and work. The pay at Foxconn - generally recognised as being one of the better employers - was less than $150/month before the string of worker suicides. Imagine what conditions and pay are like with a worse employer. Americans are not willing to work under these conditions and pay, and even if they were, it wouldn't be financially viable for most of them.