SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more

Re:SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more by rayiner on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @10:16AM (#8990765)

To me, the big problem with globalization is not the conditions of the sweatshops in India. $1 a day and the chance of burning alive in a garment factory (happened just the other day in Bangladesh) is better than subsistence farming, probably.[1] My problem with it is that of the $50 a day that comes out of an American pocket by exporting that work overseas, $1 goes to the Bengali garment worker, and $49 goes into the pocket of some shareholder. And when conditions become "too good" in India and Bangladesh, as is already happening, they'll just move over to Vietnam or Laos.

[1] There's also the issue that the negative externalities of industry make the other alternatives worse. My dad grew up in a village in Bangladesh. Before run-off from industrial farming killed them all, the rivers were teaming with hundreds of different kinds of fish. The existence of industry makes the lives of farmers harder.

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Re:SWEATSHOP – I can´t take any more by dragontamer on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @11:37PM (#8995327)

Taxes + tariffs can solve that issue.

The main issue is if you push too hard, then the $49 to US shareholders suddenly becomes $49 to Irish Shareholders instead, as companies have the ability to move themselves to other countries to take advantage of tax codes.

So the tax / tariff systems need to be written in a way to account for that. Or we can get a quicker Congress so that we can keep up with (legal) tax evaders.

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