ClumsyMonkey.net

A: The faith you put in corporations to behave themselves is far too greatly misplaced.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingan ... 39,00.html

what's so immoral about that?

branch hacker. the war is the root of this problem, not the response of Sony.

blue & copper wrote:what's so immoral about that?

branch hacker. the war is the root of this problem, not the response of Sony.

Since you must've accidently not read the article...

the article wrote:Japanese electronics giant Sony has taken an extraordinary step to cash in on the war in Iraq by patenting the term "Shock and Awe" for a computer game.
It is among a swarm of companies scrambling to commercially exploit the war in Iraq, which has killed more than 5,000 soldiers and civilians in the space of three weeks.

To summarize, Sony sees nothing wrong with making a fast buck off of 5,000 deaths.

In case you think this is somehow an isolated incident:

the article, again wrote:After September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, the US PTO was flooded with applications for trademarks for products bearing legends such as "the war on terrorism" and "remember the twin towers".

At the time applications were also been filed for products inscribed with the phrases "Osama, can you see the bombs bursting in the air?"; "Osama, Yo' Mama"; "9-11-01, lest we forget"; and "Operation Enduring Freedom".

You place far too much faith in corporations to behave themselves.

dude... so what? if you want to talk about why it wont work, talk about coorporate irresponsibility such as enron. talk about that.

why socialism would never work

http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msSContents.html

it's been proved economically impossible since 1922.

furthermore, i really don't see what's so wrong with this. yes, it's insensitive, but i hardly believe it's indicative of market failure.

narbus, how were they misbehaving?

what IS wrong with what they're doing?

It was inevitable that some one would try to make a dollar or two off the war

yeah... and the us government is #1 on that list.

oh, the hypocrisy.

The point is corporations try to make money off of other's suffering. It doesn't matter that this time it's a war, the point is, if it sells they'll use it. That's why consumerism discusts me.

meh. be upset with the people buying the shit - it's their judgement you don't like.

it's not up to us to tell sony what they can sell.

Therefore, why blame governments for their actions? It was the judgement of the people that put them in power anyway.

I don't have the choice to not have advertising thrown in my face everyday. I don't have the choice to not have my education sponsored by Coca-Cola. I don't have the right to be anything but a faceless consumer to corporations.

What about corporations using sweat-shop and child labour to keep an edge on the competition? Sure, i can choose to not buy products from that certain corporation, but what if they lie about it to me? What if there comes a day when all big corporations must use child labour to stay on top? People will buy what is cheapest and in order to keep their products the cheapest, they must do whatever they can. Maybe one day all corporations that don't use child labour will be forced to go bankrupt because they cannot keep their prices low enough. So yes, I am upset with the people who buy it, but corporations aren't exactly doing anything to stop it. At what point do you finally have to tell them it must stop?


I am against senseless buying, and unfortunatly, that disease is running rampant in our society.

why should it stop?

what's wrong with senseless buying? what's wrong with children working?

as long as nobody has a gun to their head saying "work slave work" then there is no infraction. if the kid isn't happy, he can quit.

what's wrong with your education being sponsored by coke?

I have a class right now, but I'll come back with some nice little arguments to spice this convesation up.

the hatred sweatshop labour is widely misplaced and due, in large part, to ignorance of the local economic conditions that mandate it's use.

i remember not so long ago, i saw an episode of 60 minutes where they were profiling a program which helps people in africa immigrate to the united states.

when one of the africans was asked how many hours in a day he wanted to work, he replied "16".

firstly, the people in the countries where this type of labour exists are very poor. ask any one of them if they'd like to have a job, even if it means working in a textiles factory for $1 an hour, 16 hours a day, and 9/10 of them will tell you yes.

secondly, local businesses do not pay well either. it's not like the gap is raiding villages, stealing the children, chaining them up and forcing them to work for pittance while the rest of the people enjoy $6 minimum wage. if the gap were to increase it's wages to the what you would consider an "acceptable" level, it would create serious disruption in the local economy.

thirdly, the labour these people do is unskilled, and widely available. anybody can put shoes or clothing together. bluntly, their labour is not worth very much. they have very limited assets and recognize that taking pretty well whatever they can get for their very low value time is a pretty good deal.

these labour conditions, although poor, are the only way these people can get work. as time goes on, this will lead to some financial stability in the economy and it will eventually grow.

sad though it may be, bottom end, low paying labour is the foundation of all economic growth. if any third world country wants to grow economically, it has to start here.

the gap and other companies like it are helping the people they employ in these countries more then they are hurting them.

The only reason why companies use sweatshops to begin with is because of the minimum wage increases in the US. Do away with minimum wage and companies can afford to keep jobs in the US, thus improving the economy. Unfortunately, liberals believe increasing minimum wage will be better, because people will make more money and survive. Not so, all it does is force jobs out of the States and leaves more and more people unemployed. So now, the liberals fix this by giving them welfare. Great. Fix a problem with a new problem. This gives people less incentive to work. Why would they take a low-pay job when they make more money doing nothing? Again, forcing more jobs out of the US because they go unfilled. This also increases taxes, creating yet a new problem. It is a downward spiral.

welfare, minimum wage, "living wage", rent control, etc = mandatory unemployment laws.

Isnt Sony an Japanese Company?

so we're blaming this on the government instead of the corporations whose CEO's could spare a couple million bucks off their malibu homes to improve the working conditons of their workers? and the gap is 'helping' the people they are taking advantage of? they must be everly thankful for working in horrible, deathtrap conditions for barely enough money to live off of. the economy of these devolping nations before the gap came in to 'save' them must have been absoulty horrible. I'm so glad the Gap could help out.

They ARE absolutely horrible.

q: if you had a job in which the working conditions were average, the pay was ok and you weren't getting fired, would you quit to work in a sweatshop for the gap?

q(2): under what circumstances would you be prepared to take a job in a sweatshop?

a: no
a(2): very bad ones.

the human being is a rational actor. no starving rwandan or whatever would voluntarily go to work in a place which he knows will actually decrease his standard of living. you do not give these people enough credit.

like it or not, working in a sweatshop is the preferrable alternative to not working at all. those people are better off, even if only a little, then they were before the arrival of the gap/.