quote:
Originally posted by Jim Jackson:
Wal Mart is just one more reason NOT to trust big business.

Only as an absolute last resort will I shop at Wal Mart.

The first statement I disagree with. Big business provides jobs and benefits to tens of millions of workers. My father worked 25 years for IBM, and I don't believe IBM or most other corporations are inherently evil.

But many corporations are forced to do things that are arguably ruthless, to compete with other corporations like Walmart, that drive down profits to the point that their only alternative is to use third-world labor and push thier own production out of the U.S. as well. Their alternative is to go broke.

I agree with Theory9, that the only way to fight what is occurring is to pay the extra money to support Walmart's competition, who keeps their manufacturing and employees in the U.S.

I've long thought that I'd rather pay an extra 10 or 20 cents per pound for my fruit, with the provision that the extra money is used by fruit producers to provide living wages and health benefits to their migrant-worker employees. Channel 4 in south Florida just recently aired the 1960 "Harvest of Shame" a famous news documentary by one of the most trusted journalists in broadcast history, Edward G Murrow, detailing the terrible living conditions of migrant workers at that time, prior to several nights of their own coverage of the modern situation.

In the drive for rock-bottom prices, there should instead be some moderation and regulation, to prevent the decrease of living standards that's occurring. That's a problem that neither the Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, or G.W. Bush administrations have been willing to confront. Precisely because that's how their campaigns are funded, through corporate donations.

That's also the reason for the masive spike in immigration that began during the Clinton administration. Corporations want foreign labor, who are willing to work for less, even in high-tech jobs. Under either pary, Corporate campaign donors want cheap labor, and they get it.

Although that was the 90's, and now the trend is for outsourcing not just low-tech manufacturing, but even the high-tech jobs to other countries.