It's Easier Said than Done

Free trade is a controversy that I can't seem to take a solid stance on. After reading about both the benefits and negative effects of free trade, I remaided torn on the topic. My heart tells me these overworked and underpayed workers deserve better options and working conditions in developing countries, but my head also alerts me to the fact that my life would be considerably different without the extra cash I have in my pocket that I save when I buy goods at a low price.

While reading about the GAP story, I thought of my sister who decided to discontinue buying products sold by companies that used factories in developing nations. GAP had been her long time favorite store, but she no longer would be able to shop there. My sister was passionate about sticking to "home grown" things, but sadly it was easier said than done. After only a couple of months, she had decided that it was too costly to only buy products made in America. She said that she was spending much more than double on the things she was buying, and as an unemployed teenager in high school at the time, she couldn't afford to buy the things she wanted and continue to go out on the weekends with the higher prices. Though I think it was a good effort and I know my sister truly cared, the point is that it is hard to boycott these companies, especially now with our current economic situation.

The opposing articles on Wal-Mart really interested me because I have never been to one. I grew up outside of Los Angeles, and I can't even tell you how far the closest Wal-Mart would be from my city. I feel like I'm right in the middle, unbiased about Wal-Mart because I've had next to no interaction with the company. Right away, I disliked what I read about the workers in other nations working too many hours for too little pay. I guess my concern about Wal-Mart comes from what is actually happening oversees. As an employer of Americans that was paying an average of $8.23 to workers in 2001, it made me think that maybe I should have worked there in high school, or maybe even now. That hourly wage is much higher than many of our states' minimum wages currently, and that was eight years ago. When I worked in California in 2006 in the state with the highest minimum wage, I was only getting paid $6.75 and had no benefits. This article, however, demonstarted to me that maybe both I and Wal-Mart employees, were not making near enough to support ourselves in a state with such a high cost of living. Becuase of this, employees only making minimum wages used millions in taxpayers' money for welfare programs.

I think both the articles did a really good job rhetorically writing for their given audiences. Both used statistics and hard facts that made the authors seem credible, but neither decided to site where the research was from. Humor and sarcasm were used as well, especially in the conservative article, making those people opposing and supporting Wal-Mart to be bullies on different ends. I'm sure as I look deeper into the topic and have discussions with my classmates about free trade and Wal-Mart, I will begin to have more concrete opinions about the compnay and the role of free trade in our world.