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U.K.'s new child slavery problem

What has the world come to? It's so hard to believe that this is going on in today's day and age... especially in what we like to call "civilized" countries! We spend unfathomable amounts of money each year on science, technology, entertainment & war... and yet we do nothing to end the suffering of our fellow man.
 
What has the world come to? It's so hard to believe that this is going on in today's day and age... especially in what we like to call "civilized" countries! We spend unfathomable amounts of money each year on science, technology, entertainment & war... and yet we do nothing to end the suffering of our fellow man.

Perhaps I erred in titling it a "new" problem. It most certainly happens in the U.S. and other industrialized countries too. In America's case, a lot of Asian and South American immigrants work in sweatshops that are located in homes or run down apartment buildings. The one article that featured the family discussing why they would sell their children, was just something else. I couldn't imagine entertaining such a notion. I couldn't help but notice the t.v. in the background in the room-sell that FIRST buddy! Just like slavery in the olden days, the home nations of these people aren't doing them any favors, as they are part of the problem and even profit off of it.
 
It's about time we closed our borders...............or a least policed them a lot better and had controlled immigration.
 
It's about time we closed our borders...............or a least policed them a lot better and had controlled immigration.

I agree. Close those borders with Wales and Scotland as soon as possible. Then all nasty things will stop.

Oh brother....:rolleyes: you sound like claybugg.

It's greed. Not capitalism.

Do you think there were not horrible child labor/abuse problems in communist countries?

I think that there are all sorts of abuses everywhere and in all sorts of systems. But look at the world – multi-billion pound profits for a handful of people, when millions are starving, ill and displaced? What sort of 'moral' message does that send out?

What message does it send out when people are thrown out of their jobs because X profit isn't enough and the company wants Y profit?

Where is the moral compass when most people in the West don't give a toss whether their clothes are made in Asian sweatshops by children, just as long as they don't cost more money? Or whether the coffee farmers are paid a decent rate for their produce and their work, as long as their coffee doesn't cost any more?

I am not against profit per se – not at all. But I'm waiting to see the fluffy, friendly, non-greedy, non-exploitive version of capitalism that you imply must exist.
 
So, if America makes and buys everything in America that'll help feed all those starving kids in Taiwan?

I'm not justifying sweat shops that employ young children here but come on.

Oprah and Bill Gates employ huge numbers of people. They donate huge amounts of money and time which gets others involved as well.

When disasters strike large corporations give money.


Capitalism is not just Wal-mart either. Capitalism is the local landscaping company, the fingernail shop, the local restaurants and bars, and the small businesses that many families own and run everyday.

And don't fool yourself one bit, there will always be starving people all over the world regardless of the economic structure.
 
The thing about sweat shops is, if you shut them all down who's going to pay to feed all those unemployed children?
 
Warren E. Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and one of the world's wealthiest men, plans to donate the bulk of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four other philanthropies starting in July.

The donations, outlined in a series of letters that Mr. Buffett released yesterday and will execute today, represent a singular and historic act of charitable giving that vaults him into the top tier of industrialists and entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller Sr., Henry Ford, J. Paul Getty, W. K. Kellogg and Mr. Gates himself, all men whose fortunes have endowed some of the world's richest private foundations.

Mr. Buffett plans to give away 85 percent of his fortune, or about $37.4 billion, all in Berkshire stock. Of that amount, he will channel the greatest share, about $31 billion, into the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation, dedicated to improving health and education, especially in poor nations, is already the United States' largest grant-making foundation, with current assets of almost $30 billion.

Sounds friendly, and non-greedy to me.
 
I agree. Close those borders with Wales and Scotland as soon as possible. Then all nasty things will stop.

That's the sort of comment that makes light of a serious situation.

I think that there are all sorts of abuses everywhere and in all sorts of systems. But look at the world – multi-billion pound profits for a handful of people, when millions are starving, ill and displaced? What sort of 'moral' message does that send out?

Lets address the issue and not try and excuse it.

It is evil Romanian people that are trafficking and selling young children to be sold as slaves and prostitutes, to work in London and other towns across the UK. These Romanians are able to arrive in the UK with the children, un-checked are able to carry on these evil deeds.

BECAUSE WE HAVE UN-CONTROLED IMMIGRATION.

..................and before we get to pc...........I know not all Romanian people are evil and I am not suggesting they are, but the one's trafficking are and I am sure other nationalities are guilty as well.

A News at Ten report yesterday showed a reporter in Romanian, (with a hidden camera) being offered for sale, a teenage girl for £1,000.

To break a girl 'in' to becoming a prostitute she is gang raped.

Why is this happening in the UK................because it can, we are to pc and to soft.
 
In 2004, Americans gave over $248 billion to charity.

Doesn't mean people couldn't give more, but damn....it's nothing to sneeze at either is it?

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes last year, setting a record and besting the 2005 total that had been boosted by a surge in aid to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami.

Donors contributed an estimated $295.02 billion in 2006, a 1% increase when adjusted for inflation, up from $283.05 billion in 2005. Excluding donations for disaster relief, the total rose 3.2%, inflation-adjusted, according to an annual report released Monday by the Giving USA Foundation at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy
 
Why is this happening in the UK................because it can, we are to pc and to soft.

Its because you want prostitutes and prefer to pay less for a eastern european "slave" than a english girl.
Capitalism as its finest. Happens here too but for some reason its nigerian girls that have pushed the expensive norwegian girls out of the market.
 
... BECAUSE WE HAVE UN-CONTROLED IMMIGRATION...

No we don't. There are issues around the question of migration, but we do not have "uncontrolled immigration". But let's not allow facts to get in the way of a good rant, eh?

The reason that I made a flippant – actually, it was sarcastic – comment in response to your previous post was because it was stupid. We need immigration – did you know (almost certainly not) – that if it wasn't for ethnic workers, from top to bottom of the NHS, around 300 hospitals would have to close? I suggest you learn something about economics before coming out with such bunkum in future. It'll save you embarrassing yourself.

Oh. And non Romanians do nasty things too. Heaven forfend, but white English people do nasty things – including rape and murder. Perhaps we should stop any white English being born so as to avoid that happening in future, eh? Perhaps we should stop famillies living together at all – after all, the overwhelming majority of child abuse occurs in homes, so if we get rid of homes, we'll cut child abuse.

Easy, isn't it, when you've got nice soundbite answers.

As to capitalism – wow, some people make charitable donations. Good for them. So the poor should rely on charity?

Are we really saying that we can't think of a better way to run the world than via an economic system that relies on gambling (FFS, just look at the world economy at present and the fears over shares etc – it's nothing other than a casino write extremely large) and greed? In the UK, we have the food market so dominated by a small number of supermarkets that they can act as a cartel and set the price of milk paid to the farmers – they've effectively driven many farmers to the wall simply because the multi-million pound profits that they're already making aren't enough and they want more. That is nothing other than greed and it is directly related to a system that thrives on greed, that is (at least in any incarnation we've seen) extremely short-termist and doesn't give a toss how many people it throws on the scrapheap.

I lived through both recessions in the UK in the 1980s – I happen to know what it's like to be thrown out of work and to lose a home because, as one government minister said at the time: "unemployment is a price worth paying". You can bet that fat bastard wasn't unemployed. All those in pit villages and steel towns whose entire communities were decimated by deliberate government policy know that Thatcherism/Reaganomics did not decrease the gap between rich and poor – it widened it. So-called "
'trickledown economics' never managed any trickle down. The 'system' that currently exists pits ordinary worker and against ordinary worker; it takes jobs from one group of people and goes somewhere where it can give jobs to people who will work for less.

Government economic policies on both sides of the Atlantic, based on the theories of Milton Friedman, did nothing but increase wealth for a very small percentage of people at the expense of others. It was about greed and about individualism, not community, not community responsibility or society. The current UK government is little better, with the gap between rich and poor widening still further.

The market does not solve everything in society. All it means is that when your child needs health care, that health care will ultimately be decided on the basis of the profit demands of health company shareholders – profit before people. Where is the morality of that?

The prison system here is going the same way – profit before people, before justice.
 
Capitalism is far from perfect, but to date, it's the better of the other systems the world has had to date.

What's your suggestion for a better system?
 
Capitalism is far from perfect, but to date, it's the better of the other systems the world has had to date.

What's your suggestion for a better system?

I'm a pragmatist – and a pragmatic capitalist, at that. But capitalism is a crackpot system.

How about a planned economy, based on the needs of all society and not just big business (although not excluding business)? That might be interesting. How about one that didn't involve the frankly farcical shares? As I said earlier, it's a casino?

Can it really be that we can only manage money, international finance, through gambling? We can send people to the moon, but we can't think of a fairer and more rational way to manage money?

On a day-to-day basis, do you work out what you can spend or invest by gambling? Would you consider that sensible in terms of your household finances?
 
Greed, power, laziness, intelligence, lack of intelligence, those that prey, and those that are preyed upon will always be aspects of any society.

Hell, it's an aspect of nature.

You are seeking fairness in a universe that is ultimately not fair.
 
So one should give up attempting to seek it or even attempting to grapple with the questions around it?

If so, why bother with charity? Why not simply say: c'est la vie?
 
Its because you want prostitutes and prefer to pay less for a eastern european "slave" than a english girl.
Capitalism as its finest. Happens here too but for some reason its nigerian girls that have pushed the expensive norwegian girls out of the market.
You may want, need or use prostitutes of what ever nationality, I don't.

Your views seem to be similar to Sybarite's in that you are disregarding the crime and blaming society. You are excusing these child rapists, and abusers.

Views like yours are the cause of what is happening.

To correct you, Capitalism as its finest works for all. It's Capitalism not at it's finest is where there is a problem.
 
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