A concept that defines a society is its consumption. The spending on buying things for our family environment and ourselves speaks of who we are. Not only what we consume, but the volume of things we acquire, their frequency, quality and origin, our habits and values when consuming, which in turn define commerce, contribute to portraying us as a social group.
In recent years, trade with the East, mainly with China, has skyrocketed. According to data from ICEX Spain (Institute of Foreign Trade), this Asian country is already our second supplier, 10.2% of our imports have this origin and it is increasing, with exports being much lower. We not only bring articles "of everything at one price" as in the past, but also more sophisticated goods, such as telecommunications equipment, machines for processing and processing data and information. Obviously, the key to its success is the low production costs, which lead to a cheap sale price.
These very low prices usually originate from very low wages, lack of labor rights and even, in some cases, slave labor and child labor. To all this, we must add an alarming lack of quality. Thus, when applying controls with European parameters, many products would be below the minimum required standards.
This cocktail has encouraged some entrepreneurs to relocate production in search of lower production costs. Thus, many Spanish companies produce in Asia and sell in Spain. When buying in any establishment, it is likely that the product purchased has been manufactured in the East.
With this panorama, the pandemic arrived. And the result was devastating: we did not have masks or gloves or other basic products to deal with it, because everything was manufactured in the East, we were totally sold to the Asian giant. We had to improvise everything. When the disease subsided, transportation problems prolonged the shortage.
It is clear that we do not learn the lesson, we cannot depend excessively on what is produced at the other end of the world and almost exclusively on one supplier, because, under any circumstances, they can turn off the tap and we are going to have a bad time.
As my grandmother said "cheap is expensive", we should not be dazzled by bargain prices, because the quality, compared to the national or European product, is much lower. We can, in exchange for a little more money, obtain a product of much higher quality. The production conditions are not in accordance with European labor values. The state should intervene to stop this escalation, which harms our production and does not help the economic development of the country. Let's not play the golden dragon anymore. Let's look to Europe.
With this trend of buying everything made in the East, wealth is not generated, we contribute to destroying the national industry and we draw an uncertain future for our children, because if this spiral is maintained, in the future they will work for them. And then they will hold us accountable.
As Don Quixote said "You will see things, Sancho"........and I add "How we buy without considering more than the price".