Originally Posted by 2ursula

Here is where my anger knows no bounds:

How does anybody arrive at prices of US$ 10 - 20 when cotton growers get paid pennies per pound of cotton? How do you explain that the costs of printing are also only pennies/yard because poor people in so-called under-developed countries must eat and therefore agree to work for any kind of wages?

Somewhere in this unnecessarily long chain of many people with both their hands open to receive and the few people who provide genuine services, at some point in this chain of profit takers pennies turn into dollars.

I would be content paying reasonable prices (US$5 - 6/yard) for today's excellent cotton fabric if - and this is the BIG "IF" - if the people who actually grow the cotton and then know how to do the printing using the hard-earned skills of thousands of years - IF they would get at least half of that price.

That would leave enough for doing all those services you talked about in your post. Anybody can do those services. They don't require special skills like growing cotton and creating the end product.

Somewhere in this long chain of paid services the people with the least skills have managed to siphon off the most money.

How about some solidarity with those people who actually create the product? They need some advocates. Who should sympathize with them if not quilters who know the value of good work.