CORPORATE GREED AND THE CURRENT STATE OF GLOBAL ECONOMY

CORPORATE GREED AND THE CURRENT STATE OF GLOBAL ECONOMY

http://www.thenewblackmagazine.com/view.aspx?index=1602

By Jill A. Bolstridge



Saturday/Sunday, September 27-28, 2008.



Why should the profits of multi-national corporations take precedence over the quality of life for so many of the worlds poor?


The private corporation has become the key ingredient in modern-day imperialism, allowing big businesses to profit at unprecedented rates while abusing the individual, underpaying and mistreating workers, raping the land, and depleting the world’s natural resources.



One of the biggest corporations sweeping the globe today with its corrupt practices is WalMart. Known for its “falling prices,” WalMart currently boasts store locations all throughout the
US, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom.



WalMart superstores, which sell everything from clothing and groceries to insurance policies and airline tickets, have all but taken over in many of the small towns where the corporation dominates, putting privately-owned shops out of business without contest and seizing monopolies over those areas. Walmart and Sam’s Club boast and deliver on unbeatable prices, yet do so at the expense of their minimum wage workers.



Within its homeland, Walmart has been sued in 14 US states for forcing workers to work unpaid overtime. Notorious for underpaying its workers and denying them the right to a union, health insurance, and other worker’s benefits, WalMart has recently received nation-wide attention in the US’s alternate media.



Yet even worse abuses are taking place across the globe at the hands of the “Smiley Faced” corporation; WalMart uses distributors all over the world that run sweat shops where workers are abused daily to keep WalMart shelves stocked. Abuses have been reported at textile factory TOS Dominica in the Dominican Republic, as well as in factories in China and India.



WalMart’s web site boasts that, “We buy products from more than 60,000 suppliers in 70 countries,” but the suppliers which WalMart uses in order to keep its prices low are a breeding ground for unhealthy working conditions for under-age and under-paid workers who often work 12-14 hour days in unsafe environments