quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
Trust me DS - retailers know EXACTLY what they sell and in what numbers. And they are smart enough to pick up on patterns of purchasing. Especially in this era of technology, retailers have a huge wealth of information from the bar codes that get scanned every time you purchase something. I think you hugely underestimate the level of information that retailers collect and have access to. Especially retailers like The Gap....

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
Trust me DS - retailers know EXACTLY what they sell and in what numbers. And they are smart enough to pick up on patterns of purchasing. Especially in this era of technology, retailers have a huge wealth of information from the bar codes that get scanned every time you purchase something. I think you hugely underestimate the level of information that retailers collect and have access to. Especially retailers like The Gap....

I know they know what they sell, what was stolen, what was marked down, etc. But, if you are still buying a shirt, how do they know you bought that particular shirt because it was made in an acceptable work condition? I would think that if the exact same shirt was offered from two separate plants with separate work conditions and they weren't selling the ones from one, but selling the crap out of the other, then they'd likely connect those dots, but there are many, many variables.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tallboy4U

next time, I try it, okay?

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

quote:

No, the third world is trying to ease their overpopulation problem by emigrating to the West and North.

Would you not agree that in general with increased wealth family sizes decrease?

Butch

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
Trust me DS - retailers know EXACTLY what they sell and in what numbers. And they are smart enough to pick up on patterns of purchasing. Especially in this era of technology, retailers have a huge wealth of information from the bar codes that get scanned every time you purchase something. I think you hugely underestimate the level of information that retailers collect and have access to. Especially retailers like The Gap....

I know they know what they sell, what was stolen, what was marked down, etc. But, if you are still buying a shirt, how do they know you bought that particular shirt because it was made in an acceptable work condition? I would think that if the exact same shirt was offered from two separate plants with separate work conditions and they weren't selling the ones from one, but selling the crap out of the other, then they'd likely connect those dots, but there are many, many variables.

quote:

I said that in post 48

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

quote:

I said that in post 48

Then you do understand that it takes more than one generation to accomplish right?

Butch

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

quote:

I said that in post 48

Then you do understand that it takes more than one or two generations to accomplish right? ...Which is the time frame we are talking about

Butch

quote:

foreign exploitation

quote:

ORIGINAL: FunCouple5280

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

quote:

ORIGINAL: FunCouple5280
While you don't need to pay people US/EU style wages in places like India, you can always demand that if you buy imported crap that at least it was a fair wage for the area. So as to the OP maybe $1/hr (arbitrary, for sake of discussion) rather than $.25/hr, which would be a huge step up for these people. Yet, It would still mean cheap clothes and jobs, just a little more at the register and a lot more for the worker's families.

How do you determine what is and what isn't a fair wage for the area? Running with your numbers, if 25¢ is a decent wage there, why should it be bumped up to $1? What if those that are lining up for that 25¢ are doing so because the only other job they can get is only paying 12¢?
Those numbers certainly look ridiculously low to us. And they are, from our viewpoints. But, we are drawing on our own experiences and I'm not even sure 25¢ buys you a piece of Bazooka gum anymore. Who in their right mind thinks that working for an hour so you can buy one piece of Bazooka gum isn't ridiculous? But, again, that's from our viewpoint. 25¢ might be a wage they can brag about.

Fair enough, but if Henry Ford figured out that a 8hr day and higher wage led to increased productivity withough union strongarming, so can the sweatshops. Yet even if they don't spit out another dime in pay, workplace safety is not something that can be discounted. Safe building, good lighting, proper ventilation, safety gear, etc, are not things that can be scoffed at.
Personally, I believe we need to pass import laws that prohibit the import of goods that put people in unnecessarily risky situations without reasonable steps taken for their safety and that don't follow some basic environmental protection regs. Forget wages, because as you said, it maybe a good wage there. But, safety and environmental protection are universal. This would really improve the lives of the people, and it would prevent too much undercutting and law dodging as well as keep some of the poison out of our seas and the fish we eat from them.

quote:

It might be but it isn't. Still a poverty wage in Bangledesh. The other issue is worker safety. Five hundred dead from a building collapse. And there was prior warning! The workers heard loud cracks in the concrete. An engineer was summoned to inspect the pillars and approved the safety of the structure. Workers were ordered back to work. The building collapsed the following day. I hate to sound like a Marxist but this is nearly a perfect world for transnational corporations. They buy cheap labor overseas. Sell their stuff in upscale markets. Withhold taxes from their home country. Pressure down the wages of workers at home. And corporate execs make 400 to 1000 (two recent reports) times the workers on the line. Wage disparity and worker safety are super major issues. Not only transnationally but here at home as well. We are 102 years out from the Triangle Shirtail Factory fire in NYC where young garment workers were trapped in a locked building. One hundred two years of progress in worker safety discarded like old rags.

quote:

I see a lot of poverty where i am.. whole areas of people here with entire household incomes under the poverty line.. living in very small old houses they cant even afford to paint.. and yet, there are 100,000 millionaires (& more every day) living in the same city.. to me, this is Bangledish in America.. as i have never seen such large areas of poverty in a city before... as far as worker safety goes.. how safe were the workers in West, TX?

how can you change the rest of the world when you cant even change those same problems in your own country?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marini

quote:

I see a lot of poverty where i am.. whole areas of people here with entire household incomes under the poverty line.. living in very small old houses they cant even afford to paint.. and yet, there are 100,000 millionaires (& more every day) living in the same city.. to me, this is Bangledish in America.. as i have never seen such large areas of poverty in a city before... as far as worker safety goes.. how safe were the workers in West, TX?

how can you change the rest of the world when you cant even change those same problems in your own country?

This post is probably falling on deaf ears on this message board tj.
Very few people on these boards ACCEPT or SEE what you just stated.

I have stated over and over how many in the middle class are spiraling down, and joining many in the lower class.

It is easier to "not see" reality, and what is really going on.
It's like that movie in which you must put on the sunglasses to see, many just don't want to wear the glasses.

tj, it's just easier to chat about poverty "in other countries", than to face how serious, bad and dire things are in America.
[sm=hippie.gif]

quote:

(sigh).. yes, I know.. people dont want to hear it, they dont want to see it or think about it when its in their back yard.. I just find it really disheartening.. this is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world,.. and so many people are falling thru the cracks..

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marini

quote:

(sigh).. yes, I know.. people dont want to hear it, they dont want to see it or think about it when its in their back yard.. I just find it really disheartening.. this is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world,.. and so many people are falling thru the cracks..

If you can't see and accept what is going on, you can't do anything about it.
The more people that can actually SEE what is going on, and let it be known, will eventually have some ability to get something done.
One of the biggest problems right now, is "Poverty in America" is not an ongoing campaign/front and center "news" concern.
As the numbers of disenfranchised continues to rise, eventually people are going to gather together and "make sure their voices/concerns/issues" are well known to others, in a variety of ways.

quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

quote:

I said that in post 48

Then you do understand that it takes more than one or two generations to accomplish right? ...Which is the time frame we are talking about
Butch

That was true when nations moved from agriculture to industrialization that was home based. I have the impression that B_desh is a nation rising from tribalism into foreign exploitation. Malthus hypothesized that while resources grew arithmetically population expanded exponentially. We see that happening as the world population presses seven billion now. There are all sorts of menacing consequences that potentially arise from that.

quote:

It is more likely to continue to improve than not, unless those countries' governments leech the improvements for themselves, leaving their citizens in squalor. Until corruption like that (in those cases) is ousted, it's going to be pretty difficult to seriously improve conditions for the people.

quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

It is more likely to continue to improve than not, unless those countries' governments leech the improvements for themselves, leaving their citizens in squalor. Until corruption like that (in those cases) is ousted, it's going to be pretty difficult to seriously improve conditions for the people.

The following is from the article linked below:
Thanks to their political clout and now a new Industrial Police force that crushes dissension at their plants, labor activists say, it is the factory owners themselves who keep garment workers' wages lower than anywhere else in the world - and all too often get away with lax safety standards.
[SNIP]
As pay levels rise in traditional factory-floor nations, Bangladesh stands as a last outpost of cheap labor, an advantage that has helped lift it to number two in the global ranking of garment exporters, behind China.
Bangladesh ranked last in minimum wages for factory workers in 2010, according to World Bank data, behind Cambodia, the last country added to the global supply chain in 2000.
"It's the lowest of the low in terms of wages," says Malte Luebker, the International labor Organization's senior wage specialist for Asia-Pacific. "Wages are the key drawing point."
[SNIP]
Garment workers won a victory of sorts in 2010 after months of violent protests over pay and conditions. The government raised the monthly minimum wage by 80 percent to 3,000 takas ($38.50). Only a small fraction of workers are actually paid the minimum, however: Several factory owners said the average wage in their factories is around 5,000 takas ($64.10).
That's still much lower than in China, where the minimum wage for garment workers ranges from $154 to $230 per month, and in Cambodia, where the monthly base is $80, according to the International labor Organization.
Drawn by the lower costs, even Chinese garment businesses are moving to Bangladesh.
[SNIP]
Several plant owners, factory managers and representatives of retailers in Dhaka, none of whom would speak on record about the subject, said the brands are paying less and less. One said a buyer paid him $5.00 per piece for a particular make of shirt in 2011 and then offered $4.50 for the same thing a year later. Another estimated that overall prices have fallen by 40 percent over the past two years.
"They pay you like a beggar and take quality like a king," said Abdul Mannan, who helped open up the industry when he was textiles minister in the early 1990s and now owns more than two dozen factories at home and abroad.
Sometimes buyers refuse to negotiate because they know competition among factory owners for high-volume orders is intense.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/02/us-bangladesh-garments-special-report-idUSBRE9411CX20130502
This article is quite illuminating and not so optimistic as some posters in this thread. The situation is real-world complicated.