20 replies to this topic

[armjan]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers seeking first-time jobless compensation rose unexpectedly by 3,000 last week, according to a government report released on Thursday.

The Labor Department (news - web sites) said initial unemployment claims climbed to 324,000 in the week ended March 19 from an upwardly revised 321,000 the prior week.

While the rise defied economists' expectations for a fall to 315,000, it was still well below the 344,000 tally in the same period a year ago, a sign the job market is on the mend.

A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors behind the increase in new claims.

While they have fluctuated, new claims have held below the 350,000 watermark -- seen by economists as a sign of an improving job market for 10 straight weeks.

The Federal Reserve (news - web sites) will keep a close eye on job market trends over the coming months as it assesses how much production and labor overcapacity remains in the economy.

The U.S. central bank's Federal Open Market Committee (news - web sites) on Tuesday raised interest rates a quarter point for the seventh straight time and said economic output was gaining solidly and that job markets were improving.

Labor said the closely watched four-week moving average, which smoothes out week-to-week gyrations, also rose for its third consecutive week, climbing to 321,750 from 318,250 the previous week.

The number of unemployed workers who stayed on benefit rolls after drawing a week of benefits gained as well, jumping 31,000 to 2.67 million in the week ended March 12, the latest week for which figures were available.

[Anonymouse]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers seeking first-time jobless compensation rose unexpectedly by 3,000 last week, according to a government report released on Thursday.

The Labor Department (news - web sites) said initial unemployment claims climbed to 324,000 in the week ended March 19 from an upwardly revised 321,000 the prior week.

While the rise defied economists' expectations for a fall to 315,000, it was still well below the 344,000 tally in the same period a year ago, a sign the job market is on the mend.

A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors behind the increase in new claims.

While they have fluctuated, new claims have held below the 350,000 watermark -- seen by economists as a sign of an improving job market for 10 straight weeks.

The Federal Reserve (news - web sites) will keep a close eye on job market trends over the coming months as it assesses how much production and labor overcapacity remains in the economy.

The U.S. central bank's Federal Open Market Committee (news - web sites) on Tuesday raised interest rates a quarter point for the seventh straight time and said economic output was gaining solidly and that job markets were improving.

Labor said the closely watched four-week moving average, which smoothes out week-to-week gyrations, also rose for its third consecutive week, climbing to 321,750 from 318,250 the previous week.

The number of unemployed workers who stayed on benefit rolls after drawing a week of benefits gained as well, jumping 31,000 to 2.67 million in the week ended March 12, the latest week for which figures were available.

The project to end unemployment.

Get rid of the minimum wage.

Get rid of unemployed workers compensation.

Get rid of the labor department.

[Azat]

The project to end unemployment.

Get rid of the minimum wage.

Get rid of unemployed workers compensation.

Get rid of the labor department.

and you think this will equate to 0 unemployment?

[armjan]

The project to end unemployment.

Get rid of the minimum wage.

Get rid of unemployed workers compensation.

Get rid of the labor department.

wouldn't we have huge # of cases of child/slave labor that is undocumented?

[Anonymouse]

wouldn't we have huge # of cases of child/slave labor that is undocumented?

What is slave labor? What is bad about child labor?

[Anonymouse]

and you think this will equate to 0 unemployment?

No but it will drastically reduce unemployment. The minimum wage itself is one of the stimulants of the continuing unemployment rise.

[armjan]

What is slave labor?

sweatshop labor

What is bad about child labor?

-deprive kids of an education
-kids die young
-young girls often sexually abused directly resulting from work env(boss/poor worker)
-kids develope physical retardness
and much more...but u should get a feel for where this is going!

currently, there are rules that don't allow ppl between 16-18 to work late on wk days, max # of hrs of wk and etc.
u can raise the arg well are the rules followed. It doesn't matter. the pt is that there are rules/regulation thru labor dept that don't permit/encourage this to be lawful.

Edited by armjan, 29 March 2005 - 03:05 PM.

[Anonymouse]

sweatshop labor

Incorrect. That is not slave labor. They are working there voluntarily. No one is forcing them to work there. Apparently you don't understand what slave labor is.

-deprive kids of an education
-kids die young
-young girls often sexually abused directly resulting from work env(boss/poor worker)
-kids develope physical retardness
and much more...but u should get a feel for where this is going!

We often forget that America was once heavy on child labor. Societies that are very poor, as the case with these third world countries, usually have rampant corruption, prostitution, and starvation. If it werent for these "evil companies" creating jobs, these children would most likely be engaged in those as opposed to working in the sweatshop, at least getting something back for their labor. As a kid I remember when in highschool I sought for a part time job, and I couldn't get any because of labor laws and restrictions on age. There are many children who do not want an education and who want to work. Furthermore it is a matter of the family, not the state, that should decide if their child will work or study. Apparently you like telling other people what they can or can't do.

currently, there are rules that don't allow ppl between 16-18 to work late on wk days, max # of hrs of wk and etc.
u can raise the arg well are the rules followed. It doesn't matter. the pt is that there are rules/regulation thru labor dept that don't permit/encourage this to be lawful.

You apparently have no understanding of economics, of how regulation and interference in the market actually creates unemployment. For example, minimum wage laws are one example.

[Azat]

No but it will drastically reduce unemployment. The minimum wage itself is one of the stimulants of the continuing unemployment rise.

I think it would reduce unemployment rate, however over 50% of people who are unemployed are people who earn 45K or more so they are not sitting at home doing nothing just cruising by on unemployment checks of 300-400 dollars.

Mouse man are you a libertarian?

[armjan]

They are working there voluntarily.

i never said that workers don't go there voluntarily. there is a similarity between slave labor and sweatshops but not in the sense of volunteering. ppl will go towards the best alternative. given that there are almost no other sources of employment other than prostitution etc...they go to work for sweatshops.

We often forget that America was once heavy on child labor.

so many things have changed since the industrial revolution. we lived, we learned. u know, we used to throw bricks and stones but we have progressed, somewhat.

it appears that we are now discussing globalization as opposed to original inquiry. I only brought up sweatshops w/respect to child exploitation.

not quite sure what you r proposing. Labor/production/manufacturing in recent times has been coordinated thru companies & corps, and the regulations are there to protect children from exploitation. These are the same regulations that you would like to c dismantled? about the only type of work that applies to what u'r saying is farm work/agricultural, and often times, the parents in those cases do/expect their children to work. so i dont' c what difference it would make to dismantle regulations. Moreover, companies are after profits so there must be some organization that regulates/protects the rights of employees.

So on one hand u write "evil companies" giving rise to sweat shops, and on the other hand u would like to c the organizations that don't permit sweatshops to be abolished!
We need regulations exactly to combat what these "evil companies" are doing when exploiting children. the problem thus far is that countries abroad designate regions as "EPZ" zones where those regulations don't apply. there are also countries that do exactly what you proposed and this is why we have a problem in the first place.

Apparently you like telling other people what they can or can't do.

I don't like to c adults who exploit children for personal benefit at the expennse of the childrens well being. So yes, if it's not obvious to someone that child exploitation is wrong, then I will support the gov/org/agency that will regulate this.

You apparently have no understanding of economics, of how regulation and interference in the market actually creates unemployment.

i never claimed that i didn't. I don't see any experts here on this issue either. but to suggest that children should be exploited for the benefit of economy is silly. there are many things that contribute to unemployment and it becomes a challenge to conclude/deduce just one factor. can outsourcing be done without labor of children? there is a tradeoff, but to be quite frank, an economy is a huge monster and there are too many variables that can't be predicted to yield the desired results. that's why there are mechanisms/policies that are invoked when thresh holds are reached to yeild desired outcomes.

I think we are misunderstanding each other, I am not aruging min wage. I am arguing your statements re: not needing labor dept/regulation.

Edited by armjan, 29 March 2005 - 11:06 PM.

[armjan]

additionally, regariding the part when u "were a kid, and ..."
unemoployment percentages are w/respect to the labor force not population. so you as a child would not qualify as part of the labor force. So whether kids work or not is independent of unemployment figures b/c kids don't count in it.

here is a defn:
the measure of unemployment is the number of jobless people who are available for work and are actively seeking jobs. The unemployment rate is unemployment as a percentage of the labor force.

Edited by armjan, 29 March 2005 - 10:58 PM.

[Anonymouse]

"i never said that workers don't go there voluntarily. there is a similarity between slave labor and sweatshops but not in the sense of volunteering. ppl will go towards the best alternative. given that there are almost no other sources of employment other than prostitution etc...they go to work for sweatshops."

And they should be greatful that these companies are providing jobs for them. In societies where the government is bigger than dumbo's ears, having never experienced an industrial revolution except socialistic governments, these sweatshops provide them an alternative. Kids that would engage in theft or prostitution instead put their services to more productive use. You should ask yourself, why aren't there any other sources of employment? Too much government that does not allow productivity to grow. Government does not create capital, industry does.

"so many things have changed since the industrial revolution. we lived, we learned. u know, we used to throw bricks and stones but we have progressed, somewhat.

it appears that we are now discussing globalization as opposed to original inquiry. I only brought up sweatshops w/respect to child exploitation."

Once again you commit the fallacy of calling wage labor, "exploitation" as a Marxist would. Unless you are a Marxist and do not understand the definition of exploitation versus voluntary work in which the workers agree to whatever wage is given, you shouldn't commit the error of using that word.


"not quite sure what you r proposing. Labor/production/manufacturing in recent times has been coordinated thru companies & corps, and the regulations are there to protect children from exploitation."

You once again committ the error of using exploitation as a label for honest work. If someone, be it a child or anyone else, wants to, and agrees to work for a certain wage at a given company, they are not being exploited. Get that terminology out of your head. Unless the companies did not give anything in return, then that would be exploitation. But that is hardly the case, therefore your point is moot.

"These are the same regulations that you would like to c dismantled? about the only type of work that applies to what u'r saying is farm work/agricultural, and often times, the parents in those cases do/expect their children to work. so i dont' c what difference it would make to dismantle regulations. Moreover, companies are after profits so there must be some organization that regulates/protects the rights of employees."


Companies are not simply there to make profits. Marxists have a hard time understanding economics to understand the epistemological error of central planning. It is regulations that hamper on productivity in case you weren't taught in economics class. It is regulations that drive companies to losses which force them to seek cheaper labor and weaker regulations abroad, which cause outsourcing, which causes unemployment. It is minimum wage laws that create unemployment by setting an artificial fixed limit on what companies can pay, not a market price. Companies would not be in business if they were only there to make profits at the expense of everyone else. They must provide in something in return, a product or service in order to stay in business. They must also provide those people who are willing to work for them, a wage. Austrian economists have long demolished the erroneous Marxist notion of "exploitation".

"So on one hand u write "evil companies" giving rise to sweat shops, and on the other hand u would like to c the organizations that don't permit sweatshops to be abolished!"


"Evil companies"? When did I say companies were evil?


"We need regulations exactly to combat what these "evil companies" are doing when exploiting children."


There is no such thing as exploitation. You haven't demonstrated anything even remotely resembling exploitation.

"the problem thus far is that countries abroad designate regions as "EPZ" zones where those regulations don't apply. there are also countries that do exactly what you proposed and this is why we have a problem in the first place.
I don't like to c adults who exploit children for personal benefit at the expennse of the childrens well being."

Adults exploiting children? Maybe if they tied up children and made them perform sex acts or pimped them as prostitutes without paying them, or basically enslaved them, but that is not the case with the free market. There is no exploitation involved. Some children don't like to go to school or learn, and would rather work, and currently they cannot because of these regulations. Instead they resort to crime or there endeavors of mediocre pursuits. Just what is the "childrens well being"? Furthermore, how are adults "exploiting" them? Once again, if a child wants to work, it is a question of their family wanting to let them work or not. There should be no socialistic government regulation supposedly for the illusory "public good".

"So yes, if it's not obvious to someone that child exploitation is wrong, then I will support the gov/org/agency that will regulate this."

Again, there is no such thing as child exploitation. Marxists and socialists can't grasp that. And you can feel free to support your beloved regulations. But then don't whine when it causes unemployments.

"i never claimed that i didn't. I don't see any experts here on this issue either. but to suggest that children should be exploited for the benefit of economy is silly."

Actually, to suggest that voluntary work equals exploitation is sillier. Now stop being silly dan. Without a proper understanding of economics it is not prudent to engage in sophistry.

"there are many things that contribute to unemployment and it becomes a challenge to conclude/deduce just one factor. can outsourcing be done without labor of children? there is a tradeoff, but to be quite frank, an economy is a huge monster and there are too many variables that can't be predicted to yield the desired results. that's why there are mechanisms/policies that are invoked when thresh holds are reached to yeild desired outcomes."

Apparently you do not understand chaos theory or the inherent anarchy of market relations. Regulations always produce something Ludwig von Mises observed as "unintended consequences" because they yield things that were not foreseen, cannot be foreseen and in an effort to try to control that more regulations are implemented, and on and on it goes.

"I think we are misunderstanding each other, I am not aruging min wage. I am arguing your statements re: not needing labor dept/regulation."

It's all one and the same.

Edited by Anonymouse, 30 March 2005 - 12:13 AM.

[Anonymouse]

I think it would reduce unemployment rate, however over 50% of people who are unemployed are people who earn 45K or more so they are not sitting at home doing nothing just cruising by on unemployment checks of 300-400 dollars.

Mouse man are you a libertarian?

Yes I am Mr Azat.

[armjan]

you turn on the heat, and he brings his A game. I like it!

you wrote "there is no such thing as child exploitation",
the WORLD is in disagreement with you on this matter.

examples of real exploitation in EPZ zones...
plz read and tell me how these kids are not being exploited. what more do u need, the blood of their 1st born!
even the blind/deaf/dumb will/can not doubt. Each of these sites has tens of reports/statistics and summaries of REAL recent child exploitation incidents.

International Labor Org
http://www.ilo.org/p...ine/27/news.htm

World Association of Economic Processing Zones
http://www.wepza.org/bh181200.htm

International Confederation of free Trade Unions(ICTFU)
http://www.sask.fi/e...rtICFTU2003.pdf

International Labor Rights Fund
http://www.sask.fi/e...rtICFTU2003.pdf

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre & Amnesty International
http://www.business-...&batch_start=41

Oxfam International
http://www.iyp.oxfam...ung_workers.asp

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
http://www.usemb.se/.../sri_lanka.html

Trade Union Advisory Committee
http://www.tuac.org/...uniq/fdicim.htm

ILO
http://www.itcilo.it...ard/tuacinv.htm
http://www.us.ilo.or...lou/ilou101.cfm

U.S. State Dept
http://www.usemb.se/...an95/domrep.htm
http://www.terrorism.../CostaRica.html

Human Capital Development & Operations Policy
http://www.worldbank...p/wp_00056.html

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD TESTIMONY
http://pangaea.org/s...asia/carpet.htm

International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Leadership and Ethics
http://www.new-academy-review.com/

Tobacco Industry
http://www.eclt.org/

afl-cio
http://www.aflcio.or...my/children.cfm
testimonies

child labor exploitation in cocoa industr:West Africa
http://www.antislave.....port 2004.pdf

* The International Labour Organization estimates there are 246 million working children aged between five and 13
* 179 million are estimated to work in the worst forms of child labour -- one in every eight of the world's five to 13 years olds
* 111 million children under 15 are in hazardous work and should be "immediately withdrawn from this work"
* 8.4 million children are in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities(child labor)
* Girls are particularly in demand for domestic work
how do u think kids are drawn into human trafficking.

Bangladish
http://www.sunysb.ed...ng.10.14.03.pdf
http://www.globalmar...tre/Reports.php
1

2
3
4
and on and on...


furthermore, children were exploited during the british industrial revolution. How do you explain that given what you've written above? That was a time where very few regulations existed to monitor those courses of action. The argument you propose would suggest that given similar circumstances, exploitation would not occur. but yet it did, how do you explain that?

companies can exploit workers even if they offer some product/service to society.

the company i currently work at outsources, not b/c of regulations, but b/c it's a lot cheaper to hire someone abroad, and it's cheaper abroad b/c indians/asians/europeans will work for less. that's it! The work we do is NOT anywhere close to min wage, and often times the workers in the U.S. demand more to keep with standards of living. Companies cannot compete with labor costs abroad b/c workers w/ those salaries cannot survive living in U.S.

the motivation...

There are a lot of economics that go into the thinking behind Child Labor. Most children that are forced to work are economically disadvantaged. Either their country as a whole is disadvantaged, or just their family. These conditions are very appealing to businesses. These businesses think that they can get cheap labor, and they are usually correct.

Any business person could tell you that the cheaper something is to make, the bigger profit one can get. This leads some companies to exploit children. Children are at that stage in life where they are suppose to be protected. They are suppose to be told what to do and are not capable of doing too much thinking for themselves. They are the hapless victims of big business and greed.

Since children are at such a tender stage in their development they are very easy to control and they are also very helpless. Because of this helplessness, it is easy to extract work from them cheaply. This is the same reason that slave labor persisted in American history. In fact, Child Labor is a form of slave labor. Any form of slave labor is usually the cheapest way to produce something because little or nothing has to be payed to the workers.

The fact that children are easily controled is just one reason why Child Labor occurs. Most cases of Child Labor occur in third world countries. Most of these countries have large numbers of children and fewer numbers of adults. Because of this disparity, children make up most of the labor force. There is such a high demand for workers and such a low supply of jobs that kids are pulled into the market. Because most people in third world countries are poor there is a lot of demand for work. This high demand for workers also pulls the wages that companies must pay down. Children are even cheaper because they are so easily controled.

and you say parents decide on behalf of children. well consider the poor circumstances they are in, and...

The fact that kids will not usually rally to form unions or go on strike is one reason why child labor persists. If nobody is there to stick up for the children, then nothing will be done about the problem. Both governments and parents are either unwilling or unable to stand up for the children.

Governments are unwilling or unable to stop Child Labor practices because Child labor can sometimes be a large part of that country's economy, especially in third world countries. In fact, Child Labor is more likely to happen in third world countries than other countries, because these countries are more likely to turn a blind eye to the practice. If the country tries to cut down on the practice, then the company may move to another country. This could bring economic disaster to the country and make it harder for the country to rise in the global economy. This threat allows Child Labor to persists.

Parents that would normally stick up for their children are usually unable to do so. Either the parents are in their own deep state of poverty or they are unaware that their child is in need of help. Sometimes, parents feel that the only way to survive is to sell their child to a company. They may feel that the company will give the child a better life then they are able. This does not make it okay, but there is sometimes no other option for the parent. Other times, children are kidnapped off of the streets and their parents never know where they have gone. Neither of these problems are dealt with, because the governments are usually to afraid to do anything.

"Police recently raided a Bangkok sweatshop that produced paper cups and rescued 31 children who had been locked in a small room. Not one was older than 13....They were emaciated and suffering from malnutrition. They had been beaten so badly that they needed to be carried to freedom....They told of being thrashed if they failed to make 700 cups a day, by hand....the owner....gave them amphetamine tablets [to keep them awake and working longer hours]....One 13 year old told police he had been beaten unconscious twice when he tried to escape."

The ILO estimates that there are between 100 and 200 million children whose labor is being exploited throughout the world.

think about it from another perspective. If you don't think that regulation on companies is needed, then why do we have regulations in other areas of our lives. Why do instructors take measures to monitor academic dishonesty, fraud, why do we have law enforcement? After all, why can't we just rely on every single member of our society to uphold the law of the land. WE NEED LAW and if u doubt this(i can't imagine how), picture a world with no consequences for ones actions, and I will assure you bad things will follow soon after. Similarily, we need to regulate behavoirs of these corps.

Human trafficking involves the movement of people through violence, deception or coercion for the purpose of forced labour, servitude or slavery-like practices.
It is slavery because traffickers use violence, threats, and other forms of coercion to force their victims to work against their will. This includes controlling their freedom of movement, where and when they will work and what pay, if any, they will receive.

so if I don't understand choas theory implying that there exists a definable order of operations/pattern that will yield a desire result (since u refuted my claims otherwise), why don't you write the algorithm for how to deal with ss problem we are currently facing! If it is straight forward and predictable, then plz, state & verify an algorithm. the truth is that there are different schools of thoughts, and not one of them can be accurately/exclusively conclude desired results(refer to u'r posts re:factors cannot be forseen). U.S. economy is a very large/complex system deeply integrated into global economy and it requires carrying out simulations/evaluation/assessment on various systems to note the major variables and the degrees of their interaction as they pertain to desired state of affairs. It's just not as simple as A->B->C then voila, D, D means done.

i am almost certain u are in academia (probably grad school) since you continuiously make a pt of telling other ppl's intellectual inferiorities(as percieved by u). so just relax, have a good time, and maybe, just maybe you didn't have all the facts on this case.

Edited by armjan, 30 March 2005 - 11:35 AM.

[Azat]

Yes I am Mr Azat.

Well, I myself agree with the libertarian way of thinking much more than any other political group

[Anonymouse]

you turn on the heat, and he brings his A game. I like it!

you wrote "there is no such thing as child exploitation",
the WORLD is in disagreement with you on this matter.

examples of real exploitation in EPZ zones...
plz read and tell me how these kids are not being exploited. what more do u need, the blood of their 1st born!
even the blind/deaf/dumb will/can not doubt. Each of these sites has tens of reports/statistics and summaries of REAL recent child exploitation incidents.

International Labor Org
http://www.ilo.org/p...ine/27/news.htm

World Association of Economic Processing Zones
http://www.wepza.org/bh181200.htm

International Confederation of free Trade Unions(ICTFU)
http://www.sask.fi/e...rtICFTU2003.pdf

International Labor Rights Fund
http://www.sask.fi/e...rtICFTU2003.pdf

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre & Amnesty International
http://www.business-...&batch_start=41

Oxfam International
http://www.iyp.oxfam...ung_workers.asp

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
http://www.usemb.se/.../sri_lanka.html

Trade Union Advisory Committee
http://www.tuac.org/...uniq/fdicim.htm

ILO
http://www.itcilo.it...ard/tuacinv.htm
http://www.us.ilo.or...lou/ilou101.cfm

U.S. State Dept
http://www.usemb.se/...an95/domrep.htm
http://www.terrorism.../CostaRica.html

Human Capital Development & Operations Policy
http://www.worldbank...p/wp_00056.html

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD TESTIMONY
http://pangaea.org/s...asia/carpet.htm

International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Leadership and Ethics
http://www.new-academy-review.com/

Tobacco Industry
http://www.eclt.org/

afl-cio
http://www.aflcio.or...my/children.cfm
testimonies

child labor exploitation in cocoa industr:West Africa
http://www.antislave.....port 2004.pdf

*  The International Labour Organization estimates there are 246 million working children aged between five and 13
* 179 million are estimated to work in the worst forms of child labour -- one in every eight of the world's five to 13 years olds
* 111 million children under 15 are in hazardous work and should be "immediately withdrawn from this work"
* 8.4 million children are in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities(child labor)
* Girls are particularly in demand for domestic work
how do u think kids are drawn into human trafficking.

Bangladish
http://www.sunysb.ed...ng.10.14.03.pdf
http://www.globalmar...tre/Reports.php
1

2
3
4
and on and on...
furthermore, children were exploited during the british industrial revolution. How do you explain that given what you've written above? That was a time where very few regulations existed to monitor those courses of action.  The argument you propose would suggest that given similar circumstances, exploitation would not occur. but yet it did, how do you explain that?

companies can exploit workers even if they offer some product/service to society.

the company i currently work at outsources, not b/c of regulations, but b/c it's a lot cheaper to hire someone abroad, and it's cheaper abroad b/c indians/asians/europeans will work for less. that's it! The work we do is NOT anywhere close to min wage, and often times the workers in the U.S. demand more to keep with standards of living. Companies cannot compete with labor costs abroad b/c workers w/ those salaries cannot survive living in U.S.

the motivation...
"Police recently raided a Bangkok sweatshop that produced paper cups and rescued 31 children who had been locked in a small room. Not one was older than 13....They were emaciated and suffering from malnutrition. They had been beaten so badly that they needed to be carried to freedom....They told of being thrashed if they failed to make 700 cups a day, by hand....the owner....gave them amphetamine tablets [to keep them awake and working longer hours]....One 13 year old told police he had been beaten unconscious twice when he tried to escape."
think about it from another perspective. If you don't think that regulation on companies is needed, then why do we have regulations in other areas of our lives. Why do instructors take measures to monitor academic dishonesty, fraud, why do we have law enforcement? After all, why can't we just rely on every single member of our society to do whats right. Similarily, we need to regulate behavoirs of these corps.

Human trafficking involves the movement of people through violence, deception or coercion for the purpose of forced labour, servitude or slavery-like practices.
It is slavery because traffickers use violence, threats, and other forms of coercion to force their victims to work against their will. This includes controlling their freedom of movement, where and when they will work and what pay, if any, they will receive.

so if I don't understand choas theory implying that there exists a definable order of operations/pattern that will yield a desire result (since u refuted my claims otherwise), why don't you write the algorithm for how to deal with ss problem we are currently facing! If it is straight forward and predictable, then plz, state & verify an algorithm. the truth is that there are different schools of thoughts, and not one of them can be accurately/exclusively conclude desired results(refer to u'r posts re:factors cannot be forseen).  U.S. economy is a very large/complex system deeply integrated into global economy and it requires carrying out simulations/evaluation/assessment on various systems to note the major variables and the degrees of their interaction as they pertain to desired state of affairs. It's just not as simple as A->B->C then voila, D, D means done.

i am almost certain u are in academia (probably grad school) since you continuiously make a pt of telling other ppl's intellectual inferiorities(as percieved by u).  so just relax, have a good time, and maybe, just maybe you didn't have all the facts on this case.

First of all posting articles and statistics of children laboring is not proving exploitation as I have said. It only shows child labor and those who are socialists, Statists, and Marxists who want to outlaw it entirely. You have not proven what exploitation is or that it exists, that children are not being given any pay for the services they voluntarily chose to give. You are only arguing a strawman. You are shadow boxing with yourself. And if you think posting articles and statistics is going to vindicate your position or give it validity you are entirely mistaken. I have no time to sift through all those sites and look for examples of exploitation. You must establish that yourself. The only statistic worth mentioning is what you quoted and I don't even know from what source

"* 8.4 million children are in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities(child labor)"

I have already maintained coercin is unethical and I am against it, thus you have no point with this one. It's also funny how you mention "illicit activities" as being child labor. The government, by making prostitution illegal, takes it to the black market where it exists in the underworld of crime and trafficking. Governments are to blame for these things, this has nothing to do with companies. There is not one company that would engage in exploitation of this magnititude. You have yet to establish that. I suggest you read this article.

Legal Child Abuse
by Wendy McElroy

History frowns upon the belief that government protects children's rights, and yet that is precisely the claim that undergirds child labor laws, now enforced in most parts of the world. Hardly anyone dares question their existence, much less the conventional history of child labor, no matter how many children and families continue to be victimized by government regulation of labor.

Consider child labor in nineteenth-century Britain--the wellspring from which modern child labor laws evolved. Immediately, hideous snapshots flash in the mind: five-year-olds being lowered into coal mines, wan children at textile mills, a Dickenesque Oliver asking for "more." These images are used to condemn the free market and the Industrial Revolution against whose evils a humanitarian government is said to have passed child labor laws. This analysis is badly mistaken.

For one thing, it misses a key distinction. Early-nineteenth-century Britain had two forms of child labor: free, and, parish or "pauper" children. Historians J.L. and Barbara Hammond, whose work on the British Industrial Revolution and child labor is considered definitive, recognized this distinction. The free_market economist Lawrence W. Reed, in his essay "Child Labor and the British Industrial Revolution," goes one step farther in recognizing the importance of the distinction.

Free-labor children lived with their parents or guardians and worked during the day at wages agreeable to those adults. But parents often refused to send their children into unusually harsh or dangerous work situations. As Reed notes, "Private factory owners could not forcibly subjugate "free labour" children; they could not compel them to work in conditions their parents found unacceptable."

For example, the unacceptable position of "scavenger" in textile factories. Typically, scavengers were young children--about six years old-- who had to salvage loose cotton from under the machinery. Because the machinery was running, the job was dangerous and injury was common.

Fortunately for businessmen willing to use the State to their advantage, government had no qualms about sending parish children to work under running machines. Parish children were under the direct authority of government officials. Parish workhouses had existed for centuries, but sympathy for the downtrodden was also lessened by the fact that taxes for poor relief in 1832 were over five times higher than they had been in 1760. Gertrude Himmelfarbb  ook The Idea of Poverty chronicles this shift in attitude toward the poor from compassion to condemnation.

In 1832, partly at the behest of labor-hungry manufacturers, the Royal Poor Law Commission began an inquiry into the "the practical operation of the laws for the relief of the poor." Its report divided the poor into two basic categories: lazy paupers who received governmental aid; and, the industrious working poor who were self-supporting. The result was the Poor Law of 1834, which statesman Benjamin Disraeli called an announcement that "poverty is a crime."

The Poor Law replaced outdoor relief (subsidies and handouts) with "poor houses" in which pauper children were virtually imprisoned. There, the conditions were made purposely harsh to discourage people from applying. Virtually every parish in Britain had abandoned workhouse children who, being bought and sold to factories, experienced the deepest horrors of child labor. In this, the workhouses were merely continuing a practice common before the Poor Laws.

It is no coincidence that the first industrial novel published in Britain was Michael Armstrong: Factory Boy by Frances Trollope. Michael was apprenticed to an agency for pauper children. Nor is it coincidence that "Oliver Twist" was not abused by his parents, but by brutal workhouse officials in comparison to whom Fagin was a humanitarian. And, remember, at the age of twelve with his family in debtor s prison, Dickens himself was a pauper child who slaved at the Blacking Factory. Reed observes, the "first Act in Britain that applied to factory children was passed to protect these very parish apprentices, not "free labor" children." The Act was explicit in doing so.

Thus, in advocating the regulation of child labor, social reformers asked government to remedy abuses for which it was largely responsible. Once more, government was "a disease masquerading as its own cure." To their credit, some reformers realized that regulations to help the poor did precisely the opposite.

But what of the other side of the equation--the businessmen willing to use pauper children as slave labor? Consider one example. To assuage labor shortages at his textile mills, Samuel Greg took children from workhouses. Indeed, children were offered to him. In February 1817, the Vicar of Biddulph wrote to him: "The thought has occurred to me that some of the younger branches of the poor of this parish might be useful to you as apprentices in your factory at Quarry Bank. If you are in want of any of the above, we could readily furnish you with 10 or more at from 9 to 12 years of age of both sexes." Usually, such children were apprenticed to an employer until the age of twenty-one.

When the local parishes no longer provided sufficient labor, Greg went as far as Liverpool and London for children. Some parishes paid businessmen like Greg between two and four pounds to take a child off their hands. The children received their board and lodging from Greg, as well as a small salary.

Greg saw himself as a humanitarian and, by contrast with workhouse officials, he probably was. In The Philosophy of Manufactures (1835), Andrew Ure wrote: "At . . . the great firm of Greg and Son . . . stands a handsome house, two stories high, built for the accommodation of the female apprentices. They are well fed, clothed and educated. The apprentices have milk-porridge for breakfast, potatoes and bacon for dinner, and meat on Sundays."

But no amount of decent treatment can obscure the fact that the children were stripped of the one thing they possessed-- their labor and the right to contract. Nothing can convert the violation of their rights as laborers into an act of benevolence by Greg or by government officials.

The only real protections children can enjoy are the family structure and their ability to be self-sufficient. In an ideal world-- a Western world families--are prosperous and supportive: children are protected and educated. In Third World countries, parents often cannot provide the basics of life for their children, who must trade their labor for sustenance. The greatest act of benevolence is to recognize their right to contract and to work in the same manner as adult rights are respected. Anything that interferes with the self-sufficiency necessary for their survival is child abuse.

[Anonymouse]

so if I don't understand choas theory implying that there exists a definable order of operations/pattern that will yield a desire result (since u refuted my claims otherwise), why don't you write the algorithm for how to deal with ss problem we are currently facing! If it is straight forward and predictable, then plz, state & verify an algorithm. the truth is that there are different schools of thoughts, and not one of them can be accurately/exclusively conclude desired results(refer to u'r posts re:factors cannot be forseen).  U.S. economy is a very large/complex system deeply integrated into global economy and it requires carrying out simulations/evaluation/assessment on various systems to note the major variables and the degrees of their interaction as they pertain to desired state of affairs. It's just not as simple as A->B->C then voila, D, D means done.

i am almost certain u are in academia (probably grad school) since you continuiously make a pt of telling other ppl's intellectual inferiorities(as percieved by u).  so just relax, have a good time, and maybe, just maybe you didn't have all the facts on this case.

First of all, you do not understand economics, or how the free market works. You have most likely not read The Wealth of Nations but you have probably read every socialist literature there is, thinking that you alone have grasped economics, while those petty capitalists who all they want to do is exploit some children, have it all wrong. Chaos theory does not imply there is a definite order of operations. That is precisely it - in the market it is anarchic, it does not fit into neat equations like the classical economists or the Keynesians, or the Marxians, and other positivists like to plug.

If you perceive I am badgering on your intellectual inferiorities, that is entirely your hallucinations. After all, your psychic abilities are not up to par if you think I'm a grad student.

[Anonymouse]

the company i currently work at outsources, not b/c of regulations, but b/c it's a lot cheaper to hire someone abroad, and it's cheaper abroad b/c indians/asians/europeans will work for less. that's it! The work we do is NOT anywhere close to min wage, and often times the workers in the U.S. demand more to keep with standards of living. Companies cannot compete with labor costs abroad b/c workers w/ those salaries cannot survive living in U.S.

Why would your company outsource because it is cheaper? It means that where you are the prices are driven up because of regulations, and interference in the market. The reason they leave is number one, because of the minimum wage, which is the biggest economic fallacy, and socialistic in all its effrontery.

the motivation...
"Police recently raided a Bangkok sweatshop that produced paper cups and rescued 31 children who had been locked in a small room. Not one was older than 13....They were emaciated and suffering from malnutrition. They had been beaten so badly that they needed to be carried to freedom....They told of being thrashed if they failed to make 700 cups a day, by hand....the owner....gave them amphetamine tablets [to keep them awake and working longer hours]....One 13 year old told police he had been beaten unconscious twice when he tried to escape."
think about it from another perspective. If you don't think that regulation on companies is needed, then why do we have regulations in other areas of our lives. Why do instructors take measures to monitor academic dishonesty, fraud, why do we have law enforcement? After all, why can't we just rely on every single member of our society to uphold the law of the land. WE NEED LAW and if u doubt this(i can't imagine how), picture a world with no consequences for ones actions, and I will assure you bad things will follow soon after. Similarily, we need to regulate behavoirs of these corps.

I don't know where the source for this is, but if it is any of the biased socialistic sites that sport this, I wouldn't be surprised. I find it odd why an employer would beat on his own labor force. The "carried to freedom" part is especially indicative of romanticism and poetry, not objective journalism. One wonders why these children continued working there for so long if they knew this was happening. They should have just left and taken their labor elsewhere. Bangkok is a developing country and there are emaciated children everywhere just like in every other third world country. As far as these children being "locked up" for all we know that is where they stayed since they probably had no where else to stay. Trying to paint all things together from them "look they work there and are emaciated" to "being locked up" to paints a thorough illusion of horrors of child labor.

As far as your contention about law, you do not know what law is, as there is a difference between law, and mere statutes. There is a difference between a bona fide law, and a mere statute law. Comparing instructors and honor codes of different schools is not the same as regulations. You are entirely confusing the analogies Dan. There is a difference between law, and a monopoly of law, which makes the arbiters above the law, and we come to the paradox of who watches the watchers.

Human trafficking involves the movement of people through violence, deception or coercion for the purpose of forced labour, servitude or slavery-like practices.
It is slavery because traffickers use violence, threats, and other forms of coercion to force their victims to work against their will. This includes controlling their freedom of movement, where and when they will work and what pay, if any, they will receive.

Human trafficking exists because of governments that you support. It is their regulations that put restrictions on age of what children can or can't work. Artificial age limits that make one an "adult" such as 18 here in the U.S. It is governments outlawing child labor, artificial age limits, outlawing prostitution, that drive all these things to the underground and black markets where crime becomes the norm. You should read what Mises had to say about child labor.

Most popular among all restrictive measures are those styled prolabor legislation. Here too the governments and public opinion badly [p. 746] misjudge the effects. They believe that restricting the hours of work and prohibiting child labor exclusively burdens the employers and is a "social gain" for the wage earners. However, this is true only to the extent that such laws reduce the supply of labor and thus raise the marginal productivity of labor as against the marginal productivity of capital. But the drop in the supply of labor results also in a decrease in the total amount of goods produced and thereby in the average per capita consumption. The total cake shrinks, but the portion of the smaller cake which goes to the wage earners is proportionately higher than what they received from the bigger cake; concomitantly the portion of the capitalists drops.[1] It depends on the concrete data of each case whether or not this outcome improves or impairs the real wage rates of the various groups of wage earners.

The popular appraisal of prolabor legislation was based on the error that wage rates have no causal relation whatever to the value that the workers' labor adds to the material. Wage rates, says the "iron law," are determined by the minimum amount of indispensable necessities of life;; they can never rise above the subsistence level. The difference between the value produced by the worker and the wages paid to him goes to the exploiting employer. If this surplus is curtailed by restricting the working hours, the wage earner is relieved of a part of his toil and trouble, his wages remain unchanged, and the employer is deprived of a part of his unfair profit. The restriction of total output curtails only the income of the exploiting bourgeois.

It has been pointed out already that the role which prolabor legislation played in the evolution of Western capitalism was until a few years ago much less important than would be suggested by the vehemence with which the problems involved have been publicly discussed. Labor legislation, for the most part, merely provided a legal recognition of changes in conditions already consummated by the rapid evolution of business.[2] But in the countries which were slow in adopting capitalistic modes of production and are backward in developing modern methods of processing and manufacturing, the problem of labor legislation is crucial. Deluded by the spurious doctrines of interventionism, the politicians of these nations believe that they can improve the lot of the destitute masses by copying the labor legislation of the most advanced capitalistic countries. They look upon the problems involved as if they were merely to be treated from what [p. 747] is erroneously called the "human angle" and fail to recognize the real issue.

It is a sad fact indeed that in Asia many millions of tender children are destitute and starving, that wages are extremely low when compared with American or Western European standards, that hours of work are long, and that sanitary conditions in the workshops are deplorable. But there is no means of eliminating these evils other than to work, to produce, and to save more and thus to accumulate more capital. This is indispensable for any lasting improvement. The restrictive measures advocated by self-styled philanthropists and humanitarians would be futile. They would not only fail to improve conditions, they would make things a good deal worse. If the parents are too poor to feed their children adequately, prohibition of child labor condemns the children to starvation. If the marginal productivity of labor is so low that a worker can earn in ten hours only wages which are substandard when compared with American wages, one does not benefit the laborer by decreeing the eight-hour day.

The problem under discussion is not the desirability of improving the wage earners' material well-being. The advocates of what are miscalled prolabor laws intentionally confuse the issue in repeating again and again that more leisure, higher real wages, and freeing children and married women from the necessity of seeking jobs would make the families of the workers happier. They resort to falsehood and mean calumny in calling those who oppose such laws as detrimental to the vital interests of the wage earners "labor-baiters" and "enemies of labor." The disagreement does not refer to the ends sought; it concerns solely the means to be applied for their realization. The question is not whether or not improvement of the masses' welfare is desirable. It is exclusively whether or not government decreed restricting the hours of work and the employment of women and children are the right means for raising the workers' standard of living. This is a purely catallactic problem to be solved by economics. Emotional talk is beside the point. It is a poor disguise for the fact that these self-righteous advocates of restriction are unable to advance any tenable objections to the economists' well-founded argumentation.

[armjan]

defns of statues(not ones of art)=>
Compilation of all enacted bills, chaptered by the Secretary of State in the order in which they became law, and prepared in book form by the State Printer.

The laws created by acts of the Legislature.

Laws issued by the state or federal legislature.
**********************

resources I stated explicitely mention child exploitation thru labor.
I don't understand how one neglects history of child labor exploitation(epz or british industrial) in the name of calling proponents socialists. The sources are quoted are from...
International Labor Org
International Labor Rights Fund
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre & Amnesty International
Oxfam International
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Trade Union Advisory Committee
International Confederation of free Trade Unions(ICTFU)
World Association of Economic Processing Zones
U.S. State Dept
Human Capital Development & Operations Policy
afl-cio
and countless others I don't have the time to list.

it is written very clearly & explicitely. visit the sites and read. what strawman fallacy?

you need to understand that companies/corp assign the labor to contractors and those contractors themselves may subcontract the work elsewhere, hence the linked list where accountability/preservation of rights of employees is not perserved.

quit calling me a socialist. you have distorted my intention of protecting innocent children to be socialism. that's a perfect example of a strawman.

it's no use continuing this discussion about this topic with you any longer b/c you don't seem to consider the insurmountable evidence of history and it's participants. I refer you to real facts/ppl/documented incidents and you say, "shadow box", "silly dan".

if u'r really passionate about getting rid of centralized governments or whatever it is you seem to be pissed off about, then collect your thouhgts, write them on paper, and try to perform some analysis and c if it indeed resolves the issues u claim that it would. in engineering, you only get paid when u build/imporove a component that works. commenting on other failures is noteworthy, but you have to prove that your model resolves those issues & at the same time failing to introduce any significant flaws.

Edited by armjan, 30 March 2005 - 05:46 PM.

[Anonymouse]

Yet it remains you have failed to show how there exists 'exploitation' when labor is based on voluntary exchange for wages agreed upon. There is nothing forced. The reason I call you a Marxist/Socialist is because this is precisely the argument they use - voluntary associations are somehow translated as coercive.