
I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video] - brk
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/10/11/i_got_hired_at_a_bangladesh_sweatshop_meet_my_9yearold_boss.html
======
L_Rahman
As someone who's spent his life roughly equally split across Bangladesh and
America, I thought I'd provide some perspective.

The questions I ask myself about this situation are:

1\. Are the lives of the people who work in these factories better or worse as
a result of these jobs existing?

The answer I end up arriving at repeatedly is that it is a resounding
improvement in the lives of almost everyone. RMG factories empower women to
provide for themselves in a way that nothing else in the country can. There
simply aren't any other jobs for women in low-income brackets in Bangladesh
and I personally know individuals who found the courage to break themselves
out of abusive marriages and the ability to say no to marriages they didn't
want because of the income they have from these jobs.

2\. Could the factories be better?

Yes, absolutely. Most of the owners could obviously afford to pay employees
better given the incredible amounts of wealth that the factory owners have
accumulated and having gone to school with some of their children, I know
quite a few factory owners personally. The reason they don't pay more comes
down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive
business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. That is
what they do.

3\. What is the government's role?

This is pretty simple. They should raise the minimum wage for factory workers,
create more stringent regulation and make great effort to ensure those
regulations are followed. This is where invalidOrTaken's point about
corruption comes in. Many of the factory owners are themselves members of
parliament, or have spent a great deal of money getting one of their lackeys
elected. On top of that, virtually everyone in a regulatory agency will take
massive bribes to look the other way.

When the article talks about that girl's dream being a sewing operator, and
you cringe because that sounds so depressing, realize that 10 years ago this
girls only option would have been to get married to a rickshaw puller or
shopkeeper and hope he wasn't abusive. Today, she can dream of a job, of
moving up a ladder and maybe even becoming a manager some day. That's progress
even if it comes with a whole host of issues.

~~~
RodericDay
The way I answer people that say this is: It's not good enough.

Yes, you can come up with all the explanation whatsoever you want to how this
is a ~local maxima~ of happiness, but the fact is that we live on a much
higher one with tons of disposable income and _benefit_ from their work... so
it s not a ~global maxima~ (not even close) so we should do better.

What can I say? I'm definitely more to the left than most people in this
website but any quietly upvoted defense of child labor sounds like "the slaves
had it better than in _x_" or "women were spared _y_" jobs to me when it comes
to defending poor social policy.  Grown-ass white men getting paid to develop
digital toys justifying to themselves why the situation for 9 year old
sweatshop workers is good enough. JFC.

edit: in fact, _every single reply_ amongst the first 20 in some ways works to
justify the completely bubbled-in mentality of the startup crowd. just running
down the topic I see (caricaturized for effect) "social justice types don't
understand how rough it is out there, this is good for her!", "ugh, this
journalist is endangering the girl!", and "this really puts in perspective all
those pesky _cultural issues_ that women, gay people, and minorities keep
complaining about".

what the hell is wrong with you all, seriously.

~~~
beering
No, this is just your angry knee-jerk reaction so you can feel good about
taking the moral high-ground, and you're scrambling to find the negative in
every comment.

The comment you're replying is a detailed comment that also states that there
should be more done to improve working conditions and wages. Your comment is a
rant about how we're a bunch of "grown-ass white men" (thanks for assuming
things about me) who bask in our privilege and wealth.

 _Meta:_ Is there a label for this kind of derailing, angry comment? I feel
like it could be a variant of concern trolling, where the writer pretends to
care about the issue at hand but actually tries to redirect the conversation
towards ad hominem attacks.

~~~
Natsu
Have you ever worked in a factory? I used to. They squeeze you as hard as they
can, constantly. Most of the people have no leverage to push back. While
having money is better than having none, that doesn't mean everything is ok
and you can just ignore the way the workers get abused.

In the US, you can push back at things like unsafe conditions with threats of
OSHA. I doubt there's any such thing in Bangladesh, but it would be a good
start.

Having a job is great, but they should be required to provide reasonable
working conditions. And even in the USA, they will do the absolute minimum
unless pushed.

Source: I have worked 16-hour shifts in a US factory that was over 100F,
sometimes unable to get lunch or bathroom breaks. I now work a normal office
job and laugh at the very notion of comparing even a 100-hour week doing this
to a 70-hour week doing that.

~~~
Retric
The #1 way to fight back is to quit which increases costs to the factory
owner, if you don't then it's better than the alternatives.

~~~
jmduke
I am unexperienced when it comes to such matters, but:

1\. Quitting means you are no longer making money, and if that was an
acceptable endgame then you likely wouldn't be employed in such conditions in
the first place;

2\. I find it extremely unlikely that such factory owners would have a dearth
of prospective (eager, even) employees.

~~~
Retric
#1 Quitting does not mean you never look for another job or quit on the first
day etc. It means _when_ you perceive working for said factory is not worth it
you do something else.

#2 Having a large labor supply suggests the job is competitive. However, even
if that's the case having people constantly quit increases training costs.

The point of all of this is industrialization tends to follow a path where
people move from terrible low wage jobs to more well paid work. Even China has
moved past the first rung of the ladder with market forces forcing factory's
to increase pay and or improve conditions. Presumably where going to run out
of 3rd world countries at some point, though there is some concern robots / AI
is going to end up filling that nitch possibly stranding a few countries.

~~~
tptacek
You are begging the question. The reason factory workers in poor rural
countries put up with no windows, ventilation, or air conditioning is that the
alternative is subsistence farming. Suggesting that they quit in protest is
almost cruel.

China has absolutely not moved past the first rung of this ladder. The
majority of the Chinese population lives in abject rural poverty.

~~~
next89
It's actually about a 50/50 split between rural and urban [0]. This means that
the Chinese urban population nowadays is 150% of the total Chinese population
in 1950[1]. So now that the facts are on the table, what is your point?

[0] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-17/china-urban-
populat...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-17/china-urban-population-
exceeds-rural.html)

[1][http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=chinese+population](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=chinese+population)

------
jvm
Sometimes I think westerners just can't wrap their heads around just how poor
Bangladesh is.

Their GDP per capita: $2000, adjusted for living costs (PPP). Please,
everyone, try to wrap your head around that number.

That means a totally equal distribution of resources would give everyone $2000
a year. GDP counts all money spent on everything, so factory safety compliance
costs would come out of that $2000. Consider Mexican migrant workers in the
states scraping by on $10k are earning 5x as much as that number, and no, it
is not made up for by cost of living, this is taking that into account.

Yeah the stuff that goes on is really messed up. And no, nobody deserves to
live like that. But unlike in America, where GDP is at $50k/capita PPP,
redistribution actually cannot solve the problem. $2k/year is unacceptably
close to subsistence. It's just as important in this case to grow the economy
larger as it is to redistribute more fairly.

~~~
alive-or-not
Measuring economic potential in PPP is like measuring software functionality
in lines of code. The basic question is does a country produce enough food to
feed itself. If that's the case it can grow an industry slowly with respect to
human lives, etc. If not IMHO there are still better solutions than building
sweatshops.

~~~
PeterisP
Most countries don't wish to grow an industry "slowly with respect to human
lives" even if they have enough food to feed themselves.

As it shows in practice all over the world, if people are given the chance to
go from subsistence agriculture to sweatshops, they do so eagerly,
intentionally migrating a thousand miles away from their families if needed
so. You'd need to apply a lot of force and bloodshed to move them back away
from those jobs to the farming; and when given a fair vote, those workers
press for many things but not on slowing down industry growth, rather the
opposite.

------
sethammons
Poverty is a such a large and difficult problem. Someone's knee jerk reaction
may be to "ZOMG, shut down the factory!" But the factory is providing a
_relatively_ better environment than what may other alternatives may provide,
such as prostitution.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
It's extra hard because the poor have less information available to them. When
Clojure was released, I saw it as my opportunity to become a real-life Lisp
ninja, on a platform in wide deployment. How did Meem see it? Oh, that's
right, she didn't. Because she was sewing shirts instead of reading "Beating
the Averages."

~~~
buro9
It's not just information that inhibits the poor.

The poor struggle. Daily.

In that struggle a truth emerges: Struggle is all you've known, it's what you
knew yesterday and it is what you will know tomorrow.

For the poor struggle, hardship and despair dull the senses and the reality of
the present stretches out before them. There is no future, there is just more
of the present forever and ever.

What I feel those with privilege cannot comprehend is that words like
aspiration, phrases like social mobility, are so alien that they are
meaningless. If you're aware enough to have been angry, you're probably also
aware enough to realise the stupidity of throwing yourself against the tide of
the world. And so you accept and endure.

You can provide information but without hope and belief that change is
possible to their lives, and that the struggle can be overcome, information is
worthless. Food and shelter for a day are the only things you can offer of
value.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
which may be why terrorism is a predominately educated middle class affair.

But accepting your argument, I cannot give in to nihilism. Take the children
out of the factories, put them in school, build libraries, train teachers, and
wait twenty years to see a vast difference.

If you are a military dictatorship that uses your twenty years to educate the
country and drag it by the bootstraps into the global upwards pastures, you
may retire with your ill gotten gains on a beach somewhere with our thanks.
Get rich and change nothing I want you hunted down with dogs.

~~~
buro9
It isn't nihilistic. It's just really important to understand how poverty
feels, and how it is akin to a trauma that never ends, otherwise how can we in
the West ever actually use what influence we have to change.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I think we are agreeing - but it's frustrating to have to wait for technical
solutions to problems we could solve with pure political will.

(For example I see the biofabrication of meat as a technical solution to the
awful statistic that cows in Europe recieve a daily subsidy of two dollars
while around 1 billion humans globally live on 1 dollar a day)

------
sorenbs
As someone who is currently establishing a software development office in
Bangladesh for a western company this is my perspective on child labor

Child labor is a long term problem for any country as it keeps kids out of
school and locks them in low wage jobs for the rest of their live, meaning
less tax revenue for the country. Educating the young generation is an
investment in the future that brings more sophisticated work and higher wage
jobs. Very Simple.

In Bangladesh underemployment among healthy adults is so widespread that child
labor can only be ascribed to bad governance. Clearly the government, if it
cared about future growth and wealth in the country, should create a scheme
allowing children to learn and healthy adults to work.

Simply banning child labor is not enough as this story so clearly explains.
The family needs the money, and doesn't have idle healthy adults who could
could replace meem's income. Some fairly sophisticated scheme is required for
this to work. Call it wealth distribution, social security or whatever.

Currently the government is not able to provide such a scheme and as a result
the country will develop much slower than it could otherwise.

~~~
danielrhodes
At some point, if the economy continues to grow, poor working conditions and
child labor will start catch up with the country and they will be forced to
curb them in order to get to the next level of growth. Hopefully corruption
will not get in the way of that (something China seems to be dealing with
now).

------
vinhboy
Isn't it a bit dangerous to show Meem's picture all over the internet like
that? What if she become a target for retaliation for the story, or she loses
her job because of the unwanted attention.

------
_oa_
Nobody mentioned family planning. The girl started to work because her mom
became pregnant with her 6th (? I counted older brother and 3 younger
siblings) child. Was this pregnancy planned? We will not know, but there is
some possibility it was not. So, providing girl's parents with contraceptives
and educating both mom and dad in their use would have had a real immediate
impact on this girl's life.

~~~
L_Rahman
There's been a huge effort from both NGO's and the government to promote birth
control that has actually been quite effective. Birth rates have fallen
sharply. [1]

1\.
[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/172372?uid=3739704&uid...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/172372?uid=3739704&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102741388561)

I apologize for the JSTOR link.

------
javajosh
I've emailed the author asking how I can pay Meem to go to school. I think I
can outbid the sweatshop. I'll let you know how it turns out.

~~~
jdotjdot
I can't decide how I feel about this.

On the one hand, I love the initiative you're taking here and the drive you
have. Reading the article, my immediate thought was "that's
terrible"\--whereas yours was "What can I personally do about this right now?"

On the other hand, I remain unconvinced that directing resources simply to the
people and charities that come my way through the media is the best way to
distribute these resources. Yes, Meem will greatly benefit from this money.
But is it good that Meem gets it simply because she happened to be written up
in the paper? What about those who are never written up--and does that simply
incentivize people in need to seek publicity rather than promote more
sustainable macro-level solutions?

I don't have a real answer here, it's just that actions like these make me
feel strongly ambivalent, if you'll forgive my oxymoron.

~~~
javajosh
I probably would have felt the same way as you even a year ago. But then it
started to feel like I was always waiting to be "effective" and never actually
doing anything. If every human on this planet who could just adopted one other
random person on this planet to look out for, wouldn't the world be a much
better place?

~~~
jdotjdot
Possibly, except my point was Meem is hardly random. If everyone took that
initiative, Meem would get a ton of support because of the publicity--but no
one else would.

~~~
javajosh
And if everyone thought like you did, then Meem wouldn't get any support at
all. So, who's position sits better with you?

Look, the best we can do is take care of the _actionable_ problems in front of
us. I don't consider "get vast numbers of people out of poverty" to be an
actionable problem. I don't study poverty, I don't know what statistically
significant levers to pull (or try to pull). I just know that when I see a
situation like Meem's, I know I can help so I can at least make the effort.

And who knows? Maybe in trying to help one person I'll have some insight
(currently lacking) into the larger problems. But I find it hard to take that
someone can sit back in their armchair, never having helped a single person
out of poverty in their life, criticizing someone for taking concrete action
because it doesn't address the larger issues.

The simple fact is that unless you have vast wealth, or you have a tremendous
amount of influence on those with wealth, then you have about as much ability
to address larger issues as I do, that is, nil. So if you want to let your
contradictory beliefs paralyze you into inaction, that's your problem.
Meanwhile, let me do what I can in peace.

------
invalidOrTaken
I was wondering why, to put it bluntly, Bangladesh sucks so much. This may
shed some light:

"Corruption in Bangladesh has been a continuing problem with the country being
ranked as the most corrupt country for the year 2005 in the list published by
Transparency International."
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Bangladesh](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Bangladesh)

~~~
brador
Corruption causes a disproportionate wealth disparity, it's one of the methods
used to detect it. Works especially well within a country to identify more or
less corrupt states. One argument is corruptions leads to reduced actual
investment in infrastructure, roads, schools, things which increase a regions
wealth, making corrupt areas show up pretty clearly on a map.

~~~
tinco
Why would someone downvote this comment?

~~~
alexeisadeski3
Because people are tired of the 'everything is about wealth disparity'
claptrap?

~~~
factorizer
Especially here in Nerdghanistan. It really is a nice collection of
Fachidioten.

------
mjfern
How about a Watsi for children (and their families) that have to work in
sweatshops to make ends meet? Anyone interested in exploring this further?

Some challenges:

\- Verifying the children that you support through the Watsi-type program
already work in this environment (or will soon have to) as a necessity to
economically support their families.

\- Ensuring that, once you donate money, the children are no longer working in
this environment and instead are enrolled in school.

\- Other potential pitfalls?

~~~
tinco
Watsi has too much overhead per child to make a difference on this level I
think.

Why not do what the entire world should be doing in the first place? Pay
children to go to school.

This way you remove the overhead of a campaign for every single child, and
make sure they are going to school at the same time.

------
alexeisadeski3
Why should we believe that these kids would be better served sitting idly in
school for several years? Isn't it better to get actual on the job training,
learning an actual trade, making money to put food on the table?

Think about opportunity costs: An American child has chance XX% of becoming a
white collar professional if they go to XX years of school. A Bangladeshi
child has a significantly smaller .X% chance of becoming a white collar pro
with X years of school (XX not generally available, presumably?). Thus is
quite likely that it is simply irrational, a poverty increasing equation, to
send these children to school for too many years.

Increasing the minimum wage actually _harms_ the poorest and most vulnerable
workers, by disqualifying them from gainful employment. Ditto child labor laws
in extremely poor areas. All of this stuff about "educating your way out of
poverty" is just magical thinking. It's as if the first world brain sees the
obviousness of a situation, simply enters a "MUST NOT SEE" feedback loop, and
then spits out "RAISE MINIMUM WAGE, INCREASE SCHOOLING, SEND IN THE NGOs"
nonsense.

------
moo
Remember, 5 months ago over 1,100 people confirmed dead when a garment factory
collapsed in Savar district of Dhaka, Bangladesh with over 3,000 people
inside. People's survival rights should not have to wait on an economic
miracle, new elections, Western people's blessings, Adam Smith's invisible
hand, God, or reincarnation. Waiting for such a crisis where things go beyond
the pale to punish a couple of corrupt owners is not enough. When Third World
people have enough and demand change we should not sit idle and support the
Western countries who then start pumping in money for weapons to suppress the
people on pretext that it is economic aid or to fight terrorism. The West
cannot stay so rich and have conditions improve for the World's toiling poor.
Freedom to get rich and monopolize resources is not freedom or fairness for
everyone.

------
senthilnayagam
poverty is bad, poverty breeds poverty ,

the kid must be in school, I get it

Kid is working reason would be either she needs to contribute for the family
to make ends meet or schooling is not accessible

lets assume she is taken out of her work by this undercover sting operation,
who would take care of her

just pointing out the problem is not enough, giving a sustainable solution and
follow through to get it implemented is needed as well

~~~
dbond
And the exploitation of poverty sustains it.

~~~
alphakappa
When companies outsource to countries like Bangladesh because of their cheap
labor, it also provides jobs to millions of people there. They are not good
jobs by our (western) standards, but they are better jobs than they could've
had otherwise. Getting the kids out of the factories wouldn't do much unless
their families had the means to sustain themselves.

Bringing such stories in the public eye is a good thing though because it
might help bring about better oversight of these operations, and an
improvement in working conditions. The companies that outsource to Bangladesh
might now have an incentive to keep an eye on the working conditions (surely
it's possible to have decent working conditions while still having a
relatively cheap operation?)

~~~
dbond
I understand the situation with providing jobs to people who may otherwise
have to turn to much more terrible means of providing for themselves, but this
is where there is exploitation of their situation by companies and as the end
user of much of the products, us as westerners (although we may do little to
change it).

Factory workers are paid the minimum that the company can get away with, even
though we could afford to pay them much more, they could get an education for
their children or move their family out of the slums. I'm OK with children
working in factories if that is the reality of their situation but we can
afford and should pay them more than the paltry amount that just keeps them
ticking over.

~~~
thecodeore
All companies, in every nation, pay the minimum they can get away with. In
nations with no social structure, very little wealth, and no jobs the choice
is not government hand out vs minimum wage, but a very low paying job or
starvation. It would appear you would rather these children starve then to
allow them to work for enough money to feed themsleves, possibly working up
and out of poverty over generations.

America did not just magically start out as a wealthy nation, for generations
children labored on family farms, in business, and even in sweatshops.
Generations ago a person had to work form dawn to dusk just to feed
themselves, Today in America "poverty" is not having and iPhone or Broadband
internet.

The idea that we can magically transform these 3rd world nation into 1st world
nations is naive at best, The same path America took, is the same path these
nations must take. Over time wages will increase, conditions will improve,
etc, this is a natural order of things. The good news is, this will happen
MUCH MUST faster than it did in America.

Check out these Videos

[http://www.learnliberty.org/videos/top-3-ways-sweatshops-
hel...](http://www.learnliberty.org/videos/top-3-ways-sweatshops-help-poor-
escape-poverty)

[http://www.learnliberty.org/content/unbelievable-truth-
about...](http://www.learnliberty.org/content/unbelievable-truth-about-
sweatshops)

[http://www.learnliberty.org/content/sweatshop-wages-and-
thir...](http://www.learnliberty.org/content/sweatshop-wages-and-third-world-
workers-are-wages-worth-sweat)

~~~
Klinky
You seem to be okay with children being crushed to death or burning up in
fires from substandard building construction. Construction that is known to be
unsafe. It's accepted because it is _convenient_ , not because it's necessary.
These factories aren't turning out bare essential materials that are sold for
small profit margins. They create luxury items that often have the markings of
vapid pop culture and are sold with huge margins. First world countries _know_
these conditions are abhorrent, because we _do not_ allow them, but first
would countries do allow the thirst for high profit margins to come at the
cost of human lives overseas.

Your inability to understand the depth with which poverty strikes those in the
U.S. is astounding. Poverty in the U.S. means that you don't have clothes to
wear to school, that the school you go to is underperforming, that you live in
a neighborhood where you could get shot, abducted, propositioned for drugs. It
means going hungry on a day-to-day basis. It means the power being shutoff. It
means probably not having a parent in the home because they are either absent
or working two or three jobs. It often means the environment you grow up in is
likely to be rife with psychological, physical or substance abuse. It means
taking two hour bus rides both ways to get to a minimum wage job. It means no
or substandard healthcare. It could mean living in a car, on the street or
being under threat of such outcomes.

The videos linked are pretty disgusting and make libertarians sound like
horrible people. Maybe you should also put some videos up about how
libertarians justify slavery or indentured servitude because the slave or
servant would have died if they weren't being exploited. Maybe an article
could be written about the exploited workers in Dubai, and how it's still
mutually beneficial to have their rights stripped of them, pay held for
months, because the alternative is possible starvation in their home country.

Raising awareness and demanding better standards can improve conditions. If
you are coming from the point of view that there is no problem with sweatshops
and things don't need to change, then it's likely workers will continue to be
exploited. How long have China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia
had sweatshops? Why haven't sweatshops brought supposed prosperity to these
countries yet? How many generations more will have to endure sweatshops and
possible death? No one should have to put up with a sudden and horrible death
so "Keep Calm Carry On" shirts can make it on to Target store shelves.

~~~
thecodeore

      libertarians justify slavery or indentured servitude
    

libertarians first and foremost believe in non-aggression, voluntary trade. so
slavery, in so far as it was forced upon someone via violence or the threat of
violence would not be justified.

    
    
      If you are coming from the point of view that there is no problem with sweatshops and things don't need to change
    

None of the video's I linked to, nor it is my position that things do not need
to change, your emotional response is the problem, you lack the ability to
react with logic, to understand how the world actually works, instead you lash
out with emotion about how the world "should" work in your opinion

    
    
      How long have China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia had sweatshops?
    

They are in reality, why do you think in recent year companies have been
flocking back to the US, telecom and tech industries are the most widely
known, but many business are coming back. It is the increased in wages in
those nations brought about by economic development via sweatshops coupled
with the reducing wages in the US brought about by the failed economic
policies of the US government

------
Dogamondo
Are these monthly salaries quite typical across the board for the majority of
people in Bangladesh? I employ a JS developer in Dhaka as a contractor who's
hourly rate is $22.00 USD. I would have crossed his palm with about $4000 in
the past month alone. Yet he still tells me he's only on the slightly higher
side of 'average' when it comes to lifestyle/income over there. Earning 90% of
a sweat shop workers monthly salary per hour kinda makes me second guess this.
Anyone here have any direct experience of what the cost of living in
Bangladesh really is?

~~~
Dogamondo
Thanks a lot for the replies guys. I had a feeling I might be paying too much.
As since I hired my contractor he's suddenly been able to afford to set up and
office and hire other developers that are charged at the same rate. Don't get
me wrong, he's a really skilled developer and puts my JS skills to shame. But
I'm feeling like the price per project seems to be creeping up exponentially.
I'll try giving some smaller jobs to other devs in Bangladesh & India to see
what the quality of work is like in comparison. Cheers.

------
RegEx
These comments...they are completely awful. I don't want to be associated with
this place anymore. How do I delete my account?

~~~
cerebrum
Farewell... we wont miss you or notice that you are no longer here :)

------
feefie
Will 3D printers be able to make nice clothes some day?

~~~
lotsofcows
Probably. Then what will happen to these workers?

~~~
sebcat
They will throw their sabots into the machine and cry 'liberté, egalité,
fraternité!'

I don't claim to have any answers, but looking at western history you start to
see some similarities.

~~~
PeterisP
There's a big difference from western history - in western history, the
machines were right next to them; however, if for example a Bangladesh worker
is replaced by a sewing robot located in Taiwan, then there's nothing the
working class can do about that, and there's no chance that any benefits will
trickle down to them as the new profits and rich class are located elsewhere
and won't even hire them as servants.

The future will not be evenly distributed, that's for sure.

------
FrankenPC
Gee, sure makes America's lame first world problems look, well, lame.

~~~
Killah911
Don't worry, we're on well on our way to a society with haves an don't have.
Surprisingly enough, the wealth is much more evenly spread in Bangladesh now
compared to before. Mainly thanks to the garments industry. When I first heard
the principles of, lower taxes and fuck the poor by removing safety nets(aka
"entitlements"), I thought to myself, sounds like Bangladesh. Taxes are
unheard of there, as long as you can put out a little bribe to the tax
collector. Over the years, America is starting to look more and more like
Bangladesh (yes, I know, it's a bit hyperbolic). If you don't believe me, you
should see some of the homeless families that I've come across.

I recall watching people starve to death in Bangladesh when I was very young.
Those memories haunt me till this day. It is a form of despair that this 4-day
journalist knows nothing about. Aspirations go out the window when faced with
hunger. The alternative view is that it's pretty freekin' awesome that this
little girl has aspirations at all, beyond being fed (as was the case not very
long ago in Bangladesh) Our "first world problems" aren't lame. We have more
and more people falling into poverty and a society where social mobility is
fast disappearing. Well worth paying attention to if we indeed are a beacon
for the world to aspire to.

