Excerpt: From Las Vegas to Dollar Stores - How Cheap Stuff Changed The World

It was in Las Vegas -- in the Sands Convention Centre to be exact -- where I began to more fully understand the global economy. Inside one of the world's largest merchandise shows, I met and interviewed wholesalers, offshore manufacturers, and retailers active in the bargain trade -- people I describe as "bargaineers," engineers of discounts.  As I report in The Price of a Bargain, and in this recent excerpt, discounting isn't just Wal-Mart: it represents a much bigger grassroots expansion (and transformation) of the global economy that began in the 1970s and now encompasses hundreds of millions of people: 

"It's little bits of our everyday lives laid out on tables and shelves, almost exclusively manufactured in China and Southeast Asia. There are generic kitchen items - spatulas, scrubber pads - common to hundreds of thousands of households. I see toys from my kids' playroom: plastic sharks, blocks, stuffed animals. Crowds gather, searching for the world's best bargains. Storeowners from Lima, Peru, browse bedsheets. Iowa wholesalers offer replica Tiffany lamps. Chain-store retailers and dollar-store managers barter over all things both essential and unlikely, from toothbrushes to neon Bob Marley sculptures, samurai swords, witchcraft kits, and miniature motorcycles. Brand-name toothpaste and neon Jesus dioramas; Shrek backpacks and baby shoes."

The significance all this kitsch and cheap stuff isn't always obvious. Bargains have shaped globalization, and our quest for cheap continues to dominate the 21st century, for better and for worse. Read more here in The Montreal Gazette.