Wal-Mart defense by Penn and Teller....

[RadioRaheem84]

I thought I'd bring the topic of Wal Mart defenders by using Penn and Teller's Bullshit show. In this episode they defend Wal Mart's tactics of paying their employees starvation wages, the company's use of sweatshop labor and the fact that it really doesn't kill small shops.

Lets disect some of these points:

1.) Wal-Mart wages are determined by the supply and demand of the labor market. Since the jobs needed by Wal Mart are low skill jobs, that is the reason why Wal Mart pays so low.

2.) The defense of the sweatshop argument is that if those sweatshops weren't there, then those people would starve or sell their bodies in the street. They say sweatshops are bad but that is the only way to keep the prices low and to keep sweatshop workers employed.

3.) Penn and Teller say that small businesses go under all the time and has nothing to do with Wal-Mart even being there. He evens says that the solution to small town ills is to build a Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart would force out all crackhomes and squalor within the town.

4.) Wal-Mart doesn't need to have its expenses subsidized the state. Penn says that most of the people who were hired by Wal Mart were already on welfare or medicaid before they got the job anyways.

5.) Unions are a big racket according to Penn and Teller. The unions push for membership in order to recieve higher revenues in dues. This makes the unionization of Wal Mart a high priority for them. Penn says that unionization would be bad for consumers who will see their once low prices skyrocket to pay for union compensations.

The list goes on. But Penn and Teller (two fellows at the CATO Institute)leave out so many other things wrong with Wal-Mart and stick to degrading two yokels making anti-Wal Mart shirts at a local Kinkos. They neglect the lawsuits, the scores of former Wal Mart managers, employees, etc. They only speak to ONE employee!

What a horrible show! It's Orwellian to think that its titled 'Bullshit'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioWgolslm0&feature=related

[bootleg42]

I thought I'd bring the topic of Wal Mart defenders by using Penn and Teller's Bullshit show. In this episode they defend Wal Mart's tactics of paying their employees starvation wages, the company's use of sweatshop labor and the fact that it really doesn't kill small shops.

Lets disect some of these points:

1.) Wal-Mart wages are determined by the supply and demand of the labor market. Since the jobs needed by Wal Mart are low skill jobs, that is the reason why Wal Mart pays so low.

2.) The defense of the sweatshop argument is that if those sweatshops weren't there, then those people would starve or sell their bodies in the street. They say sweatshops are bad but that is the only way to keep the prices low and to keep sweatshop workers employed.

3.) Penn and Teller say that small businesses go under all the time and has nothing to do with Wal-Mart even being there. He evens says that the solution to small town ills is to build a Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart would force out all crackhomes and squalor within the town.

4.) Wal-Mart doesn't need to have its expenses subsidized the state. Penn says that most of the people who were hired by Wal Mart were already on welfare or medicaid before they got the job anyways.

5.) Unions are a big racket according to Penn and Teller. The unions push for membership in order to recieve higher revenues in dues. This makes the unionization of Wal Mart a high priority for them. Penn says that unionization would be bad for consumers who will see their once low prices skyrocket to pay for union compensations.

The list goes on. But Penn and Teller (two fellows at the CATO Institute)leave out so many other things wrong with Wal-Mart and stick to degrading two yokels making anti-Wal Mart shirts at a local Kinkos. They neglect the lawsuits, the scores of former Wal Mart managers, employees, etc. They only speak to ONE employee!

What a horrible show! It's Orwellian to think that its titled 'Bullshit'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioWgolslm0&feature=related

They're a bunch of libertarian nuts.

It's a shame that the word "libertarian" became something COMPLETELY different in the United States. It is almost perverse the way the U.S. political culture took something as great as libertarianism, and turned it into the free-market nutjob belief.

Don't they know that the original true libertarians were the most anti-capitalist people in the world.

[RadioRaheem84]

They're "right"-libertarians. They're also stooges for that bastion of truth called the Cato Institute. They're to the right of Andrew Carnegie. But yes I agree that the US political structure is demented. Liberals who support free trade and mild social spending are somehow 'leftist'. While right wing but jobs are called 'conservatives', when they themselves aren't the least bit nationalist (except for the military), but supportive of tax cuts for the top 1 percent and in favor globalization. It is too kooky. :laugh:


I also cannot stand the cloud libertarians sit on, thinking they're philosophy is somehow the new hip thing. Apparently aruging in favor of sweatshop labor is the new cause for freedom.

[erupt]

Don't they know that the original true libertarians were the most anti-capitalist people in the world.
Yeah that bugs me, too. That's like calling fascists in America socialists..or something along those lines.

The only point I would like them to elaborate on and understand more (while I disagree with all their points) is the "sweat shops are better than prostitution" ideology. Do they not believe that both problems should be resolved. They sound so terrible just remarking that people are "better off" in such a situation. They should have made some mention of the fact that sweat shops are horrifying. But, of course not, they probably were Ron Paul supporters in the U.S. elections.

[Digitalism]

Penn and Teller's Bullshit show.

that's exactly what it is, a bullshit show. :laugh: