I had to read Keith Bradesher’s Dec. 14th front-page piece on Bangladesh several times to get over how bizarre it was. Don’t worry, Bradesher says, Bangladesh will be fine when the world’s apparel industry shifts massively towards China–think of the Earth as a table and tilting it slightly towards China and watching everything slide from every corner. His conclusion “don’t worry, be happy” is even more strange given his examples of dirt-poor workers, mainly women, who are earning 70 cents a day.

Everything I’ve seen in the data suggest Bangladesh will lose one million out of the 1.6 million jobs in its apparel industry. Mexico is a good model for what happens when China clamps down on the market: in 2001, China’s import to the U.S. were just half of Mexico’s. One year later, China had overtaken Mexico.

In just three years (from 2001 to June 2004), China’s share of the worldwide market of imports to the U.S. went from 9 percent to 72 percent (!!!)

I put a lot of stock in the numbers that say the poor Bangladesh folks are going to get royally screwed. The industry will probably lose $1.2 billion in a year. Apparel accounts for 78 percent of Bangladesh’s exports.