I’ve had an etsy store for a while, and have had nothing but good experiences with it. Wish I had a little more time to invest there…

I’ll be looking out for what you put in your store…

where’s your storefront at?

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=10001

You could also find me through folks who heart your store… cause, I hearted your store lol.

Dude…$20 for a cotton shirt made in nowhere for probably $1…claiming that’s not about profit? You don’t find the irony in that?

virgil, i wish you would have asked me before making such a bold criticism about people not profit. please read more about our ethic on our website, and realize that after a year working our asses off, all the money we have made has gone back into the business (which has about $1000 in the bank account) and to development projects in rwanda and el salvador. we take no salary from this. if you have specific questions, email me.

virgil. you made me break my blog fast. i just had to approve tim’s comment so i checked it out.

i’ll echo everything tim says, plus let you in on the fact that when you buy fair trade shirts to print on, they cost about 4x’s as much as a regular shirt. so the “profit margin” (which all of theirs goes to fund development projects overseas) is the same as if you bought a shirt for $12. the shirt may have only cost $2 in materials and another couple to screen print. same for a fair trade shirt. they are $8-10 to buy and then the screen print. so it’s the same mark-up.

people bitch about the costs of fair trade products and say that people are just trying to make more money and capitalize off people. while that may be true in some cases. for the most part, things made in an honest and equitable fashion just cost more.

Guys – my comment was partially tongue-in-cheek; I am a devout libertarian; if you want to charge $150 for a shirt and get away with it, I want to know the secret and copy what you do, so that’s your own business and you don’t have to defend the price.

Josh – selling products as “fair trade only” is capitalizing off a particular situation and using marketing to push products into a niche. It is setting yourself apart from competition and appealing to a very targeted group of customer that are after that kind of product – why do you see something wrong with that? I think it’s a great method to sell things. And why break your fast for me dude…just ignore me

At last, I would like to ask Tim one question: assuming you buy the shirts and cotton overseas, are the people making them getting paid at least at the the U.S. minimum wage level?

If you’d click over to their site and read their statement (here), it says: “By selling t-shirts that are produced by individuals who are being paid a living wage at factories where they are treated with the dignity and benefits we would expect ourselves, we are contributing to a more fair and just system of commerce.”

Personally I think you’re trolling, and that your original comment wasn’t meant to be a joke, partially or otherwise – there are plenty of ways to indicate a statement as such and your comment lacks any of them. Your assumption that Josh finds anything wrong with niche markets is… confusing, given a lack of any substantial statements to say as such. And the reason he broke his fast was because you managed to put the owner on the defensive with your quip.

Next time, perhaps it would be a better idea to try and build someone up who’s doing something to make the world better instead of tearing them down. If you’d like a good ole fashioned debate about a similar topic where the discussion of profit and global good are much more blurry: Product Red discussions. – it also gave rise to a mini-motto of this blog, “because something is always better than nothing, right Nick?”

If you’d click over to their site and read their statement (here), it says: “By selling t-shirts that are produced by individuals who are being paid a living wage at factories where they are treated with the dignity and benefits we would expect ourselves, we are contributing to a more fair and just system of commerce.”

Personally I think you’re trolling, and that your original comment wasn’t meant to be a joke, partially or otherwise – there are plenty of ways to indicate a statement as such and your comment lacks any of them. Your assumption that Josh finds anything wrong with niche markets is… confusing, given a lack of any substantial statements to say as such. And the reason he broke his fast was because you managed to put the owner on the defensive with your quip.

Next time, perhaps it would be a better idea to try and build someone up who’s doing something to make the world better instead of tearing them down. If you’d like a good ole fashioned debate about a similar topic where the discussion of profit and global good are much more blurry: Product Red discussions. – it also gave rise to a mini-motto of this blog, “because something is always better than nothing, right Nick?”

Eric, I already read the statement, and I just read it again. I still think it’s propagandist bullshit that lacks any economic sense (sorry Tim, but that’s just how it sounds to me). What the hell is a “living wage” anyway? In Romania it’s $2 a day – in some parts of Africa is less than $1 a day. I LIVED for most of my life at “the living wage” level thanks to lame economic policies stifling free trade and free exchange of goods and services, so to me providing someone with a “living wage” is offensive. Personally, the only time when I actually succeeded in life was when I demanded more than just a living wage and put my back into it to make it happen through hard work and steel-like dedication.

“Personally I think you’re trolling, and that your original comment wasn’t meant to be a joke, partially or otherwise ”

Anyone who questions “emergent economics” is trolling dude. I have been around the emergent blog scene for a while, and I am always amazed at some of the statements people make about economics; and they actually get away with this stuff unchallenged.

Just like you, I believe in economic freedom, fair commerce, trade and fair living for all humans; after all we are all made in the image of God and we all deserve living conditions worthy of the Creator’s very own children. But I will not subscribe to those principles within a framework that lacks any economic sense or substance. To repeat what I already said, I think it’s great that Tim can make great money off those shirts; I hope they sell millions of them and become very successful in this enterprise; and also at the same time acknowledge that it IS about profit, whether it is small, big, or you put it back into the business, or you use it to help other people; none of it would exist without the “markup” on the product – profit is what drives it all. If that was not the case, Tim should make a pledge to sell the shirts at cost, with no markup whatsoever.

“Next time, perhaps it would be a better idea to try and build someone up who’s doing something to make the world better instead of tearing them down.”

Next time I’ll try to keep my comments to myself to avoid offending someone; if you are making the world better by selling t-shirts, that’s great; but try to take a trip down to some Romanian orphanages too…where most of the children have AIDS because some socialist bastard somewhere thought it was OK to socialize medicine and make it “equal and fair” for everyone (translate into “crappy and deadly”). The motto should be: “Changing the world through sound economic principles?”

I have no interest in debates Eric – but if you only expect comments to be posted in agreement here, then I will certainly stop commenting.

I just re-read my comment and it sounds a little harsh; that was not my intention, so my apologies to all involved.

i just think you’ve got a hell of a lot of baggage with your communist background. i’m sure it sucked. and we’re all living in a vacuum until we experience stalinistic bastards. but blogs aren’t exactly the best place for therapy.

it’s not about posting comments that are in agreement with eric. or me for that matter. but it seems like every time you comment you rip on anybody who suggests that maybe, just maybe that the hyper-capitalism we have today is flawed on some levels. again, just because communism and socialism have failed doesn’t mean that capitalism is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

so get off the communist/socialist kick. and if you feel so inclined to continue to pick fights and call out friends of mine, then i’m going to kindly ask you to find another blog to visit. or go discuss shit on wikipedia threads. because this blog is like my living room. i don’t come into your living room calling your friends out and accusing them of things when i don’t know them. so if my friends are saying that you’re offending them and getting on their nerves . . . then you’re offending me and getting on my nerves.

i’m all about being generous of views that are different than mine. but i expect the same generosity to be reciprocated. if not . . . find a therapy session somewhere else.

[...] I didn’t check any blogs. Or blog myself (except for having to break it when finding out that one of my new friends was getting questioned). Didn’t watch any television or movies. I didn’t watch the news or sports. I’m [...]