This came to my attention from the good folks at Adafruit.com.
The Chinese company “Orange Pi” in Shenzhen, China is manufacturing and selling a powerful tiny computer selling for $35 US with some versions less than $9 US. It does 4K high-definition video, has 2 GBytes of RAM, WiFi, Ethernet, USB, and has a quad core processor running at 1.8 GHz.
Orange Pi is currently selling 40,000 units per month and predict sales to increase to 100,000 units per month by year end. The company plans to sell 150 million units in the next 3 years. That dear reader is $5,250,000,000.00 (over $5 BILLION DOLLARS) in sales.
The interesting part is that the head of “Orange Pi”, Steven Zhao, in an interview with “Minimachines.net” states that the selling price of their computer only covers the cost of materials. In other words they are SELLING IT AT A LOSS and they are NOT recouping the cost to develop the computer (engineering), pay for the premises (offices or factory), pay for any capital equipment to design and manufacture, or pay for employees. When asked how they can have a business that loses money on everything they make, Mr. Zhao openly said “WE ARE SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT“. That’s one way to quickly dominate a market and eliminate the competition.
Okay but that’s not all folks. The fair trade deal gets better, at least for the Chinese.
Notice that I mentioned it costs $4 US to send the computer, over 7000 miles, in a box to the good old USA. It is delivered by what’s called an ePacket by the United States Postal Service. To ship the same package from the US to China would cost over $20! How can they ship it so cheaply?
The United States Taxpayer SUBSIDIZES the shipping of goods from CHINA to the US!!! The Chinese appreciate the generosity of YOU the US Taxpayer!
Now you might ask, why am I subsidizing the Chinese manufacturers who are taking American jobs? The answer is that China, even though it is the SECOND LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD, is an “EMERGING COUNTRY” in the eyes of the United Nations run UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION or UPU. China is lumped in with powerhouse countries such as Gabon, Jamaica, and Kazakhstan. As a member in good standing with the UN, you the taxpayer get to do what the UN tells you is the RIGHT thing to do.
Raise your empty glasses (as you may not have a job to fill it) to the United States and China for creating another multi-billion dollar company, in China! Don’t you feel all nice and warm inside knowing that you are helping out all those disadvantaged workers in China?
