...CCGL 9018 Final Essay Name: CHAN YIK UID 3035036503 Case study of Wal-Mart Introduction In this essay, the case of Wal-Mart will be discussed by applying the Milton Friedman’s argument on CSR and utilitarianism. Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world, however, it is also known for ruthless exploitation of employee, squeezing suppliers, and crushing communities. It has been the Public Enemy No. 1 for a generation of activists and reformers. To cope with these oppositions, Wal-Mart responded vigorously and, instead, announced plans to preserving the environment, fighting hunger, empowering women and providing access to healthy, affordable food. The essay will try to argue the problems of Wal-Mart dominating the world in the retail business to create great profit by giving low wages to the employee according to Milton Friedman and utilitarianism. Also, it will discuss how the plans announced by Wal-Mart deal with the global responsibility. Moreover, how should government involve in this situation. Problem: Low-wages for the Employee 1. Milton Friedman According to Milton Friedman, an American economist and philosopher, the most important social responsibility of a corporation is to maximize profit for its owner- stockholder (Friedman, 1970). He suggested that if a corporation put the focus on being socially responsible, it would make the corporation less competitive with those competitors who did not put much focus on social responsibility. For the...
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...edu Essay Topic #2 In light of reading the essays “Dumpster Diving” or “Serving in Florida” analyze your own understanding of homelessness, poverty and making a living with minimum wage in the U.S. You might consider whether the essay(s) changed preconceived notions that you had? Compare these preconceived notions to what you learned through the experiences of either Eighner or Ehrenreich. The following are topics and thesis statements on “Dumpster Diving” or “Serving in Florida.” Please feel free to use these topics and/or the accompanying thesis statements “as is” or with your own modifications: • How Eighner discussed such an informal topic in a formal way: Lars Eighner's discussion of dumpster diving is very methodical, intelligent and polished in contrast to the subject matter of digging through the trash. • Eighner’s attitude toward his lifestyle: Lars Eighner's account of dumpster diving was surprisingly positive given the fact that he is homeless. • The common problems of an employee: Although Barbara Ehrenreich set out to discuss the life of a minimum wage worker specifically, her experience was universal to most working class people. • Problems specific to minimum wage workers: Barbara Ehrenreich's essay "Serving in Florida" revealed the daily struggle of a minimum wage worker in America. General Essay Reminders: Essays are to be submitted via hard copy and electronically on the date due. A plagiarized essay will result...
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...1, 2014 Introduction to Sociology 125 Essay 1 25087800 When the U.S economy collapsed. Millions of people lost their homes, jobs, retirement savings and their faith in the American dream. What we gained was a very clear view of the vest and growing divide between the rich and the rest of us. Can a family survive on minimum wage income is yes. Based on” unless congress raises the federal minimum wage. Economy security for workers in low-wage jobs the fastest-growing sector will disappear. It is incumbent on members of congress to raise the federal minimum wage and index it to inflation, putting more money into the pockets of ordinary Americans to boost our economy and aid a real, long-term recovery. People who work for a living should be able to make a living from their work. Low-wage workers should not have to scrap by. While many of the companies they work for are making thousand if not millions of dollars. The federal minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation. If it has been, low-wage workers or family would be able to survive on minimum wage income. However is stratification necessary and positive in America? Society has developed the concept of social class to categorized people into different groups based on economic, political, and socio-economic status. This system of social stratification contributes to the difficulties that the middle and lower classes have to experience in order to succeed in the United States. America is a place where all people are supposed...
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...Thaisa Ribeiro de Miranda 10/06/2014 EN 131E – Composition Essay 1 The World Goes Round Is it possible to live earning just a minimum wage? Is it fair to pay workers a low wage? Throughout the United States it is possible to see workers earning just a minimum wage. The working class that receives this low wage is bigger than people can imagine, such as waitresses, hotel receptionists, ambulance drivers, and others. It is right paying these workers low wages; therefore, the value of the minimum wage is wrong. The current minimum wage is not following the inflation in the country. As quality of life is directly linked to inflation, low-wage workers are subject to greater difficulties. The minimum wage is the lowest wage that employers may legally pay their employees for time and effort spent in producing goods and services. It is also the lowest value at which a person can sell their labor power. In the United States, the minimum wage is regulated by the government of each state; therefore, it cannot be less than the value stipulated by the federal government. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the current minimum wage provided by the federal government is $7.25. Although some states have established their own minimum wages, often higher than the stated by the federal government. Over the years, people seek to improve their skills in order to have a better understanding; therefore, it will increase their chances of getting a job with a better salary...
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...the year of 1848, the idea of civil disobedience has been progressively developing within our nation. This conception has been established by allowing Americans fulfilling their duty of civil disobedience by engaging in amicable protest and armistice demonstrations to perpetuate the injustice that is being provided. Withal, in the essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” written by Henry David Thoreau, the author believes that it is the citizen’s duty to practice civil disobedience to demonstrate the unjust laws that are being presented from the government. Thoreau states that the fellow citizens should demonstrate civil disobedience when it “requires you to the...
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...Homelessness in America Homelessness in America has always been an issue but it has become an even bigger issue over the past years. With a world filled with global conflict, disappearing jobs, higher education cost, and increasing poverty in America, the homeless need our help more than ever. Just last year, the national poverty rate rose to include 13.2 % of the population. Also, 3.5 million people were forced to sleep in parks, shelters, under bridges or in cars. Hunger and homelessness are increasing epidemics plaguing the United States. Because of the high cost of living, high unemployment rates, and low-wage jobs, countless Americans are forced to choose between food, housing, and other expenses. According to recent studies, money is being devoted to rent and utilities rather than food. 35% of the homeless population is families with children, 23% are U.S. military veterans, 25% are children under the age of 18, 20-25% suffers from mental illness and 30% have experienced domestic violence. 19.3 % of homeless people live in New York City and Los Angeles. New York City has been shown to have the highest number of homeless people in the country. The next biggest is Loss Angeles and then Seattle/King County Washington. As a result of doing nothing for the homeless, more people will become homeless. That means, more people sleeping on the streets, dying from hunger, and possibly an even higher crime rate. Economic factors play a huge role in the issue of homelessness. The...
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...problem of income inequality. There are constantly debates over the topic of raising the minimum wage, and with good reason: Between 1979 and 2009, the wealthiest 5 percent of American families saw income increases of 72.7 percent, while the lowest income group in America saw a decrease of 7.4 percent in income. Meanwhile, in the same time frame, productivity has increased by 90 percent. These issues combined have caused a huge wealth gap in America. This is primarily due, of course, to the selfish materialism of those higher-ups who prefer to have millions of dollars for themselves while the very citizens that work for them barely have enough to feed themselves. While this conflict has not yet become violent, it could do so quickly. Think of the French Revolution in the 18th century. It was caused by the poor finally rebelling against the rich who oppressed them. Already, in the present, there are some forms of rebellion, albeit nonviolent. The Occupy Wall Street Movement has protested this income inequality. While there are many different viewpoints on the subject, one solution to this issue is simple in theory: Those with more must give to those with less. If the millionaire CEOs, whose incomes have more than quadrupled since the 1980s, would be willing to sacrifice some of their money so that the workers could just afford to live, the conflict could be solved. Raising the minimum wage and allowing workers a higher income is the simplest and easiest solution that would...
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...Reeta Zamro English 120 Essay #4 Wolfe November 23, 2013 Argument Essay America’s famous and most well-known nickname for centuries has been the “Melting Pot.” The origins of this nickname came from the immigration of people from different countries to one country- America. Immigration has always existed in the United States, and without it the nation would not be where it is right now. The benefactors of immigration limitless, and Americans should treat immigrants not as a danger and disadvantage to the nation, but a way to help the nation progress as a whole. One of the first reasons immigrants are beneficial to America, is because the diversity they bring to the states. For many years immigrants have brought different types of cultures to the United States. With these cultures there has been an increase in diverse foods, fashion, and work ethic. Many people might say that immigrants take away jobs from American workers, however; with their introduction to different cuisines and shops it has created more jobs for Americans to pursue. When looking at the restaurants around us we can notice that all the stores do not originate from America, but other countries that have passed on their secrets to us. Immigrants also take the burden off Americans by working jobs that need to be done, but with no American citizens to volunteer t work. The idea of minimum wage in the United States is to have fair pay for everyone. An American apple picker would expect to get pain eight-seventy...
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...However in 1932 Franklin Roosevelt was elected because he had promised to present a “new deal” for the American people, Roosevelt planned to do this by increasing government spending and enacting numerous work programs in an effort to stimulate the economy. Furthermore in this essay I will evaluate how far the new deal affected different groups of American citizens, in order to bring a positive change. The new deal was primarily conceived as a solution to the economic crisis of the hoover years and it can be argued that it delivered significant improvements, as it stressed the importance of rapid, national action. This meant that federal government had to take over some policy making that was the role of the individual states. Roosevelt’s new deal consisted of ‘alphabet agencies’ organisations, created to tackle specific problems Americas...
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...Expository Essay COM/150 – Essay Writing 02/22/2013 Jennifer Preus Have you or a loved one recently lost your job? Have you found yourself wondering how you’re going to pay rent or a mortgage payment this month? Have you had to rely on outside sources to help supplement your food and utility expenses? In 2012, over 5.4 million workers left the job market entirely (Folks, 2013) and are now facing housing crises. As the demand for affordable housing continues to grow as adults are unable to find work, many Americans are facing homelessness and have no affordable housing available to them. All across America, more people are finding themselves homeless. Whether in big cities or small urban towns, the homeless rate continues to grow as the inability to pay for affordable housing grows. The number of people paying more than fifty percent (50%) of their income toward rent increased by more than six percent (6%) from 2009 to 2010. The United States Housing and Urban Development (HUD) classify those paying that high of a percentage as “severely housing cost burdened”. In a survey conducted by the Low Income Housing Information Service, more than 17.6 million households with children experience at least one major housing problem, meaning that one out of every two households with children in this country experience an issue with housing (Kaufman, 2013). Per The National Alliance to End Homelessness (2012) the national rate of homelessness was 21 homeless people per 10,000...
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...| Essay, Custom Research Paper: Argumentative Essay on Child Labor Laws and Regulations | | | | Child labor occurs along a continuum, with harmful and exploitative work that endangers the welfare and potential of the child at one end of the spectrum and light work and often beneficial training and apprenticeship at the other. National and international labor standard regulations with respect to what constitutes a legally permissible minimum age of employment accordingly depend typically on a range of criteria including (a) the type of work, as distinguished by the degree of hazard a child faces, or whether the child is subject to exploitation, or the worst forms of child labor; (b) the sector of employment, whether in agriculture, manufacturing, or family businesses or the household; and (c) the degree to which child labor work interferes with schooling, depending on the number of hours a child is put to work, say, per week.Though child labor statistics inevitably paint an aggregate picture, the coverage of national and international statistics has improved, reflecting a diversity of activities that come under the umbrella of child labor work. International Labour Organization (ILO) statistics treat any child as economically active with performance of at least 1 hour of work during the week prior to asurvey. The ILO also defines a child laborer as synonymous with (a) an economically active person between the ages of 5 and 11, and (b) an individual between the ages of 12...
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...The global financial crisis of 2007 – 2008 caused great concern for the World Trade Organisation as they felt that countries would persuade their governments to implement price floors in order to support and restore domestic markets. Price floors are regularly employed in a wide spectrum of industries by governments, as an intervention in the free market, in order to protect producers and suppliers. This is achieved by legally setting a minimum price a good can be sold for, above the equilibrium price (Government Intervention in Market Prices 2014).However price floors are associated with many negative economic implications and disadvantages which encouraged economic inefficiency, such as, an increase in production levels causing surplus, misallocation of resources and higher prices for domestic consumers (Rockoff 2008). This essay will seek to discuss and explain the economic efficiency of price floors in relation to the modern finical crisis using real world examples. Many modern economies are regulated by governments through the implementation of price control methods. This is important for the government to protect its interests, as well as protecting selected producers in the economy from exploitation. One such way in which governments regulate their economy is by applying price floors (Government Intervention in Market Prices 2014). A price floor is the lowest legal price a commodity can be sold for and are targeted at ensuring prices for particular goods aren’t too low...
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...by indigenous people living in the Americas in the late Twentieth Century? Do the film’s conclusions offer any optimism? Gregory Nava’s El Norte is an Oscar nominated British and American made film which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 1983. Based Nava’s experiences, the film tells the story of Quiche Indians Rosa and Enrique as they are forced to flee from the village in Guatemala in order to make a new life for themselves in the United States. In this essay I am going to describe some of the difficulties faced by the characters as indigenous people living in the Americas in the late 20th Century while primarily focusing on their experiences as immigrants in North America. One of the primary problems faced by the characters in El Norte is the issue of seeking employment in a country where they are unable to easily gain qualifications and education. During their time in Guatemala Rosa and Enrique worked exclusively in the domestic and agricultural realm and thus have no qualifications that could grant them a successful and high paying job in the U.S. Therefore they end up in somewhat menial low paying job such as waiting on, ironing clothes and cleaning houses. When Nacha first introduces Rosa to the job of ironing clothes shortly after she has arrived in America she states “They’ll pay you 30 cents apiece.” According to US tax policy this means she would have had to iron 11 pieces an hour in order to earn the minimum wage for the state of California in the...
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...Naiem salib Essay #3. First draft. Is Walmart good or bad for America? Throw the years Walmart have expanded more and more , and attracted more customers And employee’s .Some people can’t live without Walmart ,Some shop at Walmart and other work there , but not everyone is a fan of Walmart .Walmart also do a lot of good things to the community ,But the question here does Walmart do more good stuff to the community or does they make the community even more worse? Lets start and talk about the good stuff that Walmart do. They're cheap which helps low income families or people who just want cheap stuff. One-stop shopping is also a huge plus for a lot of people save time, gas, and money. You might have to turn some of the bad into a bit of good. For one, retail employment growth - they open a lot of jobs for a lot of people, and you can find all you can need in Walmart from food to tires to pet supplies , so you wont have to go to ten stores to buy you’re stuff , and they are one of the cheapest stores in America. Is Walmart bad for America? Over 100 million customers visit Wal-Mart every single week in this country, but is it good for America. and that question cannot be answered , because the reason that people hate Walmart is the same reason that the other half of America love Walmart .And that is what they want .Walmart god so big that they started paying people less than the minimum wage , and they couldn’t care less. In 2010, Wal-Mart had revenues of 421 billion...
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...9/6/2013 The Idea of Ethics and Social Responsibility in Business For the purpose of this essay I’ve elected to discuss the responsibility of the employee in the work place, and their place in the corporate system. All four chapters we’ve read in the text so far have been filled to the brim with the three author’s ideas of what makes a business and its workforce ethically responsible, but the particular section in the first chapter regarding employee ethics caught my attention. When a business begins to grow, if it turns a profit and remains successful, it will most likely need to take on employees so that it can cope with the growth its products demand (Nickels, et al). Everyone hired has a specific job that is necessary in order for the business to run like a well-oiled machine. The authors of our elected text bring up the fact that the number of employees calling in sick to work has reached the highest percentage it has been at in the last five years, and the majority of these employees were not truly ill to begin with. Also a much larger percentage of people are conducting personal business at work, and this causes a large drop in employee productivity (Nickels et al 14). This in turn causes problems for the business as a whole. However, on page fifteen of our text the authors state that your basic American employee is, on average, one of the world’s most productive workers. This contradiction is confusing to me, but I also believe I know where it may come from...
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