Cunning Shirt maker

The Chinese are marvellous and patient business people. They know how to exploit the greed and short attention span of others.

I remember the story of the Chinese shirt manufacturer. He sets up his shirt factory then buys up all the fabric from the cotton local mill. The weaver is very pleased, the price of his cotton goes up, business is good. He buys more looms to weave more cotton. The Shirtmaker buys more cotton, business is good. The weaver borrows more money and expands again.

The shirt manufacturer says sorry I must reduce the price of your cotton. The weaver goes broke. The bank and weaver lose their money. The shirt manufacturer buys the mill for a song.

Of course it is obvious in retrospect that the weaver shouldn't have made huge investments with no long term contract and reliant on one buyer. Its obvious.

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