X-Message-Number: 28041
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:40:11 -0600
From: "Anthony ." <>
Subject: Re: Things are better now
References: <>

On 6/15/06, egg plant <> wrote:

> Sam Walton has done more to alleviate world poverty than any man who ever
> lived

More than your hero Bill Gates?
He was certainly a good anti-communist with an Man of Steel work
ethic, but I doubt your claim.

This is how I see how Walton has done more than any man who ever lived
to alleviate world poverty:

Wal-Mart has driven smaller retailers out of business; forced
manufacturers to move manufacturing jobs overseas - i.e. job-flight.
Economist Emek Basker, Ph.D., attempted to quantify the impact. Her
study found that in a typical United States county, when a Wal-Mart
opens, three other retailers close within two years and four close
within five years. While the Wal-Mart might employ 300 people, another
250 people working in retail lose their jobs within five years in that
county. I guess that is 50 more jobs hey? but... at the end of 2005,
the company faced dozens of lawsuits across the country for allegedly
not paying workers overtime. Women have also accused Wal-Mart of
discrimination, and employees have said that it squashes efforts to
unionize and doesn't provide decent healthcare.

WM might create jobs, but they are of poor quality, especially
compared to the jobs WM ended. WM might "create wealth" overseas, but
at the cost of exploiting the workers. This is partially the fault of
shitty governments in the countries that WM is using, and partially
the fault of an ethics-blind WM.

I'm all for wealth-creation John, but I also see distinct benefits in
wealth re-distribution, especially when one compares WM's annual sales
to Haiti's entire annual budget.

Don't you think WM could afford to pay its worker's just a little
more? And give them good health-care? If WM's "success" is based on
paying suppliers and workers as little as possible (while the execs
reap massive and lop-sided rewards) - is this really success at all?

> and if you don't want to be "exploited" by Wal-Mart then don't work
> there.

That's a bit like saying "if you don't like Tony Blair, don't live in the UK".

Perhaps the kind of worker who'd look for work at WM could just work
at a lawyers office instead? Or may be they'll just end up at
McDonalds. Perhaps they should have the steely drive to build their
own empire? I guess they're too lazy or dumb to do that.

> What Haiti needs is a large corporation to "exploit" them by opening up
> sweat shops that pay 40 cents an hour because that beats what they make now,
> zero cents an hour;

Wrong.
WM is already paying that amount to the workers at L.V. Miles, (an
assembly plant in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti). They get $3.33 a day under
contract to the Walt Disney Company to make those cute, cheap
Pocahantas pajamas that make your daughter feel like a princess.

Perhaps WM needs to do something better. But then, would they survive
now that they've taken the market in this direction?

> but companies won't do that because well meaning but
> foolish people like you would organize boycotts.

It is foolish to get your facts wrong. It is well meaning to give a
flying-fuck about poor people.

> >Show me a significant drop in air pollution in your country
>
> The amount of sulfur dioxide in the air of London reached its peak around
> 1850, by 1950 it was one tenth that,

In 1952 the "killer smog" killed 1000s of people over 4 days. One
tenth of 1850 levels was not just harmful, but lethal.

> today it is one tenth that again.

When-ever I leave London I blow my nose to see how black the contents
are. It is always mostly black. But I suppose the increase in
child-hood asthma have nothing to do with that because it is now
1/10th of killer smog levels?

Take a look at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/295067.stm
Evidence has been found of a link between air pollution and asthma in
children (duh).

The study of 632 children aged 7 to 11 years found that respiratory
disorders worsened as air pollution increased.

Researchers led by Dr Marike Boezen at the University of Groningen in
the Netherlands performed the study and have published their results
in The Lancet medical journal.

> Particels in the air reached its peak in 1960, today it is one tenth what it
> was; Carbon monoxide has been reduced 80% since 1990 and there was a similar
> reduction in lead compounds; the reduction of nitric oxide has been less
> dramatic but even here has been cut in half since 1975.

Good for rich, hard-working London! As I said, pollution has not risen
*everywhere*. Now take a trip to Mexico City and see how the poor deal
with their air pollution.

> The poorest area on earth is sub Saharan Africa, in 1950 the
> average life expectancy was 38 years, today it is 49.

Re: what I previously said about infant mortality. That is not to say
the small amount of medical relief and education (e.g. preventing
female genital mutilation which can cause complications in child-birth
and infant-death) that the West sends to Africa may have helped in
this case.

> It's true there has
> been no increase since 1990 but that is entirely due to the AIDS epidemic,

Which - as David Stodolsky just pointed out - is made worse by stupid
and greedy Western pharmacutical corporations. This problem is
compounded by exploitative international politics (e.g. the average
African government spends more annually to finance its foreign debts
than on national health care, and many spend more on debt servicing
than on health and education combined - these are illegitimate foreign
debts, contracted during the cold war by unrepresentative governments
from Western creditors that sought to buy geopolitical loyalties, not
to finance development in countries previously set back by Western
colonialism) and the promotion of fucked/medieval educational policies
in Africa and other countries (including the US) - like George Bush's
abstainence program and cutting funding for abortion and
contraception.

> for the world as a whole it has gone from 48 to 64.

This average is meaningless.

Poverty has a very substantial effect on life expectancy. In the
United Kingdom life expectancy in the wealthiest areas is ten years
longer than the poorest areas and the gap appears to be increasing as
life expectancy for the prosperous continues to increase while in more
deprived communities there is little increase.

Air pollution also reduces life expectancy, especially for those
living near busy roads, due to the exhaust fumes from cars. Occupation
also has a major effect on life expectancy. Well-educated
professionals working in offices have a high life expectancy, while
asbestos and coal miners do not.

Anthony

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