Subhed to an article in the Telegraph entitled “Clothing Prices Rise for [the] First Time Since [the] 1990s”:

The price of clothing and footwear have risen for first time since early 1990s, according to official figures, raising the fear that the era of cheap imports from the Far East is over.

Sadly, this sort of unsubstantiated, alarmist journalism is becoming more common rather than less.  It states quite clearly that there is “fear” over the end of cheap imports, but then neglects to explain who, exactly, has this “fear”; furthermore, it completely neglects to follow up on this “fear”, or expand upon it at all, leaving it as a throwaway statement made only in the subhed.

It also avoids tackling another issue that’s raised by the subhed: why, exactly, we should expect “cheap imports from the Far East”.  It makes no attempt to justify our expectation that we can buy a pair of jeans for an hour’s wages, or a pair of pumps for the same as a Starbucks coffee.  It avoids tackling that issue precisely because the answers are so unpleasant: we have no right to expect cheap imports, and we have no right to pay people a pittance just so we can buy an entire new outfit for our night out for £20.

By expressing this “fear”, it gives in to the most worst impulses of modern Western capitalism: the pursuit of “cheap”.  It tacitly approves of the erosion of the West’s economies.  Outsourcing gave us everything for (next to) nothing, but it also took from us real, wealth-producing — read: manufacturing — jobs.  It made it untenable for anything but a few lucky companies, and luxury brands, to manufacture anywhere but the Far East.  In place of manufacturing, we were left with “service industry” jobs that, really, don’t make people any better off.  This was partially disguised by the decreasing cost of almost everything, and the easy availability of credit, but, now that the bubble’s burst, we’re left seeing the real cost of “cheap”.