why do Spooky bikes cost so much?
...because they're made in Oregon and Vermont. Your cheap (or not-so-cheap) Asian-made bike might be a sweet ride, but the money you saved came out of the mouths and off of the backs of oppressed workers. You know it's true. Accept it.
...because we care more about human rights than we do about profits...because we couldn't sleep at night knowing we're contributing to the slave labor of the most vulnerable people in the world.
How are you sleeping?
...because as China's wages creep upwards, factories are moving to Taiwan, where wages are lower and enforcement of laws is minimal:
Taipei, May 1 2011 -- Thousands of labor rights activists marched through the streets of downtown Taipei on International Workers' Day Sunday, criticizing the country's labor policies and calling for immediate improvement of working conditions.
...because child labor is fucked up:
At some coastal factories, children were even lined up and selected based on their body type, wrote the journalists, who also investigated factory areas in Guangdong.
MOSCOW — One woman said children as young as 10 working in the fields developed red rashes on their stomachs and necks as they harvested tobacco for use in cigarettes made by Philip Morris.
...because it's easy to enslave the poor indefinitely:
The kiln owner pays Mr. Muhammad and his four sons about $10 for the 2,500 bricks they make in an average day. The owner can usually make $160 selling that many bricks.
...because 1/3 of Taiwan’s foreign labors are Indonesians, who have no rights.
(source: this study on labor trafficking in Taiwan)
...because when corporations are pressured to "investigate" their factories, they almost always find human rights violations:
Only 65 per cent of the factories were paying their staff the correct wages and benefits, and Apple found 24 factories where workers had not even been paid China's minimum wage of around 800 yuan ($124.26) a month.
...because this factory in China responded to suicides by installing nets and hiring robots:
The nets went up in May, after the 11th jumper in less than a year died here. They carried a message: You can throw yourself off any building you like, as long as it isn’t one of these. And they seem to have worked. Since they were installed, the suicide rate has slowed to a trickle.
...because we aren't motivated by profit.
"Making [shit] in the U.S. isn't as easy or as profitable as making [it] overseas. If it were, every company would still be doing it," DeMartini said.
PS. we're going to have to raise our prices sooner or later so we can make enough money to pay off our debts. please trust us when we say they're as cheap as they can be, and cheaper than they'll be in the future.
