Are wealthy countries in anyway responsible to lift poor countries out of poverty?

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deMontfort said:
I see the Communists are back in the thread :roll_eyes:
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How do you justify that it is ok for the Walton family to be worth around $160 billion? And it is ok for a large percentage of their employees to struggle to exist financially?
 
Eric_Hyom said:
And it is ok for a large percentage of their employees to struggle to exist financially?
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People in entry level retail jobs have always struggled financially, and always will. They struggled when Kresge, Woolworth, Sears, Ward’s and mom and pop ruled the world of retail.

And in the future of retail with Amazon, it will still be the same thing.

Retail jobs aren’t generally hard to do, there are few barriers to entry, they are right in people’s neighborhood. It isn’t surprising that they don’t command large salaries.
 
Augustinian said:
People in entry level retail jobs have always struggled financially, and always will. They struggled when Kresge, Woolworth, Sears, Ward’s and mom and pop ruled the world of retail.
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When I was growing up, cashiers at most of the grocery stores were unionized and they did reasonably well. Not spectacularly well, but reasonably well. Of course unionization is another issue in and of itself, but the point is that retail jobs don’t necessarily have to be low paid jobs. That would likely raise prices for consumers though. Interestingly enough, near me Aldi seems to pay well for a retailer, but they have few staff and they seem to work pretty hard.
 
Eric_Hyom said:
How do you justify that it is ok for the Walton family to be worth around $160 billion? And it is ok for a large percentage of their employees to struggle to exist financially?
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More importantly, how do you justify stealing from people, and why do you imagine it will work?

Your thinking is why Venezuela appropriated their oil industry, yet in doing so they killed the golden goose and now people are starving, much worse than struggling to pay their bills.
 
Augustinian said:
People in entry level retail jobs have always struggled financially, and always will. They struggled when Kresge, Woolworth, Sears, Ward’s and mom and pop ruled the world of retail.

And in the future of retail with Amazon, it will still be the same thing.
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That could be why people like the Waltons make their billions, they exploit labour. They know people at the bottom of the pile should be grateful for the few crumbs that are thrown their way.

Do you truthfully believe that it is ok for the Waltons to have so much, yet pay their workers so little?
 
Eric_Hyom said:
That could be why people like the Waltons make their billions, they exploit labour. They know people at the bottom of the pile should be grateful for the few crumbs that are thrown their way.

Do you truthfully believe that it is ok for the Waltons to have so much, yet pay their workers so little?
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Why don’t you start a competing business and pay double the wages?
But you’ll have to raise your prices. How many of these ‘poor’ workers will shop in your store?
 
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Eric_Hyom said:
That could be why people like the Waltons make their billions, they exploit labour.
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I don’t think so. Plenty of other retail store owners have been just as tough on their workers, paying lower wages than Walmart, yet didn’t become billionaires. In fact many have gone bankrupt. I believe the Waltons made their billions through innovation, just like Jeff Bezos.
 
If you want the workers to benefit more, stop importing more cheap labor that competes with them for jobs. The fundamental problem with globalism is that it harms the workers at the bottom while the owners get all the benefits.
 
Yes.They exploit the poor while living it up spending on “toys” and dropping cash to impress pretty hanger on type women etc…meanwhile the poor are slaving away without any holidays or work-life balance just to be able to survive.

I should clarify that I definitely don’t think that all wealthy people are like this but the ones that are are not few and far between.
 
Rozellelily said:
I should clarify that I definitely don’t think that all wealthy people are like this but the ones that are are not few and far between.
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I don’t think that’s true at all. I think most very affluent people, at least here in America, are gung-ho and not slackers by any stretch of the imagination.

There are some who merely inherited their wealth, and some of them might fit into your stereotype. But even then, not all of them. Helen Clay Frick, the Pittsburgh steel heiress had a very active life in philanthropy

Look at President Trump. Whether you like his policies or not, he undisputedly indefatigable. Up before the crack of dawn tweeting to the people, and out until the wee hours for nighttime rallies. Not bad for a 72 year old man.
 
I have to admit that personally I agree with you here.
Even living in Australia there is increasing homeless and while the employment rate is low and fallen to only 5.3 percent I still find it surprisingly that the Government would rather support importing people from India to do IT type jobs instead of training Australian citizens to do them, and also the amount of “experts” we seem to always have from Ireland and Scotland in the media on Economics or whatever the current issue of the day is,and News Reporters who have moved from Ireland to Australia,never ceases to surprise me.
When I see all this,and see “experts” imported from Scotland to talk about the sad issues of homelessness in Australia,I can’t help but see the irony.

Instead of paying all these “imported experts” or companies paying huge money to consultancy companies such as Deloitte etc,why not use this money to train up the unemployed already in Australia so that they become the news reader,or the “expert on latest topic” etc??
 
I agree with you.
I don’t mean that they are slackers,far from it, but rather the gap between their living circumstances and their employees and that some spend their money on waste/lavish lifestyle like expensive champagne etc.
I’m not referring to Donald Trump or all wealthy people but look at ex Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour and his 30 Million dollar mansion for example-who needs a 30 million dollar house while others are on “struggle street”?

Or another example is Travers Beynon who made his wealth through tobacco and likes to spend it on lavish hedonistic parties,women,cars and poor taste furnishings etc…

His shoes look cheap but who knows how much he paid (wasted) for them…


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People can donate to other people from other countries. But how can we lift people out of poverty in places like North Korea, when their psycho leader would just steal everything anyway? When people donate food and other items to African countries, many times that specific countries government will steal those donated good for their leaders.
 
Rozellelily said:
Instead of paying all these “imported experts” or companies paying huge money to consultancy companies such as Deloitte etc,why not use this money to train up the unemployed already in Australia so that they become the news reader,or the “expert on latest topic” etc??
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Yes, if there truely is a shortage of IT workers, then college students will start to change their majors to chase the jobs and the money. Importing workers to alleviate the immediate hiring pain just kneecaps the labor market from responding to the shortage. So what if it takes a couple years to ramp up education in a particular field.

Same goes for specialists as you’ve noted - why get your Phd if the jobs are being filled by foreigners willing to work for less.
 
Augustinian said:
I believe the Waltons made their billions through innovation, just like Jeff Bezos.
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I am sure the Waltons innovations were good, but they fail to reward their staff for making it happen. Jeff Bezos certainly takes most of the credit for his innovations, apparently he earns in ten seconds what his average worker earns in a year.
 
Is it always due to cost cutting though or is it sometimes just a mentality of pure self focus-ie: them rather having someone now then caring about bettering the unemployed people’s lives?

I know that it is the case with the more blue collar labour type jobs such as building or sheep shearing etc that foreign workers often get paid less/willing to work for less but with the specialty type jobs I would think the imported people are getting paid as much as an person native to Australia would be also?

I understand there might be some jobs that are hard to fill due to low wages such as fruit picking and sheep shearing, but the other jobs like IT or experts on issues like homelessness,social or political commentators and journalists etc surely could by filled by upskilling unemployed people already in Australia.
How can there be talk about addressing issues with unemployment but then at the same time undermining that by not giving those unemployed the opportunity to be “first in line”,so to speak, for the jobs available and not training them to fill those roles?

To be controversial,personally I also consider Job Retruitment Consultant roles as being vulture/opportunistic roles-white collar pimps- and a lot of those roles here are filled by England or Irish imports,some with dubious ethics.
I would prefer to go back to a system like 10 + years ago when unemployed people would themselves apply to the Company /Hr person of the company and there was no role of Job Recruiter.
Some companies might say this is more time consuming for them but what’s then the point of them having a Human Relations employee in the first place if not partly to sift through resumes etc…
 
It’s not the unemployed who get IT and specialist jobs when there is a shortage. It’s mostly people who are employed already but at a level down, they step up into the new position perhaps with some extra training. But this creates a ripple effect that does create openings for the educated unemployed.

Foreigners hired into IT and specialist jobs may be paid the same starting wage, but their participation depresses wage growth. If they are being sponsored to work, they also have less leverage to seek raises.
 
Augustinian said:
Look at President Trump. Whether you like his policies or not, he undisputedly indefatigable. Up before the crack of dawn tweeting to the people, and out until the wee hours for nighttime rallies. Not bad for a 72 year old man.
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Be it hiring undocumented Polish immigrants at sub-standard pay (5/hr), cheating private small businesses out of pay they were due after services rendered, wanting a woman’s “ugly house” bought out and torn down for a casino parking lot that was needed, Trump vodka, steaks, or his University (found felonious by a federal judge) using junk bonds to build his casinos and then using bankruptcy laws to squeeze out of debt, multiple racial discrimination suits in his rental practices…on and on and on and on,…….Mr. Trump would be the last person I would look to as the model of enterprise on the backs of others.
 
Trump drives a hard bargain.

But you can choose not to do business with him.

On the other hand, about 30,000 people are on his payroll.
 
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