"Foxconn"

Apparently, this story was run on CNN back in 2010. However, I haven't watched CNN since the last presidential election. I got sick and tired of it and decided I'll live a better life if I never have to hear Wolf Blitzer's voice again.

I picked up the story last week due to new information, and I couldn't possibly be more appalled! I must be horribly naïve because when I hear of things like this going on in the world, the shock of it nearly makes me physically ill!

Foxconn is the single largest private employer in mainland China. It's a Chinese gadget manufacturer and Apple's supplier. This is a huge company with one million employees. The facility has hospitals, a fire station and restaurants. They manufacture: motherboards, camera components, MP3 players, iPhones, iPads and nearly every electronic gadget we use.

The employees:

• Live at the facility and do not see their families
• Bunk in barracks-like rooms with seven other employees
• Often work 35 hours at a stretch
• Make 31 CENTS per hour - which is a is considered a good wage
• Get 12 years in prison if they even mention unionizing
• Recently threatened mass suicide if conditions aren't improved

Nearly every time we buy an electronic in the USA, we are contributing to this situation! It's every time if we buy from Apple! Steve Jobs has practically been canonized since his death, yet this is the situation he instituted for Apple.

With our ridiculous and glutinous appetite for electronics, are we going to stop buying them due to this abomination? I'd love to think we would. But, we won't.

If Foxconn were to implement humane conditions, it's estimated that our electronics would cost us 23% more. Now, I don't know about you, but $615 instead of $500 for an iPad seems a small price to pay to keep human beings from this kind of treatment.

But, that won't happen, either. In fact, I suspect the price increase would be much more. This is how Jobs got to be billionaire - with the people making his products making 31 cents per hour while he sold them for hundreds of dollars!

The only way to solve this problem is to remove the tax breaks our U.S. corporations receive for taking their manufacturing to China and make them bring those jobs home!

I realize we can't control what China does to its citizens. But, we don't have to be a party to it! And, we are!