Save money. Live better (unless you’re Chinese).
Deep from the like-that’s-a-surprise news archive comes a report that Wal-Mart, that bastion of low prices and lower morals, is sourcing Christmas lights, paper boxes, and other items from Chinese sweatshops, where workers endure illegal and degrading conditions. On the one hand, Wal-Mart has become to worker exploitation what Lindsay Lohan is to drunken party stories: a cliche without quite enough material to be properly covered. On the other hand, this report surfacing immediately after Wal-Mart’s Black Friday specials were the subject of news reports across the country really brings this story home. It was consumers headed to Wal-Mart looking for bargain basement Christmas lights that incentivized the sweatshop factory profiteers to exploit workers in the first place.
Merry Xmas.