WEBVTT - Worked to Death: Temu Comes to America

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<v Speaker 1>Alson Media.

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<v Speaker 2>Welcome Jacob app and here a podcast featuring a sound

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<v Speaker 2>activated strobe light that you can't see, because.

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<v Speaker 3>This is not a visual podcast unless you have like

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<v Speaker 3>setastesia and you could like start hearing seeing the strobe

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<v Speaker 3>through our voices, in which case is good for you.

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<v Speaker 4>Wish that was me?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So that that's Garrison. I'm the We're back again.

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<v Speaker 2>We're back again for a dissented to hell. Yeah. So,

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<v Speaker 2>last episode we talked about Colin Wang and the rise

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<v Speaker 2>of PDD, which is China's second largest shopping app and

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<v Speaker 2>the Chinese version of the app, Temu. So we're now

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<v Speaker 2>in the post Colin Wang era, an era I think

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<v Speaker 2>actually might be worse than the original era, which is

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<v Speaker 2>kind of stunning. But you know, here we are, Here

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<v Speaker 2>we are, and this era actually starts really well for PDD.

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<v Speaker 2>This is like twenty twenty one. China's lockdowns are actually

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<v Speaker 2>incredible for PDD because, as we talked about last episode,

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<v Speaker 2>pdd's strategy is group shopping, right. It's about getting a

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<v Speaker 2>bunch of people to buy things together to make it cheaper,

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<v Speaker 2>this thus pulling in more in our customers. Now, China

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<v Speaker 2>had real lockdowns and in a real lockdown. This is

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<v Speaker 2>increasingly how people got food. You know, the strictness of

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<v Speaker 2>the lockdowns very across, like depending on what province you're in, right,

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<v Speaker 2>But so like my family was an inner Mongolia and

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<v Speaker 2>an inner Mongolia in like the first lockdowns, you could

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<v Speaker 2>send you could only send one member of your family

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<v Speaker 2>outside per week to like, you know, to go get groceries.

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<v Speaker 2>Otherwise everyone else fed all times has to stay indoors.

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<v Speaker 2>And this meant that people started pulling together to like

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<v Speaker 2>all buy groceries and then sending one person out to

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<v Speaker 2>like go pick up the delivery. And this this ingrained

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<v Speaker 2>PDDs like fundamental strategy of like buying into the into

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<v Speaker 2>the consciousness of the Chinese public because they've just been

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<v Speaker 2>doing it for like a year, right, and as twenty

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<v Speaker 2>twenty for a word on PDD like skyrockets, this this

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<v Speaker 2>is this the period from like twenty twenty to like

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<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty four has been the period where pdd's grown

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<v Speaker 2>them most. I mean it was already pretty big before then,

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<v Speaker 2>but now you know, it's it's now like the main

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<v Speaker 2>competitor of Alibaba. It was like the previously unassailable like

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<v Speaker 2>online shopping giant the company grew so much that it

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<v Speaker 2>forced the other like shopping companies to get into the

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<v Speaker 2>fruit market because it was like clobbering them there so badly.

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<v Speaker 2>So yeah, it was wild. But then a bunch of

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<v Speaker 2>absolutely terrible stories broke about PDD in both the Chinese

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<v Speaker 2>and American press. So we're gonna start with the stuff

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<v Speaker 2>that's I guess less bad, and then it's gonna get worse.

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<v Speaker 2>So question number one is the PDD at malware. All right,

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<v Speaker 2>we're just really jumping right in here. Oh, this is

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<v Speaker 2>this is the mild it, this is the Are we

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<v Speaker 2>allout to say this legally? Yeah? It's well, here's the thing.

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<v Speaker 2>So Google play removed the app from its playstore. Oh okay,

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<v Speaker 2>so all right, so so okay, we we need to

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<v Speaker 2>be very specific about we're talking it's too bad for Google,

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<v Speaker 2>that it's probably too bad for you. Yeah, so very specifically,

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<v Speaker 2>this is we're the thing we're talking about right now

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<v Speaker 2>is not Temu. We're talking specifically about the Chinese version

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<v Speaker 2>of the app PDD. And this was released on the

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<v Speaker 2>Google Play Store in like the mid twenty the mid

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<v Speaker 2>early like like I think it's like twenty twenty one

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<v Speaker 2>or something and okay, so this again and to be

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<v Speaker 2>clear again this is not Temu. This is specifically the

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<v Speaker 2>Android version of PDD. And this is interesting too because

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<v Speaker 2>so most people in China like don't use Android for

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<v Speaker 2>you or sorry, they don't. They don't. They don't use

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<v Speaker 2>Google Play, right, like they don't that that's not like

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<v Speaker 2>the App store where they get their apps from. So

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<v Speaker 2>when PDD released, like their app on the app store,

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<v Speaker 2>this is this is them specifically going to the Western market.

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<v Speaker 3>And did they have infrastructure set up in the States

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<v Speaker 3>to support this type of like drop shipping or like

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<v Speaker 3>how do this?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we'll get into it.

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<v Speaker 3>It was like kind of later a little bit like

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<v Speaker 3>gig economy stuff in China. But how how are they

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<v Speaker 3>going to move that FedEx? Okay, yeah, right, well we'll

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<v Speaker 3>get into that more later. We're talking about Timbo.

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<v Speaker 2>This first one didn't like it didn't have that many

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<v Speaker 2>users because it was just like the Chinese app. But

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<v Speaker 2>like here, okay, so okay, there's something we also we

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<v Speaker 2>need to get out of the way first, which is

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<v Speaker 2>that there's like a massive panic in the US about

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<v Speaker 2>Chinese apps being like Chinese government trojan horses, like especially TikTok.

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<v Speaker 2>So unfortunately, before we start this, we have to sort

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<v Speaker 2>out kind of well, like you have to make a

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<v Speaker 2>judgment about what level of app surveillance is, like the

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<v Speaker 2>level of apps surveillance you get in the US, because

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<v Speaker 2>all of your apps are spying on you, and then

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<v Speaker 2>what is like above and beyond the like quote unquote

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<v Speaker 2>normal level spying and like TikTok is TikTok is unbelievably invasive, right,

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<v Speaker 2>Like it is true, it's a privacy nightmare, but like

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<v Speaker 2>so are most apps, Like TikTok's worse than normal, but

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<v Speaker 2>it's not.

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<v Speaker 3>That TikTok is by the Chinese communists.

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<v Speaker 2>So this is something we're gonna get into. And this

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<v Speaker 2>is this is true with pdu too. The US actually

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<v Speaker 2>gets like the stripped down, cucked not as bad version

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<v Speaker 2>of Chinese apps, like TikTok does not have a bunch

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<v Speaker 2>of the like integration stuff that that Doyen, the Chinese

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<v Speaker 2>like version of it has. We're like Douyen has this

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<v Speaker 2>thing where like I guess Google's kind of doing it now,

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<v Speaker 2>but like you can directly, like like an influencer can

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<v Speaker 2>hold up a product and you could tap the product

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<v Speaker 2>and go buy it. Google is trying to do that now. Yeahah,

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<v Speaker 2>but China had that, like like Douyan's had that for

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<v Speaker 2>like ages. Right, It's like so like the versions of

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<v Speaker 2>the apps that we get here are actually less bad

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<v Speaker 2>than the Chinese ones, which makes the whole panic so

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<v Speaker 2>funny to me. It's like no, no, no, like they're

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<v Speaker 2>sending you like a better version of the app, Like, well.

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<v Speaker 3>That's because what Uncle Sam calls in our version, we

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<v Speaker 3>have to take out all of the maoist influences, I

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<v Speaker 3>don't know whatever whatever.

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<v Speaker 2>All right, all right, so you know, look like so

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<v Speaker 2>we have to we have to sort out of the

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<v Speaker 2>difference between stuff that's just like the weird moral panic

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<v Speaker 2>and what what's actually malware. So CNN did an investigation

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<v Speaker 2>of this app. So originally there was a Chinese company

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<v Speaker 2>that a Chinese security company was looked at this app

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<v Speaker 2>and was like they're using a bunch of Android exploits,

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<v Speaker 2>like they're like they're using like they're there, they're effectively

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<v Speaker 2>hacking your phone, right, They're they're they're they're deploying a

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<v Speaker 2>bunch of exploits of things that are like broken in

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<v Speaker 2>in like in Android and allowing you like this, like

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<v Speaker 2>lesson do stuff and I was supposed to be able

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<v Speaker 2>to do And so CNN brought in a bunch of

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<v Speaker 2>different security like analysts and like they brought in security

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<v Speaker 2>companies like look at it, and here's what they found.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, I don't know if you'd trust this. C it

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<v Speaker 3>ed they're literally called the Communist News Network.

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<v Speaker 4>Quote.

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<v Speaker 2>The app was able to continue running in the background

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<v Speaker 2>and prevent itself from being uninstalled, which allowed it to

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<v Speaker 2>boost its monthly active rate. Hype on it. I don't

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<v Speaker 2>know how pronounce this guy's name. I'm so sorry this guy.

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<v Speaker 2>This guy's this guy's name has an umlot over the oh.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm an expert at pronouncing foreign names. Give it to me.

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<v Speaker 2>It's h y pp umlot o n e n good luck.

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<v Speaker 2>You know what.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm just gonna take a I'm gonna sabbatico.

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<v Speaker 2>He put in I'm so sorry to this guy, who

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<v Speaker 2>I think is fine. This guy's security analyst said it

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<v Speaker 2>also had the ability to spy on competitors by tracking

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<v Speaker 2>activity on other shopping apps and getting information from them.

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<v Speaker 2>He added toshin, which is like another guy found PDD

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<v Speaker 2>two have exploited about fifty Android system vulnerabilities. Most of

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<v Speaker 2>these exploits were tailor made for customized parts known as

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<v Speaker 2>original Equipment manufacturer code, which tends to be audited less

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<v Speaker 2>than ASoP, which is like another kind of code and

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<v Speaker 2>therefore prone to more more vulnerabilities. He said PDD had

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<v Speaker 2>also exploited a number of AOSP vulnerabilities, including one that

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<v Speaker 2>was flagged by Totioniin to Google in February twenty twenty two.

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<v Speaker 2>Google fixed this bug in March. He said, I've never

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<v Speaker 2>seen anything like it. It's like super expansive. Cergy Totionin,

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<v Speaker 2>android security expert, he's the guy I said that. Sorry,

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<v Speaker 2>I've never seen and Android Tracin said, I've never seen

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<v Speaker 2>anything like this. It's like super expansive. According to Tosin,

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<v Speaker 2>the exploits allowed PDD to access users location contacts, calendars, notification,

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<v Speaker 2>and photo albums with ot their consents. They were also

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<v Speaker 2>able to change system settings and access users social media

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<v Speaker 2>accounts and chats. He said, now that is pretty bad.

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<v Speaker 2>Will I will mention that like a lot of your

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<v Speaker 2>normal apps can also do shit like that. Yeah, like

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<v Speaker 2>that's stuff that you can get out of, like Google,

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<v Speaker 2>but some it's not good. The other thing that they

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<v Speaker 2>were doing is they're doing these things called privileged escalation

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<v Speaker 2>attacks where they're trying to get like a higher level

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<v Speaker 2>of privileged on the system so they can run code

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<v Speaker 2>and not supposed to be able to. So you know

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<v Speaker 2>how like sometimes when you're running something at a computer,

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<v Speaker 2>you have to run it as admin so the thing

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<v Speaker 2>actually works. Yeah, like Discord, Yeah, I actually Discord. I've

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<v Speaker 2>been trying to stream Alan Wake two to my friends

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<v Speaker 2>and oh my god, it has been such a nightmare.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna personally write the CEO of Discord a letter.

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<v Speaker 2>And yeah, but like so like so there they're they're

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<v Speaker 2>like the way the system security works is there's certain

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<v Speaker 2>levels of users that are allowed to do certain things

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<v Speaker 2>and certain people who aren't, and this is supposed to

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<v Speaker 2>stop people from running malicious code. And so they're doing

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<v Speaker 2>these privileged escalation attacks where they're trying to be able

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<v Speaker 2>to like do stuff that only admins can do. And

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<v Speaker 2>so I showed this to so I was trying to

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<v Speaker 2>get a gauge on how much of this is real

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<v Speaker 2>and how much of this is insane, And so I

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<v Speaker 2>showed I showed it to my friend who's a software engineer,

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<v Speaker 2>and he was like, what the fuck? So this is

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<v Speaker 2>this is very tytyfically the privileged escalation attacks on the

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<v Speaker 2>and the attack on the like the original Equipment manufacturer

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<v Speaker 2>code like the OEM stuff. That's just not normal, Like

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<v Speaker 2>that is that is actual malware. That is like not

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<v Speaker 2>that is not normal app bullshit that like this thing

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<v Speaker 2>is trying to hack your phone. So in twenty twenty three,

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<v Speaker 2>the like Google pulled the app from the store because

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<v Speaker 2>everyone was like, what the fuck. Wait, this is just

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<v Speaker 2>literally malware. I'm gonna so so what were they trying

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<v Speaker 2>to do? Here's CNN again. It was in twenty twenty,

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<v Speaker 2>according to a current PDD employee, that the company set

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<v Speaker 2>up a team of about one hundred engineers and product

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<v Speaker 2>managers to dig for vulnerabilities and Android phones, develop ways

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<v Speaker 2>to exploit them, and turn that into profit. According to

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<v Speaker 2>the source, who requested anonymity for feear of for fear

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<v Speaker 2>of reprisals, the company only targeted users in rural areas

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<v Speaker 2>and smaller towns initially, while of winning users in megacities

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<v Speaker 2>such as Beijing and Shanghai. The goal was to reduce

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<v Speaker 2>the risk of being exposed, they said, by collecting expansive

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<v Speaker 2>data on user activities, the company was able to create

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<v Speaker 2>a comprehensive portrait of the users habits, interests, and preferences.

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<v Speaker 2>According to the source, this also allowed it to improve

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<v Speaker 2>its machine learning model to offer more personalized push notifications

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<v Speaker 2>and ads attracting users to open the app and place orders.

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<v Speaker 2>They said, so this all makes perfect sense with like,

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<v Speaker 2>how we know that PDD operates right, Like, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>they're trying to build detailed profiles or rural customers they

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<v Speaker 2>can serve the more efficient ads, and they're doing it

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<v Speaker 2>by apparently just straight up running an in house hacking team.

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<v Speaker 2>I got pretty large one. Oh so they supposedly that

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<v Speaker 2>team got like acted and they don't do it anymore.

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<v Speaker 2>But who knows. So, Okay, this is not even close

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<v Speaker 2>to the most batshit thing that PDD gets up to. Okay,

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<v Speaker 2>we're going to escalate up the how weird this stuff is.

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<v Speaker 2>So one of the things that that PDD has a

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<v Speaker 2>six tonech reporting is that they have these really strict

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<v Speaker 2>non compete clauses that prevent people from like, so if

0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.720
<v Speaker 2>you take a job here and you get fired or

0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.120
<v Speaker 2>eat like you leave, you can't take another job at

0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.240
<v Speaker 2>a tech company for like years this is like fucking

0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.079
<v Speaker 2>like any tech company, like fucking like I don't know,

0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.559
<v Speaker 2>they're they're really expensive, like fucking like setting up your

0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.079
<v Speaker 2>grandma's website like might get you trouble. It's like it's

0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.080
<v Speaker 2>it's a real disaster. We have these in the US too,

0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.240
<v Speaker 2>and they absolutely suck. So I think there was a

0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:20.000
<v Speaker 2>ruling about them FTC ruling to ban them recently. Maybe

0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.440
<v Speaker 2>Oh no, they're proposed, it hasn't gone through yet, trying

0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.079
<v Speaker 2>to get rid of them. But yeah, they're they're in

0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:26.760
<v Speaker 2>the US two. But these ones are really strict and

0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.040
<v Speaker 2>apparently they're like PDD is really aggresive about it to

0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.040
<v Speaker 2>the point where like people people will take other jobs

0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.680
<v Speaker 2>under fake identities and like pdd's HR will like track

0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.320
<v Speaker 2>them down. Oh wow, yeah, Like they're they're like headhunting

0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.320
<v Speaker 2>these people, well like like inverse head hunt, Like they're

0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.560
<v Speaker 2>they're like they're they're literally just hunting down people trying

0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.120
<v Speaker 2>who are trying to get like jobs, right, And this

0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:52.080
<v Speaker 2>apparently led people to adopt secret identities to like hide, right,

0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.400
<v Speaker 2>And so this GIDS is something I I did not

0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.440
<v Speaker 2>believe the first time I read it, which is that

0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.520
<v Speaker 2>apparently and I regentally read this in n K, who

0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:02.320
<v Speaker 2>is usually reliable. But I read this and I was like,

0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:02.760
<v Speaker 2>no way.

0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:03.600
<v Speaker 4>Uh.

0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:05.640
<v Speaker 2>The thing that they said was that employees at work,

0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.560
<v Speaker 2>like who work for PDD apparently use pseudonyms and like

0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:11.679
<v Speaker 2>never tell each like almost never tell each other they're

0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:16.480
<v Speaker 2>actual names. That's I mean, that makes sense. Uh. And

0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:20.400
<v Speaker 2>apparently also they're banned from like like the information level

0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.400
<v Speaker 2>of information control is so strict that like you can't

0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.040
<v Speaker 2>you're not allowed to know what like the structure of

0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.440
<v Speaker 2>another work group is. And like I read this, I

0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:30.960
<v Speaker 2>was like, I don't believe this right, And then I

0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.400
<v Speaker 2>started running it into like other outlets like Financial Times,

0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.400
<v Speaker 2>was like yeah, no, no, apparently they they talked to

0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.520
<v Speaker 2>they talk to people who work for the company. They're like, yeah,

0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:39.679
<v Speaker 2>everyone uses pseudonyms. I didn't fucking know anyone's real name

0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:41.319
<v Speaker 2>or like there was like one person who's real name

0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.000
<v Speaker 2>that I know wild. I don't know why they do.

0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.480
<v Speaker 2>I've never seen I've literally never seen this before with

0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:52.199
<v Speaker 2>any company. It's it's fucking nuts. I got nothing. Yeah,

0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.280
<v Speaker 2>I do you know who? No one had this company

0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.600
<v Speaker 2>knows my real name. So that's true. I do actually

0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.960
<v Speaker 2>operate by a pseudonym. Yeah, that's pretty funny.

0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.760
<v Speaker 3>That is not like a sizable portion of the cool

0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:03.680
<v Speaker 3>Zone media team.

0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.880
<v Speaker 2>But all of us are fake names. Robert Evans, that's

0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:13.600
<v Speaker 2>not Robert Evans, real Robert Evans was the producer of

0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.800
<v Speaker 2>that movie. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:21.880
<v Speaker 3>Anyway, do you know who also has trustworthy names that

0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.080
<v Speaker 3>you can trust these products?

0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:38.840
<v Speaker 4>Woo so true?

0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.320
<v Speaker 3>Jeff, Wow, that was a really funny joke.

0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.000
<v Speaker 2>Bill. Oh, we're back. Sorry.

0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.440
<v Speaker 3>I was just talking to the two fake fake name

0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.600
<v Speaker 3>people who are listening on our call right now.

0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.240
<v Speaker 2>Me I continue. So this is where we get to

0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:57.400
<v Speaker 2>the truly bleak stuff. So all right, In twenty twenty one,

0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:03.360
<v Speaker 2>one of pdd's employees in shing John just worked worked

0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.600
<v Speaker 2>a shift, came home, and the dis straight up fucking

0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.640
<v Speaker 2>died in her bed from overwork. This this was a

0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.200
<v Speaker 2>you know, this very quickly turns into a giant media

0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.920
<v Speaker 2>thing because this woman like she's in she's in really

0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.800
<v Speaker 2>good health and she just fucking is worked so hard

0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.200
<v Speaker 2>that she lays down in her bed dies. Then a

0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.920
<v Speaker 2>worker who posted a video of an ambulance outside of

0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.960
<v Speaker 2>pdd's headquarters with the caption another brave warrior of PDD

0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:34.800
<v Speaker 2>has fallen, which great caption, terrible situation, great caption. He

0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.880
<v Speaker 2>gets fired for it, and then very quickly like after that,

0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.480
<v Speaker 2>so they have like a the company has like a

0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.800
<v Speaker 2>Q and a thing like if effectively, what happens is

0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.480
<v Speaker 2>someone responds to like one of their social media accounts

0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.680
<v Speaker 2>with and asks them what do you think of the

0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.920
<v Speaker 2>PDD worker who died after working overtime? Should PDD bear responsibility?

0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:04.080
<v Speaker 2>Their corporate responded and I quote, look at those in

0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.400
<v Speaker 2>the underclass who isn't exchanging life for money. I never

0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.720
<v Speaker 2>thought that this is a problem of capital, but as

0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.400
<v Speaker 2>a problem of this society. We live in an era

0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.240
<v Speaker 2>where we spend our whole lives working hard. You can

0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:18.640
<v Speaker 2>choose a comfortable life if you accept the consequences of

0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:22.880
<v Speaker 2>comfortable living. People control how much effort they make. Everyone does.

0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.200
<v Speaker 3>I can't believe there's people who genuinely like advocate that

0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:33.240
<v Speaker 3>China is a like communist country. So strange, that's insane.

0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.480
<v Speaker 3>They're only talking like God, this is.

0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.400
<v Speaker 2>This is like this, and this is like and this

0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:40.880
<v Speaker 2>is like this is one of the things that like

0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.040
<v Speaker 2>I just like, I don't know, like I just can't

0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.360
<v Speaker 2>fucking get over this. Ship because like, I have a

0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.600
<v Speaker 2>bunch of fucking family in China, and you know, do

0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.520
<v Speaker 2>they fucking quote Karl Marx, No, they quote Steve Jobs

0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:58.040
<v Speaker 2>because they're all these like fucking insane entrepreneur bullshit, like

0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:04.479
<v Speaker 2>like fucking literally like Ryan Set like straps, Yeah, it's insane.

0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:06.320
<v Speaker 2>It's like, no, it's just your fault that you work

0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:08.960
<v Speaker 2>too hard. This is actually labor's fault and not capital.

0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.640
<v Speaker 2>Like this, this fucking blew up in the Chinese media

0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.880
<v Speaker 2>and people got like people got really fucking pissed, and

0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.200
<v Speaker 2>p d D at first was like, no, this is

0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:19.880
<v Speaker 2>a fake post. We never did it. And the people

0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:21.720
<v Speaker 2>were like, no, no, it's not this is we found

0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:23.639
<v Speaker 2>the post. Right, they take they take it down, people

0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.680
<v Speaker 2>like had saved screenshots and eventually the company was forced

0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.520
<v Speaker 2>to admit that it was actually their account, but then

0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.360
<v Speaker 2>they said that it was a social media contractor who

0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.920
<v Speaker 2>put it on the corporate account. Quote by mistake.

0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:40.040
<v Speaker 3>Oh sure, sure, yeah, that's like that. That's like me

0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.760
<v Speaker 3>when I searched my twin peaks not safe for work,

0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.040
<v Speaker 3>uh fan art on the coolest media account. It was

0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.480
<v Speaker 3>a mistake, guys, didn't mean didn't didn't mean to post

0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:52.520
<v Speaker 3>it there. I don't know how that happened, it got

0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.440
<v Speaker 3>it got past the VODs. I don't know how.

0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and you know, people, people understandably are not happy

0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:03.240
<v Speaker 2>like and that. And eleven days later, a PDD employee

0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:08.399
<v Speaker 2>jumps off a fucking building again, also because they've been

0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.119
<v Speaker 2>worked so hard. And this is where we need to

0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:17.359
<v Speaker 2>talk about pdd's labor conditions, because they are fucking appalling.

0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:22.040
<v Speaker 2>Here's sixth Tone. A former PDD employee who left the

0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:26.080
<v Speaker 2>company a year ago told sixth Tone under conditions of anonymity,

0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.960
<v Speaker 2>that excessive work hours are common practice. Around eight months

0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.520
<v Speaker 2>after he joined PDD in early twenty nineteen. He said

0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.359
<v Speaker 2>employees were told they need to work at least three

0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.520
<v Speaker 2>hundred hours per month, amounting to nearly twelve hours per day,

0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.760
<v Speaker 2>six days a week. We're going to get more into that.

0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.520
<v Speaker 2>That's a schedule called nine niney six, where you work

0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.600
<v Speaker 2>from nine am to nine pm, six days a week.

0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.040
<v Speaker 2>This is incredibly common and try This is actually a

0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:55.320
<v Speaker 2>good schedule. In a lot of Chinese work environments, it

0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.639
<v Speaker 2>can get way worse than that. Here's another quote from

0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.800
<v Speaker 2>that six Tone article. The company cares a lot about

0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.000
<v Speaker 2>our work hours. It has become company culture. Even if

0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.000
<v Speaker 2>staff is finished working, if they'll just stay in the office.

0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.400
<v Speaker 2>I was one of the lucky ones. I only had

0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.240
<v Speaker 2>to work from eleven am to ten pm, and my

0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:17.680
<v Speaker 2>manager was nice to me. This person added that employees

0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.200
<v Speaker 2>arriving after eleven am would have their daily wages docked

0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:27.840
<v Speaker 2>by three hours. It's fucking insane. It's it's nightmarish. That

0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.040
<v Speaker 2>same worker talked about how she would like and this

0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:32.800
<v Speaker 2>is this is the thing that's like you see you

0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:34.680
<v Speaker 2>see this a lot of different accounts, is that people

0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.640
<v Speaker 2>would just literally break down crying at their desks because

0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.960
<v Speaker 2>they had so they were so overworked. Are these like

0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.960
<v Speaker 2>office jobs? These are workers, These are tech workers. These

0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.280
<v Speaker 2>are fucking tech workers. Like right, these are the fucking

0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:49.639
<v Speaker 2>bougie tech jobs.

0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.520
<v Speaker 3>They're not like because they're getting over like a factory

0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.840
<v Speaker 3>or like an Ama warehouse tech workers.

0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:56.960
<v Speaker 2>And this this is the thing about this, right, is

0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.440
<v Speaker 2>that like we we only we don't like there hasn't

0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.480
<v Speaker 2>been okay. So the Chinese media, this actually like becomes

0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:04.080
<v Speaker 2>a huge thing in the Chinese media is that these

0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.679
<v Speaker 2>people are dying. There was another There's also around the

0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.320
<v Speaker 2>same time, a delivery driver lit himself on fire like

0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.080
<v Speaker 2>as a protest for like the amount of shit that

0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:12.920
<v Speaker 2>he had to deal with. And this was a big,

0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.199
<v Speaker 2>like a huge thing in the Chinese media, but almost

0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.720
<v Speaker 2>all of the reporting and the coverage and stuff like

0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.840
<v Speaker 2>that was about the tech workers. But like, fucking so

0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.080
<v Speaker 2>many people work schedules that are worse than nine ninety six, right,

0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:27.560
<v Speaker 2>Like that is a that is a that is a

0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:29.760
<v Speaker 2>tech workers schedule, right, there are a lot of places

0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.679
<v Speaker 2>where people were fucking way worse shit. The sort of

0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.720
<v Speaker 2>countervailing force to it is people who, like you know,

0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:38.680
<v Speaker 2>we talked about this kind of in the Lying Flat episodes.

0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.760
<v Speaker 2>It's people working for like one day and then eating

0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.800
<v Speaker 2>just like plain rice with some like whatever, fucking the

0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:48.840
<v Speaker 2>cheapest thing they can finally they can fucking get out

0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.399
<v Speaker 2>of it, and not working for two more days and

0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.960
<v Speaker 2>working another day. But like it's it's so bad, like

0:20:55.000 --> 0:21:00.280
<v Speaker 2>the little labor conditions are just appalling, and you know,

0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:02.800
<v Speaker 2>like a bunch of stories sort of started coming out

0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:07.040
<v Speaker 2>about how bad PDDs like conditions are. There was one

0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.680
<v Speaker 2>on we chat that broke that I saw via six

0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.720
<v Speaker 2>tone about the toilet situation in pdd's largest office building.

0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.600
<v Speaker 2>So this building has one thousand people per floor. It

0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:26.399
<v Speaker 2>has eight total bathrooms per floor one thousand people. They

0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.560
<v Speaker 2>don't even have one bathroom for every hundred people.

0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.760
<v Speaker 3>How does this even function? I mean, like I suppose

0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.760
<v Speaker 3>it just doesn't. People are like pea like people.

0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.959
<v Speaker 2>People fucking like you don't eat in the morning, or

0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:42.879
<v Speaker 2>you try to hold out to lunch when you can

0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:44.800
<v Speaker 2>run to a different building and try to use the

0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.440
<v Speaker 2>bathrooms there, but like you know, you're trying to hold

0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.040
<v Speaker 2>it all day, or you just yeah, where you fucking

0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.959
<v Speaker 2>do that? You go, you use your lunch time instead

0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:58.359
<v Speaker 2>of eating to fucking go somewhere else. You starve yourself.

0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.480
<v Speaker 2>There are like there's a bunch of reports of guys

0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.000
<v Speaker 2>just like shitting in urinals because there just literally wasn't

0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:07.800
<v Speaker 2>time for them to fucking actually like use a stall.

0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.520
<v Speaker 2>So they're just like they're they're just like they're they're

0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.840
<v Speaker 2>pooping in urinals. Maybe the worst picture I've ever seen

0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.600
<v Speaker 2>in my entire life is this is going to be

0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:22.040
<v Speaker 2>the episode our PDD started installing timers over the toilets

0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.280
<v Speaker 2>to show how long how long people had been there,

0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.480
<v Speaker 2>So there's just like a like a a fucking clock

0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.200
<v Speaker 2>over you that starts when you when you fucking close

0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:32.919
<v Speaker 2>the door to try to get people to go to

0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.680
<v Speaker 2>the bathroom faster. It is just appalling the conditions. And again,

0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.960
<v Speaker 2>these are the conditions of like the office workers. It's

0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:46.159
<v Speaker 2>apocalyptically bad. So I realized when I was researching this

0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.040
<v Speaker 2>story that I actually ran into PDD earlier, because I

0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:50.560
<v Speaker 2>I so like, way before I did this story, I

0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:54.320
<v Speaker 2>hadn't looked into TAMU at all, and I realized that

0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.840
<v Speaker 2>I had. I had ran into PDD earlier when I

0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:00.000
<v Speaker 2>was tracking the story about UH tech workers banding together

0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:04.040
<v Speaker 2>to like basically like on GitHub, these these office workers,

0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:06.280
<v Speaker 2>like tech workers, like made a giant spreadsheet where everyone

0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:09.359
<v Speaker 2>would document their hours and like their pay scales and stuff.

0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:11.200
<v Speaker 2>And it was like, you know, it was this sort

0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.320
<v Speaker 2>of like you know, it was it was this thing

0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:15.520
<v Speaker 2>to like demand better labor conditions. Actually I'm pretty I'm

0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.399
<v Speaker 2>pretty sure they were actually demanding like the workplace democracy too.

0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:21.280
<v Speaker 2>It was pretty wild. But the thing that you get

0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.480
<v Speaker 2>out of that is that PDD has the worst the

0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:29.879
<v Speaker 2>worst hours of any tech company. They are. PDD is

0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:33.639
<v Speaker 2>so bad. The other Chinese tech companies got worse in

0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:35.040
<v Speaker 2>order to compete with them.

0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:35.720
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.

0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:38.760
<v Speaker 3>That is the the whole hard thing about setting the

0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:41.080
<v Speaker 3>bar so low is that it allows other people to

0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:45.879
<v Speaker 3>lower their own bars. Yeah yeah, and it makes just

0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:47.119
<v Speaker 3>every everybody worse.

0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And again, like I can't emphasize enough the extent

0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:54.719
<v Speaker 2>to which these are the office workers, right, Like, these

0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:56.640
<v Speaker 2>are the people who are making the best money out

0:23:56.640 --> 0:24:00.200
<v Speaker 2>of this, who are treated better than like the funking

0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:02.880
<v Speaker 2>factory workers and the fucking like people in the rural

0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:04.600
<v Speaker 2>areas like fucking doing farming.

0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:05.080
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:09.679
<v Speaker 2>But again we don't we don't know a huge amount

0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:12.879
<v Speaker 2>about what those workers' lives are like because they're not

0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:15.959
<v Speaker 2>urban tech workers. And urban tech workers can get their

0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:18.560
<v Speaker 2>stories into the press, but like you know, migrant migrant

0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:22.159
<v Speaker 2>factory workers, rural workers, there's you know, there's just not

0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:24.639
<v Speaker 2>the kind of attention that you can get out of

0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:28.480
<v Speaker 2>a big story about like an urban office building. And

0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:30.680
<v Speaker 2>you know, I mean, these labor conditions are so bad

0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:32.560
<v Speaker 2>that people are just straight up fucking dying. And the

0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:36.240
<v Speaker 2>Chinese government eventually gets involved, like they're there, they're their

0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:40.120
<v Speaker 2>version of the Streame Court eventually rules that like working

0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:43.000
<v Speaker 2>people twelve hours a day, six days a week, is illegal,

0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.200
<v Speaker 2>but it doesn't really matter, like a lot of those

0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:51.040
<v Speaker 2>people still have those same schedules. Yeah, and you know

0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:52.840
<v Speaker 2>and like this this is not a this is not

0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:57.000
<v Speaker 2>a problem that can be solved just by like court rulings. Right,

0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:02.640
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, it's it's really fucking bad. We're gonna we're

0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:05.560
<v Speaker 2>gonna take an ad break. I don't I don't have

0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:18.800
<v Speaker 2>a good transition out of that ship. And we're back.

0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:20.920
<v Speaker 2>So all of this brings us to Temu And it's

0:25:20.960 --> 0:25:22.440
<v Speaker 2>slogan shop like a billionaire.

0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:28.439
<v Speaker 3>So, oh god, this the slogan. It's so it's like

0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:32.040
<v Speaker 3>it evokes like a like a nauseous reaction in me.

0:25:33.040 --> 0:25:38.200
<v Speaker 3>It's so it epitomizes everything that is wrong about our

0:25:38.240 --> 0:25:43.320
<v Speaker 3>current way of living and the way we idealize the

0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:46.360
<v Speaker 3>rich and put them on this like pedestal for how

0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:48.879
<v Speaker 3>you should live your life, but also knowing that you

0:25:48.920 --> 0:25:51.840
<v Speaker 3>will never actually be there. Yeah, this is this is

0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:53.600
<v Speaker 3>this is as close as you're going to get.

0:25:54.400 --> 0:25:56.040
<v Speaker 2>And it's it's it's also a thing where like it's

0:25:56.080 --> 0:25:57.960
<v Speaker 2>it's a completely unreal lit like it's if that's this

0:25:58.040 --> 0:26:00.840
<v Speaker 2>is a billionaire shop like billionaires. So it's not like

0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:04.040
<v Speaker 2>you think those people fucking shop like no, No, they don't.

0:26:04.320 --> 0:26:08.000
<v Speaker 3>They have they have over over like saving three dollars

0:26:08.119 --> 0:26:09.639
<v Speaker 3>on on like a mango.

0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:11.720
<v Speaker 2>You're like, no, yeah, like what the fuck are you

0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:16.399
<v Speaker 2>talking about? Yeah? So yeah, like I I hate it.

0:26:16.440 --> 0:26:17.640
<v Speaker 2>I hate it so fucking much.

0:26:18.760 --> 0:26:18.959
<v Speaker 4>You know.

0:26:19.040 --> 0:26:20.800
<v Speaker 2>So, as we said, like this is the time. It

0:26:20.880 --> 0:26:23.800
<v Speaker 2>is the American version of PDD. If you're in the US,

0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:26.200
<v Speaker 2>you've probably seen tim owas. Apparently they're not that many

0:26:26.240 --> 0:26:27.920
<v Speaker 2>of them in like other countries, Like I have British

0:26:27.960 --> 0:26:29.240
<v Speaker 2>friends who are just like, what the fuck are you

0:26:29.280 --> 0:26:31.639
<v Speaker 2>talking about me? And I've never heard of TIMMU.

0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:34.520
<v Speaker 3>Before the super Bowl, for whatever it's worth.

0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:38.760
<v Speaker 2>The big place where they were advertising was YouTube. But

0:26:38.760 --> 0:26:41.920
<v Speaker 2>if you're watching YouTube without an app blocker, don't I can.

0:26:42.480 --> 0:26:44.640
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if I can legally recommend you probably

0:26:44.760 --> 0:26:47.679
<v Speaker 2>probably that phone I can get it. It's an app.

0:26:47.960 --> 0:26:51.000
<v Speaker 2>I don't do it. I don't know if it may

0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:53.040
<v Speaker 2>be legal, it may not be. I can't say I

0:26:53.280 --> 0:26:54.800
<v Speaker 2>will never advocate breaking the law.

0:26:55.280 --> 0:26:58.040
<v Speaker 3>No, definitely buy utube. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's definitely the

0:26:58.240 --> 0:27:01.800
<v Speaker 3>way to go. Absolutely, But you know, like they okay,

0:27:03.440 --> 0:27:05.359
<v Speaker 3>like most famously yeah, yea, as you're saying, like, so

0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:08.760
<v Speaker 3>they spent twenty seven million dollars buying three Super Bowl ads.

0:27:09.040 --> 0:27:14.119
<v Speaker 3>It's all the same ad and it sucked. But you know, okay,

0:27:14.200 --> 0:27:15.960
<v Speaker 3>this is only a fraction.

0:27:15.720 --> 0:27:16.719
<v Speaker 2>Of their fucking budget.

0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:17.000
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:27:17.480 --> 0:27:19.679
<v Speaker 2>Here's from the Wall Street Journal quote. Ten MoU's marketing

0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:23.440
<v Speaker 2>budget reached one point seven billion dollars in twenty twenty three,

0:27:23.440 --> 0:27:26.280
<v Speaker 2>and that figure will grow to nearly three billion in

0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:30.280
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty four. JP Morgan's analyst estimate. Last year, ten

0:27:30.320 --> 0:27:33.280
<v Speaker 2>MoU's marketing spending contributed to an average loss of seven

0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:37.600
<v Speaker 2>dollars per quarter, according to Goldman Sax estimates. They are

0:27:37.640 --> 0:27:41.760
<v Speaker 2>buying so many ads they are literally driving other companies

0:27:41.800 --> 0:27:45.080
<v Speaker 2>out of the ad market. LIKETCCO has been talking about

0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:46.919
<v Speaker 2>how they can't afford to run ads because ads are

0:27:46.920 --> 0:27:49.760
<v Speaker 2>getting too expensive, because they're buying so many fucking ads.

0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:55.600
<v Speaker 2>Here's Reuter's quote. US companies dependent on commercial spending or

0:27:55.720 --> 0:27:57.000
<v Speaker 2>spending on commercials, not.

0:27:58.280 --> 0:28:02.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, commercial spending. They are buying commercials yeah yeah.

0:28:02.160 --> 0:28:05.159
<v Speaker 2>Like Facebook, they say Meta, I refuse to fucking call

0:28:05.200 --> 0:28:07.960
<v Speaker 2>that company Beta, like fuck that shit. Their Facebook are

0:28:08.000 --> 0:28:11.760
<v Speaker 2>being saved by Chinese retailers like Temu and Sheian. They

0:28:11.800 --> 0:28:14.600
<v Speaker 2>represent ten per those two companies, just Temu and she

0:28:14.760 --> 0:28:19.240
<v Speaker 2>In represent ten percent of Meta's revenue last year. The

0:28:19.240 --> 0:28:24.479
<v Speaker 2>Facebook owners said, so Temu is hemorrhaging money right now

0:28:24.480 --> 0:28:26.560
<v Speaker 2>in order to do this right, JP Morgan thinks they're

0:28:26.600 --> 0:28:29.600
<v Speaker 2>losing three billion a year. But they also project and

0:28:29.600 --> 0:28:34.320
<v Speaker 2>to be fair, these projections, these projections are wrong so

0:28:34.440 --> 0:28:35.920
<v Speaker 2>many of the time, of so much of the time,

0:28:35.920 --> 0:28:37.840
<v Speaker 2>but they're projecting the ten will be making three point

0:28:37.920 --> 0:28:41.160
<v Speaker 2>five billion a year in twenty twenty seven. And all

0:28:41.160 --> 0:28:44.640
<v Speaker 2>of this raises the question why, and to answer that,

0:28:44.680 --> 0:28:49.160
<v Speaker 2>we need to get into Chinese development economics. So the

0:28:49.240 --> 0:28:51.480
<v Speaker 2>Chinese economy has a problem, and this is a problem

0:28:51.720 --> 0:28:54.120
<v Speaker 2>that the CCP is known about for a long time.

0:28:54.280 --> 0:28:57.320
<v Speaker 2>It's the problem of turning a sort of like a

0:28:57.400 --> 0:29:00.240
<v Speaker 2>low on the value chain like manufacturing economy, to a

0:29:00.240 --> 0:29:04.000
<v Speaker 2>consumption driven economy. Now, the problem with transitioning into a

0:29:04.000 --> 0:29:07.480
<v Speaker 2>consumption driven economy is that people don't have enough money

0:29:07.520 --> 0:29:10.640
<v Speaker 2>to boost consumer demand. The Marxist way of saying this

0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:15.160
<v Speaker 2>is that under capitalism, both output and consumption are double

0:29:15.200 --> 0:29:19.880
<v Speaker 2>determined by your wage. Right, your wage determines both firm

0:29:19.960 --> 0:29:23.000
<v Speaker 2>output and also how much you can consume. Right in

0:29:23.080 --> 0:29:26.200
<v Speaker 2>non Marxist terms. Oh no, no one has enough money

0:29:26.200 --> 0:29:28.640
<v Speaker 2>to buy things. They did you consumer economy by brother

0:29:28.760 --> 0:29:33.280
<v Speaker 2>in Christ. You set the wages. Okay, where are the fuck? Yes,

0:29:33.880 --> 0:29:36.160
<v Speaker 2>where the fuck are these people supposed to be getting

0:29:36.240 --> 0:29:38.520
<v Speaker 2>money from to buy your shit if you won't give

0:29:38.600 --> 0:29:42.959
<v Speaker 2>them more money? Like wait, wait, wait, So you know

0:29:43.440 --> 0:29:46.080
<v Speaker 2>you can't do this by just making them like work

0:29:46.120 --> 0:29:48.160
<v Speaker 2>more hours. You know, you can work people for like

0:29:48.280 --> 0:29:51.560
<v Speaker 2>twelve fifteen, like twenty hours a day, but there's only

0:29:51.560 --> 0:29:54.240
<v Speaker 2>twenty four hours a day. Like, there's an actual definite

0:29:55.120 --> 0:29:57.800
<v Speaker 2>there's an actual definite limit to the amount of exploitation

0:29:57.920 --> 0:30:00.200
<v Speaker 2>you can do via increasing labor hours. This is this

0:30:00.240 --> 0:30:05.200
<v Speaker 2>has always been capitalism's problem, right, Like the sort of

0:30:05.280 --> 0:30:08.880
<v Speaker 2>rapacity of capitalism has hit the secular limit of time itself.

0:30:09.280 --> 0:30:11.360
<v Speaker 2>So the solution to this is to expand into new

0:30:11.400 --> 0:30:13.840
<v Speaker 2>markets where consumers have more money, which is to say

0:30:13.880 --> 0:30:19.280
<v Speaker 2>the US. So PDD initially targeted like poor rural Chinese workers, right,

0:30:19.320 --> 0:30:21.160
<v Speaker 2>and this is kind of the same group that Temu

0:30:21.200 --> 0:30:24.120
<v Speaker 2>was targeting in the now. In the US, their initial

0:30:24.120 --> 0:30:26.320
<v Speaker 2>base is people who like buy from dollar stores, but

0:30:26.320 --> 0:30:29.280
<v Speaker 2>they've been spreading rapidly. Temu has outpaced she in to

0:30:29.280 --> 0:30:32.719
<v Speaker 2>become the second largest shopping app in the US. But

0:30:33.040 --> 0:30:37.360
<v Speaker 2>the important thing really, yeah, yeah there's second behind an Amazon. Yeah,

0:30:37.360 --> 0:30:40.760
<v Speaker 2>they're they're destroying she in Like, wow, yeah, I did

0:30:40.800 --> 0:30:43.240
<v Speaker 2>not know they were that popular. Yeah, I mean like

0:30:43.400 --> 0:30:45.680
<v Speaker 2>estimates are like, well, I've seen simens to say they

0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:47.280
<v Speaker 2>have one hundred million years. I don't buy that. I've

0:30:47.280 --> 0:30:49.400
<v Speaker 2>seen the estimates that I think I'm more reliable are

0:30:49.440 --> 0:30:52.040
<v Speaker 2>like fifty four million years in the US, although.

0:30:52.760 --> 0:30:54.400
<v Speaker 3>Well, the thing is, we don't we don't have post

0:30:54.440 --> 0:30:57.120
<v Speaker 3>super Bowl numbers between fifty and well.

0:30:56.960 --> 0:30:59.520
<v Speaker 2>I think I think it's like fifty. I wouldn't I

0:30:59.560 --> 0:31:01.600
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't expt on hundred million ones. I think that's bullshit.

0:31:01.720 --> 0:31:04.280
<v Speaker 2>We don't have good post super Bowl data yet. Kind

0:31:04.280 --> 0:31:07.600
<v Speaker 2>of the issue. But yeah, they're they're they're clobbering people.

0:31:07.800 --> 0:31:11.800
<v Speaker 2>But the important thing about specifically the American market for

0:31:12.600 --> 0:31:18.440
<v Speaker 2>TEMU is that, like the kind the equivalent person who

0:31:18.440 --> 0:31:21.360
<v Speaker 2>shops at a dollar store in the US still has

0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:25.600
<v Speaker 2>unfathomably more money than that same person in China because

0:31:25.600 --> 0:31:27.520
<v Speaker 2>partially this is because the strength of the American dollar.

0:31:27.560 --> 0:31:31.960
<v Speaker 2>Partially this is because American wages are just like unfathomably

0:31:32.080 --> 0:31:35.840
<v Speaker 2>higher than Chinese wages, and that's that's that's true, even

0:31:35.920 --> 0:31:38.440
<v Speaker 2>if you're like even when you account for like the

0:31:38.480 --> 0:31:42.080
<v Speaker 2>relative strength and dollars to the yawn. So you know,

0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:46.719
<v Speaker 2>the other kind of important thing about temis strategy is

0:31:46.720 --> 0:31:49.880
<v Speaker 2>that they've been using this kind of like loophole that

0:31:49.920 --> 0:31:51.960
<v Speaker 2>will set up a US customs law to allow people

0:31:52.040 --> 0:31:54.959
<v Speaker 2>to like bring presents home from countries. So like, if

0:31:55.000 --> 0:31:56.640
<v Speaker 2>you go to another country and you bring a present home,

0:31:56.680 --> 0:31:58.360
<v Speaker 2>it's worth less than two hundred dollars, you go through

0:31:58.360 --> 0:32:00.200
<v Speaker 2>like an expedited customs thing, you know, have to pay

0:32:00.240 --> 0:32:06.320
<v Speaker 2>tariffs on it. Yeah, so I Temu and like a

0:32:06.320 --> 0:32:08.920
<v Speaker 2>whole bunch of these companies just ship every single one

0:32:08.920 --> 0:32:12.640
<v Speaker 2>of their packages in quantities where it's like seven hundred

0:32:12.640 --> 0:32:17.880
<v Speaker 2>and ninety nine dollars, not eight hundred dollars ye legal, yeah,

0:32:18.040 --> 0:32:20.479
<v Speaker 2>yeah yeah. And it's really funny. It's set off this

0:32:20.560 --> 0:32:23.080
<v Speaker 2>like it's massive intra capitalist war because like a bunch

0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:25.640
<v Speaker 2>of like like American right wingers, like American manufacturers, like

0:32:25.680 --> 0:32:27.680
<v Speaker 2>the Republican Party are like, we need to close this gap,

0:32:27.880 --> 0:32:30.160
<v Speaker 2>But then all of the fucking shipping companies are like, no,

0:32:30.320 --> 0:32:32.800
<v Speaker 2>this is a vital part of the American consumer economy,

0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:35.520
<v Speaker 2>and there's this like giant war going on like both

0:32:35.600 --> 0:32:40.360
<v Speaker 2>in Congress and like the like in the press over

0:32:40.400 --> 0:32:44.920
<v Speaker 2>whether they should when they should close as loophole now,

0:32:46.440 --> 0:32:48.080
<v Speaker 2>you know. On the other hand, like there are real

0:32:48.160 --> 0:32:51.320
<v Speaker 2>challenges to Timu being the first like company to break

0:32:51.320 --> 0:32:54.200
<v Speaker 2>into the they're like Chinese companies like really truly break

0:32:54.240 --> 0:32:58.360
<v Speaker 2>into the American market, like she and has done well,

0:32:58.520 --> 0:33:00.360
<v Speaker 2>but they haven't like they have they have, They're not

0:33:00.400 --> 0:33:02.480
<v Speaker 2>like a rival front to Amazon, right, Like they're not

0:33:02.640 --> 0:33:04.600
<v Speaker 2>big enough to like knock off one of the sort

0:33:04.640 --> 0:33:10.880
<v Speaker 2>of like American tech giants. And Temu's problem is that. Okay,

0:33:10.880 --> 0:33:13.480
<v Speaker 2>so if you compare Temu to to PDD, right, the

0:33:13.560 --> 0:33:16.360
<v Speaker 2>Chinese version, PDD is supposed to be about spreading through

0:33:16.360 --> 0:33:19.800
<v Speaker 2>word of mouth, right, It's it spreads by like someone

0:33:19.840 --> 0:33:22.480
<v Speaker 2>in your you know you as as of someone buying

0:33:22.520 --> 0:33:25.400
<v Speaker 2>something from PDD taps your entire friend group and your

0:33:25.440 --> 0:33:27.800
<v Speaker 2>family to get them to buy something for cheaper. Right.

0:33:28.160 --> 0:33:29.320
<v Speaker 2>But the problem is that.

0:33:29.160 --> 0:33:33.040
<v Speaker 3>Like fucking night, I forgot how marish this whole structure is.

0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:35.440
<v Speaker 2>It's so bad. But the thing is, like Americans don't

0:33:35.440 --> 0:33:37.080
<v Speaker 2>really do that, like there have been attempts to do

0:33:37.160 --> 0:33:39.720
<v Speaker 2>like group on things, they never worked and Americans also

0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:48.240
<v Speaker 2>don't group shop right because we're I don't know more Weird's.

0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:48.640
<v Speaker 3>Just a fucking I mean, this is not a full

0:33:48.960 --> 0:33:52.959
<v Speaker 3>full of a lot, more like individualistic impulse science that

0:33:53.040 --> 0:33:55.880
<v Speaker 3>is that is kind of a large part of what

0:33:55.920 --> 0:33:59.239
<v Speaker 3>the American shopping classes me is is built off of.

0:33:59.760 --> 0:34:02.040
<v Speaker 2>And and this isn't This is an issue for Temu

0:34:02.200 --> 0:34:06.320
<v Speaker 2>because like they don't have the word of mouth thing

0:34:06.360 --> 0:34:08.480
<v Speaker 2>that drove them in China, so they're relying on just

0:34:08.560 --> 0:34:12.160
<v Speaker 2>top down like like massive ad buys and stuff, and

0:34:12.200 --> 0:34:15.640
<v Speaker 2>there's kind of a limit, and it's something that Temu understands, right,

0:34:15.719 --> 0:34:18.879
<v Speaker 2>Like this is you know, the whole there's a whole

0:34:18.880 --> 0:34:20.960
<v Speaker 2>thing in the Chinese tech industry about the power of

0:34:21.000 --> 0:34:25.280
<v Speaker 2>being able to leverage people's like private networks, right, Temo understands,

0:34:25.400 --> 0:34:27.200
<v Speaker 2>But they don't have a way to break into the

0:34:27.200 --> 0:34:30.160
<v Speaker 2>American market because it just doesn't work like the Chinese market.

0:34:30.960 --> 0:34:34.200
<v Speaker 2>So instead they're like buying three Super Bowl ads right now.

0:34:34.239 --> 0:34:36.279
<v Speaker 2>There's another issue, which is that the goods that they

0:34:36.360 --> 0:34:40.880
<v Speaker 2>sell suck ass and they break instantly. You know, that's

0:34:41.160 --> 0:34:44.560
<v Speaker 2>an issue, But I don't know it's the US. Lots

0:34:44.560 --> 0:34:47.080
<v Speaker 2>of things suck and break instantly, but like it is

0:34:47.160 --> 0:34:49.359
<v Speaker 2>only that's been driving sort of negative sentiment from people

0:34:49.360 --> 0:34:50.920
<v Speaker 2>who've used it, is they're like, they buy something and

0:34:50.960 --> 0:34:53.560
<v Speaker 2>it's just like sucks, and they're, you know, they're unhappy

0:34:53.600 --> 0:34:56.560
<v Speaker 2>about it. The thing I think is maybe the biggest

0:34:56.600 --> 0:34:59.400
<v Speaker 2>problem is that their delivery times are really long by

0:34:59.400 --> 0:35:03.320
<v Speaker 2>Americans den because they're shipping overseas, Temu had to build

0:35:03.360 --> 0:35:06.959
<v Speaker 2>an actual logistics infrastructure where PDD like didn't, right because

0:35:07.000 --> 0:35:11.000
<v Speaker 2>PDD is just using like Chinese versions of FedEx or whatever, right,

0:35:11.680 --> 0:35:15.200
<v Speaker 2>and Temu is kind of doing that but in you know,

0:35:15.239 --> 0:35:17.759
<v Speaker 2>in order to make it convenient for Chinese sellers. The

0:35:17.800 --> 0:35:19.600
<v Speaker 2>way that they the way that they've sort of like

0:35:19.640 --> 0:35:21.960
<v Speaker 2>set this up is they have a warehouse in Guandong

0:35:22.680 --> 0:35:26.279
<v Speaker 2>and every seller like ships it to this warehouse and

0:35:26.320 --> 0:35:30.160
<v Speaker 2>then Temu deals with getting it shipped overseas. The problem

0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:32.520
<v Speaker 2>is that this is really slow, right. It takes like

0:35:33.080 --> 0:35:36.319
<v Speaker 2>two weeks for things to show up, and that's not

0:35:36.400 --> 0:35:38.799
<v Speaker 2>that slow by like normal standards, but this is the.

0:35:38.880 --> 0:35:43.600
<v Speaker 3>US American standards. That is like a tortoise nightmareishly slow

0:35:43.600 --> 0:35:48.600
<v Speaker 3>because we have gotten used to a level I'd say gratification,

0:35:48.640 --> 0:35:51.000
<v Speaker 3>but like yeah, like this is a level of power

0:35:51.040 --> 0:35:54.799
<v Speaker 3>that was previously reserved for like Chinese emperors, and we

0:35:55.000 --> 0:36:00.920
<v Speaker 3>fucking use it every day to order fucking nailers from Amazon,

0:36:01.440 --> 0:36:03.480
<v Speaker 3>right or in my case, so a whole bunch of

0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:05.560
<v Speaker 3>materials to build a black logic which I will then

0:36:05.680 --> 0:36:07.359
<v Speaker 3>return as soon as my party is over.

0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:12.400
<v Speaker 2>Incredible, you know, And this is this is a This

0:36:12.480 --> 0:36:14.480
<v Speaker 2>is also something that's kind of new for Temu because

0:36:14.480 --> 0:36:18.080
<v Speaker 2>PDD was built on being able to doing sales or

0:36:18.120 --> 0:36:20.400
<v Speaker 2>a fast enough they can sell fruit to people. Right,

0:36:20.480 --> 0:36:23.000
<v Speaker 2>do you know how hard it is to sell fucking

0:36:23.120 --> 0:36:26.359
<v Speaker 2>fresh fruit to people? That's like it's legitimately really difficult. Well, yeah,

0:36:26.520 --> 0:36:29.520
<v Speaker 2>you can't. You can't ship. You can't have a two

0:36:29.560 --> 0:36:34.879
<v Speaker 2>week ship for can But why it is? I mean

0:36:35.600 --> 0:36:36.759
<v Speaker 2>you have to do a bunch of b you have

0:36:36.840 --> 0:36:38.960
<v Speaker 2>you have to have an actual logistics infratructure set up

0:36:39.000 --> 0:36:40.440
<v Speaker 2>for it, right. You can't just ship it in like

0:36:40.440 --> 0:36:41.160
<v Speaker 2>an Amazon boll.

0:36:41.239 --> 0:36:43.040
<v Speaker 3>They have to be they have to be like specifically

0:36:43.080 --> 0:36:44.080
<v Speaker 3>ripening along the bill.

0:36:44.239 --> 0:36:46.359
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, yeah, and and and and Tim is also

0:36:46.400 --> 0:36:47.840
<v Speaker 2>up to do that, right, And this is and this

0:36:47.920 --> 0:36:49.920
<v Speaker 2>is an issue with all of their stuff because you

0:36:49.920 --> 0:36:52.960
<v Speaker 2>know they're they're trying to do direct to consumer sales.

0:36:53.000 --> 0:36:54.839
<v Speaker 2>But the thing is in China it's really fast, and

0:36:54.880 --> 0:36:59.160
<v Speaker 2>here it's slow. And the upside for Temu is that

0:36:59.160 --> 0:37:02.799
<v Speaker 2>their stuff is really cheap, right, It's unbelievably cheap. And

0:37:02.960 --> 0:37:05.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, obviously they're losing money on the sales, and

0:37:05.560 --> 0:37:07.960
<v Speaker 2>most of the money they're losing on the sales is

0:37:08.000 --> 0:37:10.720
<v Speaker 2>from their ad spending, not from the actual sales. And

0:37:10.840 --> 0:37:14.239
<v Speaker 2>this is this is where you get into again the

0:37:14.320 --> 0:37:17.439
<v Speaker 2>really bleak part about this, where Okay, so are these

0:37:17.880 --> 0:37:21.200
<v Speaker 2>why are these prices so low? And part of its

0:37:21.200 --> 0:37:25.880
<v Speaker 2>tech money subsidy, but a lot of it is just labor,

0:37:26.120 --> 0:37:32.239
<v Speaker 2>just pure, pure, unrivaled labor exploitation. You know, when with

0:37:32.239 --> 0:37:35.920
<v Speaker 2>with the Chinese workers movement, like as like a a

0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:39.560
<v Speaker 2>sort of like collective mass movement just completely broken by Tianamen.

0:37:39.680 --> 0:37:42.760
<v Speaker 2>And then again dream like the crackdowns through the twenty

0:37:42.760 --> 0:37:46.560
<v Speaker 2>tens that wiped out whatever sort of like classical workers

0:37:46.600 --> 0:37:49.120
<v Speaker 2>movement style thing was may have popped up from the

0:37:49.160 --> 0:37:54.200
<v Speaker 2>strikes in twenty eleven, like there's there's no there's no

0:37:54.320 --> 0:37:57.920
<v Speaker 2>mass countervailing force in Chinese politics to try to raise wages,

0:37:58.160 --> 0:38:01.720
<v Speaker 2>like independent union organizing is illegal. You will get arrested.

0:38:02.360 --> 0:38:04.239
<v Speaker 2>The actual unions that exist, like they all trying of

0:38:04.280 --> 0:38:07.759
<v Speaker 2>union federation doesn't do shit. We don't really have that

0:38:07.880 --> 0:38:10.399
<v Speaker 2>kind of like fake union thing here. It's like it's

0:38:10.400 --> 0:38:13.080
<v Speaker 2>like a different but you know, like they're they're I

0:38:13.080 --> 0:38:14.440
<v Speaker 2>don't know, this is this is this is maybe not

0:38:14.440 --> 0:38:16.440
<v Speaker 2>the time for me to try to explain China union system.

0:38:16.520 --> 0:38:19.000
<v Speaker 2>Like the unions are fucking bullshit. They don't do anything.

0:38:19.520 --> 0:38:21.319
<v Speaker 2>Like if you go to them and be like my

0:38:21.360 --> 0:38:23.400
<v Speaker 2>wages are too low, they'll try to get you to

0:38:23.480 --> 0:38:26.160
<v Speaker 2>like negotiate with the company directly, right like like as

0:38:26.200 --> 0:38:29.400
<v Speaker 2>an individual, and like it's they're nonsense. They're completely useless.

0:38:30.160 --> 0:38:33.360
<v Speaker 2>And you know the results of this and the results

0:38:33.400 --> 0:38:36.560
<v Speaker 2>of just like the incredible poverty of the Chinese working

0:38:36.560 --> 0:38:40.200
<v Speaker 2>class and the fact that you know a lot of

0:38:40.320 --> 0:38:43.080
<v Speaker 2>Chinese migrant workers who are people who are actually making these goods.

0:38:43.200 --> 0:38:44.640
<v Speaker 2>So a lot of some of it's real workers, some

0:38:44.640 --> 0:38:46.360
<v Speaker 2>of its migrant workers, but a lot of these people's

0:38:46.400 --> 0:38:48.720
<v Speaker 2>wages are lower than they otherwise would because they're drawing

0:38:48.800 --> 0:38:52.440
<v Speaker 2>revenue off of like they're off of off of like

0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:55.359
<v Speaker 2>the plots of land that their family has like back

0:38:55.360 --> 0:38:57.719
<v Speaker 2>in the countryside when they like when they they like

0:38:57.760 --> 0:39:00.920
<v Speaker 2>migrate to another city to to find a job. Yeah, so,

0:39:01.000 --> 0:39:04.600
<v Speaker 2>like all of these factors are just institutionally like smashing

0:39:04.600 --> 0:39:08.640
<v Speaker 2>the price of like like smashing like wages, and there's

0:39:08.680 --> 0:39:12.160
<v Speaker 2>no there's no fucking there's not there's nothing really there

0:39:12.200 --> 0:39:13.960
<v Speaker 2>to resist them and and act like, you know, it's

0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:16.800
<v Speaker 2>not like the Chinese working class like completely takes it

0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:19.520
<v Speaker 2>lying down, right, but it's like the resistance strategies are

0:39:20.280 --> 0:39:23.880
<v Speaker 2>trying to work as little as possible, but that doesn't

0:39:24.120 --> 0:39:25.719
<v Speaker 2>that's you know, and that's something that can be very

0:39:25.719 --> 0:39:28.120
<v Speaker 2>effective in the sense of like you're working a lot less,

0:39:28.520 --> 0:39:33.040
<v Speaker 2>but it's not something that drives up like wages. And

0:39:33.080 --> 0:39:35.839
<v Speaker 2>so when when you're looking at Temu and you're seeing

0:39:35.880 --> 0:39:38.360
<v Speaker 2>a pair of Jeanes for two dollars, like what you

0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:43.200
<v Speaker 2>are seeing is the raw exploitation of the Chinese working class.

0:39:43.200 --> 0:39:44.560
<v Speaker 2>And this is also true of like the rest of

0:39:44.560 --> 0:39:47.200
<v Speaker 2>the fucking shit you buy from China, right, like almost

0:39:47.239 --> 0:39:50.480
<v Speaker 2>all of the price of like a shirt that you're buying,

0:39:50.480 --> 0:39:54.920
<v Speaker 2>I mean, Chinese textile manufacturing is kind of like not

0:39:55.040 --> 0:39:56.680
<v Speaker 2>what it used to be right, but like you know,

0:39:56.760 --> 0:40:00.800
<v Speaker 2>but like you're buying like fucking some bol shit from China.

0:40:00.920 --> 0:40:03.160
<v Speaker 2>Like if you're buying from like another drop shipping company, right,

0:40:05.600 --> 0:40:08.080
<v Speaker 2>like the thing you're actually paying for, you're paying the

0:40:08.160 --> 0:40:10.399
<v Speaker 2>drop shipping company. You're not fucking paying the workers. They're

0:40:10.400 --> 0:40:12.480
<v Speaker 2>not they're fucking not making shit all like all of

0:40:12.520 --> 0:40:15.000
<v Speaker 2>the stuff that's like, I mean, it's not like one

0:40:15.080 --> 0:40:17.520
<v Speaker 2>hundred percent, like a huge portion of of the fact

0:40:17.600 --> 0:40:20.920
<v Speaker 2>that the price is higher on non Temu sites is

0:40:21.160 --> 0:40:25.279
<v Speaker 2>just like it's just markups because this is this is

0:40:25.360 --> 0:40:29.319
<v Speaker 2>just what the Chinese economy is. It's just sort of

0:40:29.400 --> 0:40:33.440
<v Speaker 2>like it's you know, it's it's it's it's unbelievable exploitation.

0:40:33.560 --> 0:40:36.160
<v Speaker 2>And this brings us to the thing we're going to

0:40:36.280 --> 0:40:38.760
<v Speaker 2>end today on, which is does Temo use slave labor?

0:40:40.120 --> 0:40:46.879
<v Speaker 2>Oh oh okay, And the answer is probably, but it's

0:40:46.880 --> 0:40:50.000
<v Speaker 2>hard to tell. So this has been a big thing

0:40:50.120 --> 0:40:52.560
<v Speaker 2>because Ten is one of the companies that the State

0:40:52.600 --> 0:40:55.440
<v Speaker 2>Department brought up when they were doing their investigations into

0:40:55.560 --> 0:40:58.920
<v Speaker 2>like like Sheian was the other one into like are

0:40:58.960 --> 0:41:03.319
<v Speaker 2>these companies using shing John slave labor? And you know

0:41:03.400 --> 0:41:06.680
<v Speaker 2>this is labor from people put in in the fucking camps.

0:41:07.160 --> 0:41:11.200
<v Speaker 2>I think the answer is probably because I mean, so

0:41:11.400 --> 0:41:13.960
<v Speaker 2>the thing is, the State Department doesn't have any actual evidence, right,

0:41:14.040 --> 0:41:17.000
<v Speaker 2>Like they're all and they're they're doing this incredibly what

0:41:17.080 --> 0:41:18.880
<v Speaker 2>We'll get into this in a second, Like, you know,

0:41:18.920 --> 0:41:21.040
<v Speaker 2>obviously they're doing this because this is like this is

0:41:21.040 --> 0:41:24.080
<v Speaker 2>an intra like capitalist feud thing, right. The State Department's

0:41:24.120 --> 0:41:25.920
<v Speaker 2>talking about this because they're pissed at China.

0:41:26.320 --> 0:41:29.359
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, this is like a nationalistic project for the United States.

0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:34.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but Comma, it's also probably true because these like

0:41:34.040 --> 0:41:36.319
<v Speaker 2>and and this this is like the thing specifically with

0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:38.399
<v Speaker 2>with PDD that we've been talking about is that they

0:41:38.440 --> 0:41:44.279
<v Speaker 2>don't intimus Like, they don't vet the sellers of stuff, right,

0:41:44.440 --> 0:41:46.920
<v Speaker 2>Like we talked about last episode that like people were

0:41:46.960 --> 0:41:49.160
<v Speaker 2>selling sleeping pills as date rate drugs, right, they don't

0:41:49.160 --> 0:41:53.319
<v Speaker 2>fucking vet it at all. So yeah, probably, like quite possibly. Yeah,

0:41:53.360 --> 0:41:55.080
<v Speaker 2>the stuff the stuff that they're selling from shing Jun,

0:41:55.280 --> 0:41:58.359
<v Speaker 2>and they have a pretty large presence there, like was

0:41:58.480 --> 0:42:03.440
<v Speaker 2>using sort of like prison slave labor from the camps there. However, Comma,

0:42:03.560 --> 0:42:06.439
<v Speaker 2>we can't talk about prison slave labor without talking about

0:42:06.440 --> 0:42:09.480
<v Speaker 2>the fact that fucking every goddamn US firm also uses

0:42:09.520 --> 0:42:12.799
<v Speaker 2>prison slave labor. Everyone from fucking McDonald's, the Starbucks to

0:42:12.800 --> 0:42:16.279
<v Speaker 2>Walgreens to JC Penny, like fucking every every company, every

0:42:16.520 --> 0:42:19.399
<v Speaker 2>American company you can fucking think of, uses slave labor

0:42:19.520 --> 0:42:21.640
<v Speaker 2>or their slave labor in their in their supply chain.

0:42:22.000 --> 0:42:25.759
<v Speaker 2>And they're using slave labor because in the US, under

0:42:25.760 --> 0:42:28.640
<v Speaker 2>the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery is legal as long as the

0:42:28.640 --> 0:42:31.759
<v Speaker 2>person as long as the person being enslaved is incarcerated.

0:42:32.520 --> 0:42:36.080
<v Speaker 2>So you know, like it doesn't fucking matter, like this

0:42:36.160 --> 0:42:37.600
<v Speaker 2>is this is this is the problem. It doesn't matter

0:42:37.600 --> 0:42:39.880
<v Speaker 2>whether you buy from the US or China. Right like

0:42:41.120 --> 0:42:45.000
<v Speaker 2>you're you're getting fucking slave labor. So if you if

0:42:45.000 --> 0:42:49.680
<v Speaker 2>you want to not do that, you're you're your only option.

0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:51.359
<v Speaker 2>If if you do not want to, if you do

0:42:51.400 --> 0:42:54.520
<v Speaker 2>not want everything you consume, like the food that you eat,

0:42:54.560 --> 0:42:56.960
<v Speaker 2>if you don't want, like everything that you use in

0:42:57.000 --> 0:43:01.080
<v Speaker 2>your daily life to be the product of unfathomed human exploitation,

0:43:01.920 --> 0:43:04.920
<v Speaker 2>your only option is to destroy the monstrous economic system

0:43:04.960 --> 0:43:07.360
<v Speaker 2>that reduces humans to commodities and tear up the fucking

0:43:07.440 --> 0:43:09.440
<v Speaker 2>roots of every single one of these companies from San

0:43:09.440 --> 0:43:13.719
<v Speaker 2>Francisco to Shanghai and burn it to the grounds. That's that.

0:43:13.920 --> 0:43:18.320
<v Speaker 2>Those are your options, like, it's not your individual consumer choice,

0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:22.120
<v Speaker 2>not gonna make it any better. That's what I got.

0:43:22.239 --> 0:43:27.520
<v Speaker 2>I okay, all right? Well oh god, like was it

0:43:27.640 --> 0:43:31.000
<v Speaker 2>the Super Bowl great this year? Yeah? What a game?

0:43:31.080 --> 0:43:31.600
<v Speaker 4>What a game?

0:43:31.920 --> 0:43:34.240
<v Speaker 3>Almost almost double overtime?

0:43:34.320 --> 0:43:38.040
<v Speaker 2>That was crazy. I I don't know that was that

0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:40.120
<v Speaker 2>was the worst Chiefs team of all time and they

0:43:40.360 --> 0:43:43.160
<v Speaker 2>nobody could fucking beat them. We're so duped. We're gonna

0:43:43.160 --> 0:43:45.879
<v Speaker 2>get Patrick Mahobe is gonna win like a fucking twelve peet.

0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:52.440
<v Speaker 2>It's so over for every other sports team. Better things

0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:54.560
<v Speaker 2>aren't possible unless you make them possible.

0:44:00.000 --> 0:44:02.280
<v Speaker 1>What Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

0:44:02.480 --> 0:44:05.120
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0:44:05.200 --> 0:44:08.319
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<v Speaker 1>find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at

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