John Stossel's Hit Piece on American Apparel (20/20 last night)

I watched the first two segment's of 20/20 (which was the first time I've watched this show in years).

I don't think I'll ever watch 20/20 again. The show was disgusting.

The first segment was on American Apparel. The first two-thirds of the segment was about the owner. He didn't seem to start off particularly wealthy. He worked hard. He seems to be a little bit of a Marxist. He lives in a tiny rented house in the same neighborhood as many of his employees. His company makes 120 million a year, but he only takes out about 100,000 a year. His employees--mostly immigrants--love him because he pays them 12 dollars an hour with great benefits when, for most of their lives, many of them have never made more than 9, and have often made much less. He is more competitive than Chinese factories paying much less.

So, for the first two-thirds of the story, we're getting the impression that if the CEO isn't greedy and the employees are happy, America can compete with the rest of the world. But then what does Stoessel do? He uses the rest of the segment to demonize the guy. Stossel says that they use sex too much to sell the product and four former employees have sued him (one case has already been thrown out of court, but Stossel counts it) because of the sexually-charged atmosphere in the work place.

One person claims the owner pulled down his pants and showed his underwear, to which the guy responded, "we sell underwear; I was showing my underwear to make a point about the product." He also makes the point that fashion is about sex, which Stoessel should know because his station keeps running those soft-porn Victoria Secrets ads featuring women in lingerie selling PERFUME.

The second segment was much nicer to the CEO they featured. Who was it? Russel Simmons's wife who started a fashion company. OK, this woman is selling sex too, which they don't complain about. She started her company with Russel Simmons's millions (the rich get richer) and her entire corporate philosophy is EXCESS CONSUMPTION -- a point they keep making verbally and visually: they show her jewelry and huge house and big car and she keeps saying that she's big because she's excessive in everything she does, she's tapping into people's psychological need to show they're wealthy through excessive consumption. They ask her NO hard questions and smile and joke throughout the interview.

Just in time for Christmas, eh? How to become a millionaire? Don't treat your workers well because they're ingrates who will sue you and it's perverse to be a person who cares about them more than about yourself -- in fact, if you don't pay yourself millions and if you live in a small rented house, you're probably a sexual pervert too. The way to become a happy millionaire is to already be rich (inherit it or marry in to it if you can) and then start spending. Spending money makes money. If you buy a big house and a big car and a lot of jewelry it magically converts into sales (phase one, spend; phase three profits; what's phase two?).

Nice message.

I was so angry I didn't even bother to watch the Costco segment, which I presume was going to be the same bullshit. Somehow it was going to be bad to be good to your workers, and perhaps is due to psychological problems.

I did watch the whole hour, and I thought all the stories were done well.

All John was doing in the American Apparel segment was pointing out that everything wasn't a walk in the park for the owner. He mentioned 3 women who had sued the co. for harrassment. One suit had already been thrown out, one settled and one is unsettled. He he hadn't mentioned any of that, viewers would have gotten the impression that there have never been any problems.

I enjoyed all the segments of 20/20 last night. I liked Costco the best, just because we all love a rags to rishes, everyone is happy, tale. I don't remember there being any negative points about Costco, but you're right in that the CEO takes a $300,000+ salary, and when asked about it, he said "I feel if my salary is 20 to 30 times that of my employees, that's enough."

I thought the juxtaposition couldn't have been more obviously pro-consumption in the first two segments.

I guarantee you that Russel Simmons has been sued by former employees and so has Victoria's Secret and I wouldn't be surprised if BabyPhat has been too. But why bring it up at all with American Apparel, especially if you're going to juxtapose a second fashion company story which doesn't pick at any scabs at all, but laughs and smiles its way through a celebration of excess consumption? Why criticize using sex to sell American Apparel, but then not even talk about sex with BabyPhat?

I don't think Stossel wants to be blatant in his propagandizing, but I do think that it was obvious what the AA-BabyPhat juxtapostion was telling viewers:

You can be good to your employees, but employees suck and will sue you, and there's possibly a connection between caring about your employees and being a pervert.

Also, the entire frame for the show was that if you watch this show you will learn how to become a millionaire. They kept saying that. So they show the AmericanApparel guy who makes less than 100k a year and lives in a small rented house. OK, is he even a millionaire? What kind of life is that? And he has done this by being good to his employees?

And then they show the BabyPhat woman who is clearly a millionaire and how did she do it? By SPENDING EXCESSIVELY ON LUXURY GOODS AND BY MARRYING A RICH MAN??? There's no mention of employees or of even working together as a team with someone else to achieve that. Success was all her and was all because she lives large, and living large is a product of consumption. How is that even a lesson for anyone wanting to become successful? It's a formula for making the owners of the companies on which you spend your money millionaires.


BTW, what was the fourth segment, after Costco?

And, let me guess: the guy who's good to his employers lives modestly, dresses like his employees, and doesn't make millions, while the eBay guy lives lavishly, has a beautiful girlfriend, wears tuxedos to glamorous events, and there's no mention of employees at all.

Of course, if you're liberal, you're going to think the Costco guy is doing great.

But if you listened to the tag line for the show -- how to become a millionaire (and have a grand lifestyle) -- and if you don't have a political dispostion, you're probably going to think when the show is over that being good to your employees (and any kind of solidarity with your colleagues) is probably the biggest thing standing in the way of your personal enjoyment of the luxuries life can offer.

dresses like his employees, sends hos own faxes, and is good to his employees did say the only group who isn't happy with him is Wall Street. They said he's makeing a nice profit, but if he paid his employees less, he could make sooo much MORE $$! He said "Wall Street is always thinking about how much money they can make by next Tuessday. I want to build a Company that will still be great 50 years from now."

The Ebay guy however was described as a "nerd that made good". He's not ugly, but you're not going to see his face on the cover of any mens fashion magazine either. He makes a LOT of money, but he gives millions to charity orgs. I don't remember the name of it, but he's setting up "film schools" in less affluent areas of the US and teaching HS dtudents all the aspects of making movies, from properly using the cameras to production. He has quite a few open already and said when he has one in every major American city, he wants to do it internationally. There was also some group he sponsors who get the extremely poor children, who have been forced to work for 30 cents a week, out of India. I think they said he's already extracted 65,000+ already. He does go to some black tie parties, but he's not really a playboy type. He's 42 (I think), still single, and said "before Ebay, I would meet women, if there seemed to be a mutual interest, he's ask them out. I'd say on average, I was successsful in one out of four times. After Ebay, the ratio is 4 of 4." He told a funny story about when he bought his home in LA, he hired a decorator. When she made the presentation, she showed him some vases that cost $500 to $&00 each. He said they were nice, but gee, that's a lot of money. He went home and checked out Ebay, and found the same vases for $35.00 each!

The subtle argument of the show is that if you're good to your employees, you sacrifice a luxurious life style.

The show was sold in the commercials as showing people how they can become rich -- pattern your behaviour on these models and you can become rich. They show two segments with people making personal sacrifices for their workers and these people really don't have lives any different from your average American. Then they show two people who spend spend spend (one on consumer goods, and one on, albeit, charity) and these people have great lifestyles, and they don't talk about them taking care of employees at all (in fact, they're very cagey about how they made their money -- OK, the Ebay guy had a good idea, but he made incredibly amounts of money off the stock market, and we'll see where that goes).

If you want to find out how to become rich, the show tells you nothing. But if you want to see the consequences of being rich, the show does a fine job. And then, especially with the babyphat segment, it makes it sound like it's the rich lifestyle which is the path to becoming rich. The Ebay segment sounds more like it was about the consequences of being rich too, and not so much about what the average person needs to do to become wealthy.

And as I said, the two worker-friendly segments (and work is usually the only route to wealth for most Americans) seem to have tought the lesson that being friendly to workers COSTS executives a luxurious lifestyle -- ie, all boats cannot rise on a rising tide. If there was no juxtaposition with people who got rich and luxurious lifestyles (ignoring the worker's), it might have been a different message.

of the Costco CEO to the (I'm presuming) luxurious life style of the EBay executive, did they talk about how the was stock options dillute the equity value of a corporation and shift a lot of wealth to insiders at a high cost to the rest of the equity owners who might not realize their true cost until its too late?

so why focus on the legal trouble of just one on them, and not the others?

difference. thats the range it used to be long ago when things were a little more fair to american workers.

Second rate Geraldo right down to the bad upper lip hair.

Not to imply that Geraldo is first rate, mind you.

Just do a little searching in here and you'll get plenty of examples.

I will never, ever watch anything he hosts. He is a crazed, depraved right-wing madman. I honestly believe he is the most selfish person I have ever kown (or known of).

You should have seen his disgusting diatribe against anything environmental a few years ago. According to him, the environmentalists were the vilest boogy men and capitalistic adventurists were to be glorified.

A horrible, horrible, litte man, that John Stossel. Blech!! :puke: :argh:

I wonder where they are made? And by whom? And what they get paid...Just curious.

Having not seen the show, I think I will continue to buy my cotton basics from American Apparel.

:shrug:

Not only did they not talk about how, I'm sure, low paid people make her clothes (which funds her excess consumption on luxury goods), they didn't even talk about her in terms of a team. She didn't get rich on her own. People helped her. But the segment argued that she got rich because of her personal decision to spend a lot of money on fine china, a big mansion, jewelry, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if the point of picking her "success story" was because they wanted someone to feature who put the cart before the horse. The argument wasn't even that success (or marriage) allowed her to spend like that. It was that the act of living large and spending excessively created the corporate image (and the attitude or psychological disposition) which led to success. In other words, spending on luxury items can make you rich. And there's no mention at all of the labor which goes into making her product, or all her lawyers, accountants, secretaries, designers, etc., who support your work -- it's entirely her personal choices about consumption which resulted in her success.

What could be a better Christmas message for the masses?

One more reason not to watch that show :)

I turned it off when they started in on the lawsuits...

and they put out a great product for a fair price. The owner treats his employees very well in comparison to other garment distributors and yes they use real employees to model for their catalog. They even featured a 55+ year old woman on the cover one year. It was great.

Keep in mind that in a company with over 200+ employees you are going to have your share of disgruntled employees who will come after you no matter what you do. I run a much smaller company and have had my share of bogus workmen comp claims and even had one employee go after me for racial discrimination, despite the fact that I filled his job with another black male.

American Apparel is the Ben & Jerry's of the apparel industry and is a great model that proves you don't have to be a greedy SOB in order to be successful. It is possible to pay good wages, put out a good product and still make money. Gee what a concept.

he has always been a committed progressive with a great sense of humor. I am proud of what he has accomplished.
John Stossel can go to hell.

Go shop at Costco!