Say Anything Blog

I don’t favour sweatshops but I do like the idea of microcredit.What little I’ve read on the subject suggests that it does much good and is truer to the spirit of the capitalist dream IMO. I’d also add that helping the developing and underdeveloped world get on the right track makes sense from both economic and moral standpoints and because most efforts have failed due to stupid models and policies doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying. It just means we should encourage the use of programs that work.

Easier said than done I acknowledge.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear
*Edmund Burke*

MS Sweatshops? Dude, call tech support sometime.
But I don’t think he’s saying what you think he’s saying. I’d have to read the Davos speech to be sure, but it sounds to me like he thinks businesses should find a way to make a profit dealing with the “bottom billion”. It’s easy to give the former richest man in the world a hard time, but I’m not having a problem with corporations making a buck and saving lives at the same time.

Easier said than done I acknowledge.

Mike, it is easy.

I’m in, you?

“If a conservative is still a republican after the last 13 years, he is blind to the fact that his party of choice has failed him utterly.” – Realitybasedbob

I think it’s a start and it’s something a little guy like me can do so you can count me in.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear
*Edmund Burke*

You want to tackle the world’s poverty? Then tackle its corrupt governments.

All in for that?

Oh yeah,...those dictators in Africa are “sovereign”, so we’re right back where we started.

Whatever. Things will never get solved because people won’t do what is necessary to solve them. Freedom is pissed on by the same people who call for us to give money.

I don’t begrudge Gates’ billions. He made his money through hard work and innovation. But when people of his stature and wealth spends thousands of dollars on trash cans and shower curtains, then become…

impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism

... it just makes me queezy.

“To love is not to stare steadfast at one another...it is to look forward, in the same direction.”
Saint-Exupéry

Microsoft and most major software companies have had sweat shops in 3rd world countries for decades as have many other types of companies. If you want to start a business that involves engineering or software, the cheapest way to do it is to have the work done in sweat shops off shore. The guys who arrange this are all over companies at any major technology show. What makes the sweat shops cheap is that they exist in countries that have corrupt governments and don’t really have free enterprise no matter what they say. The workers are paid just enough to get by on with the bulk of the money going to the rich and government officials. The money is not put into the country’s economy and the workers’ lives are not made better. Capitalism only works in countries where human rights are protected.

The workers are paid just enough to get by on with the bulk of the money going to the rich and government officials.

The truth is that the wages in the so-called “sweat shops” are higher than the going wages in those countries; the problem is with the corrupt socialist govts, not the businesses.  It’s a way to get capital into the poorer countries; Japan is a great example.

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

"Capitalism only works in countries where human rights are protected.”

So, why are you against destroying socialism? Human rights are trampled by socialists far more than capitalists. Happy workers produce more. Abusing workers human rights makes them unhappy. Socialists abuse human rights.

As for sweat shops, your big solution is for them to have no jobs? Just stand in line to get their UN sanctioned 1/4 kilo rice, 1/2 liter water rations every 4 days. Yea, that will create a Utopian paradise.

Long story short, Gates was perfectly fine with abusing anyone he had to in order to build his fortune. Just ask Jobs.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

“Capitalism only works in countries where human rights are protected.”

Precisely backwards. Human rights only come about when capitalism - itself a fundamental human right - is practiced.