High cost of low prices.Low prices means cheap labor. Many of the goods that Americans buy come from sweatshops where workers labor in unsafe conditions and are paid wages so low they must struggle to feed and shelter their families. Multinational companies want poverty to continue because its a supply of cheap labor. Many corporations have made millions using sweat shops.The Department of Defense is the world's largest purchaser of American made apparel. Approximately 20,000 men and women manufacture uniforms for the armed forces and many work in U.S. sweatshops. The average pay at these places is $6.55 an hour.Many talk about fair trade but it doesn't exist even in the US. Seventy-two Thai immigrants worked under slave-like conditions in El Monte, California. In August, 1995 law enforcement agents conducted a raid and found workers locked in an apartment complex surrounded by razor wire and they were working for 69 cents an hour!Every industry looks for cheap labor. It seems to be the best way to ensure higher profits. When you put money before people you aren't going to get good results. Universities are hiring more and more adjunct professors. Adjunct professors are willing to teach for as little as $1,500 per semester. Adjunct professors get no health benefits and are only hired by the semester so they have no benefits, no job security and low pay. Students are viewed as consumers.Airlines do this too. In February 2009 there was a crash of Colgan Air flight 3407 near Buffalo, New York, which killed all forty-nine people aboard. First Officer Rebecca Shaw earned $26 an hour and was guaranteed seventy-five hours of work each month, putting her salary at $23,400 a year. Again an example of no benefits, no job security and low pay.Everyone looks for cheap but most don't think about all of the ramifications and that "cheap" could actually be costing you dearly. Factory farming has become "concentration camps" for animals in the name of lowering costs to produce food. In one agribusiness textbook it stated: "one of the best things agriculture has going for it is that most people in the developed countries.....haven't a clue how animals are raised and processed. For modern animal agriculture, the less the consumer knows, the better."When you purchase items try to do it more conciously. Do some research and support companies that care and that pay fair wages. If enough people do this then the large corporations will get the message and be forced to change. Oftentimes you will actually end up saving money when you buy quality because cheap items oftentimes don't last long and have to be replaced over and over ending up costing you more than if you had originally bought a quality item in the first place.Peace, Health and Prosperity,Barb Doyle, Sc.
