[Hondor]

My university started locking the balcony doors of its library building after a suicider jumped off. Nobody complained that they should have provided better studying conditions for students and left the doors open. It seemed like a completely sensible and thoughtful thing to do to prevent more suicides.

I've been inside Chinese factories and they seem just like factories anywhere else. Americans need to stop imagining China as some giant North Korean slave camp. It's got very low unemployment, a huge middle class and quite reasonable working hours, pay and job mobility, especially for young people like those Foxconn workers. Health and safety is a wash though but that's another matter.

[nickpsecurity]

It's the Chinese workers telling us all of this. In most democracies, people just say they don't like the job they have or try to get another one. The stuff we hear about Foxconn et al is unusual. The sources are Chinese over there working at such places and/or immigrating here to U.S. to get away from the stuff. So, we figure it's probably true.

Of course, China could always reduce their media censorship so we can get honest coverage of everything. Then, we might know more. :)