Walmart Kills More Businesses

I agree with you.

Their standards of living are a lot lower. You cannot compare our standards of living to their wages. Besides, which is better: working for 8 cents an hour or not working at all for zero cents an hour. Without globalization, these people will not have an opportunity to work. I don't want to see them starve any more than you do. Globalization is one of the keys to breaking the cycle of poverty.

Yes, true. Many of them don't understand correlation between population growth and economics. They feel that having more kids means having more income sources. Unfortunately, that isn't the case usually, and surely isn't the case at all without globalization.

 

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It doesn't work. That's the problem. Sweatshops don't end the cycle of poverty- it only perpetuates it!

How?

Yes, I know how they were. Third World countries are always a few decades behind compared to First World. However, when the First World countries were like that, they didn't have access to the same stuff the Thrid World has right now- and that can make a very significant difference!

Do you think the same process is happening when the First World clearly influences the Third?

In other words- high paying jobs.

They can barely eat with what they make.

A few of them. Yes. The ones that are born in a higher caste, of course. But the majority of the population is in no different living conditions.

Slaves would too. At least their masters would feed them. Those poor people don't even have that....

 

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Hey man,

You gotta remember that the national income is not necessarily evenly distributed. Even if the national income of China is increasing, that doesn't mean that the standard of living is increasing for everyone. It is dramatically increasing for a few people, and the rest is either worse or no different!!

 

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Look you people can say what you want about Wal-mart being bad or whatever, but Wal-mart really does help out a community ( or poor small towns) grow and expand. 13 years ago , A small town in South Carolina, which is called gaston (was kinda the country but with the big highway close to it) and they placed a wal-mart there . Today there are all kinds of local business like Lowes, Best Buy, Fastfood places, and etc.

I hate it when some small business owner start talking shit on the news about wal-mart being evil, now thats a load of bullshit. There no different then the soo called "Supermarkets" because they want money just like them.

Small business owners don't give a damn about poor people so they need to stfu. LOL it would be cool if poor people went on the news and start taking shit about small business trying to take away the only place where they can buy stuff with there current salary .

 

walmart gives people like us in states something called "PURCHASING POWER" which apparently some dumb businesses would never understand. and why should others feel insecured... take Pennsylvania where i live (Camp Hill close to Harrisburg)... There are other super markets which are still alive and kicking. (Giant Stores, Weis Stores) ... leave aside lancaster... (Detour : I love Lancaster btw...)


Rick

 

TS
I live in Thailand and I can tell you that nearly all your conceptions are misconceptions about the way it is. Sorry, but you have no way of seeing things as they are. You should take a year off and go teach English [great demand overseas for English teachers] and see for yourself.
Factory workers here do not 'barely feed themselves'. They pay off their mortgages just like hot shot acct execs in the West. The numbers are just lower. And their kids finally do get to go to University; with Govt loans to boot.
It is like terry said above, they are going thru what the US/West went thru only 2 generations behind us.
Globalization gives them alternatives they would not have otherwise.

 

Can you give me proof please? Instead of just throwing around your opinion, actually provide evidence.

All I'm asking for you is to spend 2 days reading the book I mentioned twice already. Globalization doesn't perpetuate poverty, as India's, Bangladesh's, and China's falling poverty rate indicates.

Because even the small amount of money that workers make is still money. At least with the meagre money they make, they can feed themselves. What you want is for these workers to not make any money at all so that they can starve to death. How is that helping them?

What "stuff" didn't the First World have access to when they were Third World countries? What "stuff" are you referring to?

Yes, as evidenced by falling poverty rates and a rise in middle class people in Third World countries. Look at the poverty rates of China, Bangladesh, India, and Vietnam for the past 30 years.

Of course. Can you help it if Americans demand higher and higher wages and the cost of living keeps increasing?

Better than the situation you want them to be in: starving with absolutely no jobs from multi-national corporations.

Higher caste? There's a caste system to poverty? I thought everyone who suffers from poverty is of the lower rungs of society. The fact is, globalization and outsourcing helps these lower rungs of society.

OK, what do YOU suggest we do to eliminate world poverty? Write out your suggestion, since you hate globalization so much?

So you prefer slavery over globalization? LOL. You do understand slaves are forcibly taken from their homes and made to work for no wages, right? Slaves don't have freedom.

Workers in Third World countries don't have to take these outsourced jobs. No one is pointing a gun to their heads, but they do understand that this may be the only opportunity they get to feed their children. As opposed to slavery, workers do get to keep their wages.

Again, you keep comparing their wages with our wages. That's very ludicrous, because you fail to account for the fact that our cost of living is also many times higher than their cost of living.

Once again, I ask you to read the book before you start bashing globalization, because you are greatly misinformed and it's funny refuting all your arguments. I understand there are human rights issues. I'm not denying that. What I am saying that these workers have no other choice, because no one else in their society can provide jobs for them. With that being the case, who can buy the food? Who can buy the medicine? Who will pay for education? Who will pay for a roof? NO ONE. You don't seem to understand that.

And actually it doesn't matter that you don't understand. Globalization is happening, full speed ahead whether you like it or not. Extreme poverty will be eliminated in our lifetime. Moderate poverty will take a lot longer though. Try to stop globalization if you, LOL. You can't. It's been in motion for decades

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So I cheer on Walmart, Intel, IBM, GM, Ford, etc... for moving jobs from America to overseas.

 

http://www.thecorporation.com/

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_45/b3706008.htm
"A recent BUSINESS WEEK probe found that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ( WMT) bought Kathie Lee Gifford handbags in a Chinese factory where guards beat workers and owners deducted up to 70% of their pay for food and lodging (BW--Oct. 2). The National Labor Committee, a New York watchdog group, first made that charge in a May report on 16 Chinese factories used by Western companies. Each broke Chinese labor laws or the buyers' own codes, it says."

 

About women in the sweatshops of Indonesia...

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/sweatshops.html
"In some Indonesian sweatshops, women were forced to take down their pants ..."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1860217.stm
"Poverty and fear is still dominating the lives of Adidas and Nike workers in Indonesia," he said.

He said full-time wages as low as $2 a day do not give families enough to live on. He alleges active trade unionists fear losing their jobs or even being attacked.

"Workers still work in difficult and dangerous conditions," he said. "They're still shouted at when they work too slowly.

"Respiratory illnesses from inhaling toxic chemicals are still occurring, as are accidents in which workers lose fingers in cutting machines."

:itold:


Ok... so... I need to teach English overseas... right.........


There's a LOT more out there in the internet, btw. Just google sweatshops dammit!

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One thing that generally isn't done by both libetarians and conservatives in relation to such issues is to join in the uproar.

In other words there is always the conversation diverger (sometimes stopper) of asking: do you want to eliminate free enterprise?

But we don't have to immediately legislate, in fact non-legislative actions might be effective.

Walmart treats its workers and surrounding communities abominably. Conservatives and libertarains could join in the honest and natural outcry against this behavior. They could continue to fight legislative actions that they think will inhibit free trade, but be an honest and critical part of the reactions of society to disgusting behavior.

There are plenty of examples of similar things. Generally americans do not want laws that impel them to help others. We don't have a law that says you have to help an old lady who has fallen down. However a candidate filmed doing this would never get into office, public outcry, even by those who would fight hardest against laws that try to make us moral would participate.

It's like conservatives and libertarians are so afraid of telling the truth because they assume that if they agreed with the criticism of, say, Walmart, communism would suddenly form. This is not the case. But becasue they are silent it is taken as tacit approval of immoral but legal behavior.

Conservatives and libertarians could join in and create boycotts, also actions that do not restrict anyone's freedom and are certainly not legislative. Powerful ones could call owners of companies that repeated pollute, treat their worker poorly (and so on) and give them a piece of their minds.

Further once this more complete and honest reaction from all quarters is taking place other solutions might come up.

First you decide if there is a problem, then you explore the problem. Working out solutions is a last step. But libertarians and conservatives want to shut the discussion down, right off.

And they do this out of fear.

 

Truthseeker, I guess you haven't read my post at all.

I UNDERSTAND that there is a human rights issue. Many companies do take advantage of workers. Those companies are abusing the outsourcing system, but that doesn't mean that globalization itself is bad.

Be my guest if you want to advocate against human rights abuses in sweatshops and factories. I support you. Companies must be held responsible.

I just don't see how that relates to hating globalization itself. If you read your articles you've provided, does it say that 100% of all factories abuse their workers? If your articles do, I will apologize to you. You know what? Your articles don't. Many companies do not do that.

As I said, keep going on and on. You haven't read the book I've recommended yet. I'm not surprised. You probably don't want to see the facts and figures of how world extreme poverty rates are decreasing in those Third World countries that are blessed by globalization. Yes, even in a country like Bangladesh where 20 years ago, economists considered Bangladesh a "hopeless cause".

 

I'm glad you hold that position.

Why wouldn't they. Don't you know that one of the motivations for outsourcing is less protection and regulations for the workers? If they can save money from abusing workers, why wouldn't they. Isn't that their primary and only motivation?

On the contrary. I want to see them. I'm listening...

Have you ever heard of Muhammad Yunus?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus

He was the guy who brought microfinancing to Bangladesh. He helped many poor people start their own businesses and get out of poverty. Not the corporations with their sweatshops. Not even in a thousand years thyey would have helped them.