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"I can't imagine Microsoft ever being given a fine in the US for monopolistic practices" See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

"Well, in most of the EU you need to guarantee decent working conditions" You also do in the US. See OSHA safety standards. Also US has much stricter anti-harassment and anti-discrimination laws and rules than much of the EU. Comments that would be acceptable jokes in the workplace in Denmark could get you fired for creating a hostile work environment in the US.

Maybe instead of just slandering the US, you should learn a bit more about it.

Harassment and discrimination are nothing compared to actually abusing the worker through lack of vacations, imposed overtime, laughable minimum wages (specially for the "mandatory tip" jobs) and no safety nets.

> laughable minimum wages (specially for the "mandatory tip" jobs)

I couldn't believe this when I first heard of it: Some (or most?) states have a "different minimum" (? yeah ..) wage for certain types of service jobs (waiters, etc) that exclude some arbitrary amount they are supposed to get as "tips".

If that's not something that's purely beneficial to the business and puts a burden on the individual person, I don't know what. It makes the whole concept of "minimum wage" laughable by setting an impossibly low one for a certain class of jobs ("tip money" isn't guaranteed so you can't count it as part of the minimum wage, the guarantee is the whole point). And then it turns into a situation where the customers (nicely sidestepping the business) are made to be felt responsible for the servants to make "minimum wage", but they aren't responsible at all, it's charity.

Any country you could be talking about is either shittier than the U.S. in other ways (Continental Europe), exactly like the U.S. (U.K., Australia), or too small and homogenous to be a credible counter example (Scandinavia, etc).

Scandinavia is small, but depending on who you ask it's not homogenous. E.g:

http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work/Life_in_Sweden/A_multicul...

Examples or evidence for any of those 3 claims? Appears to be wind and noise.

Over 15% of the Swedish population was born outside of the country. The largest groups are from Irak, Poland, Afghanistan, Somalia, China and Iran. There are also large groups of second generation immigrants with parents from Chile, Greece and Italy. Not everybody is blonde and blue eyed...

That's mostly white people then?

You'll get diversity when there isn't a single majority group. Put all of Europe together (including western and eastern), that would be reasonably diverse.

Yes, just like in the USA, the large majority is white (72% for USA, Sweden doesn't measure ethnicity). And Sweden has more foreign born inhabitants than the US (12.4% for US and 15% for Sweden).

So, just dismissing comparisons with the Scandinavian countries based on homogeneity of population might be hasty.

> exactly like the U.S. (U.K., Australia)

They are different. E.g. the UK has `socialistic' health-care.

Not to mention that thing about guns.

> Well, not every country is like that. In many others lobbying is illegal and people who do it are severely punished.

That's not the only way to buy influence.

> Monsanto wants to grow GMO crops in our country? Sure, but only after they show the documentation that its safe for people and does not affect local businesses.

So this only applies to Monsanto, or do local companies have to do the same things?

> In the "land of the free" you are also free to exploit your employees

Utterly untrue. You have no idea what you're talking about.

> And sure, its very,very far from perfect, but I am pretty sure its nowhere as corrupt as the US government.

How can you possibly know?

> Utterly untrue. You have no idea what you're talking about.

It took ten (1998-2008) years before the US minimum wage went up.

That's 10 years without a pay rise for the unskilled worker of America.

It that's not an example of worker exploitation I don't know what is?

Statutory minimum wages not rising are not an example of worker exploitation. Even if there were no minimum wage laws worker exploitation does not necessarily follow.

Additionally, in your example while the federal minimum wage might not have increased many states have their own minimum wage laws that have changed over the period you describe.

The closest statement you could make is that an absence of minimum wage laws may make it legal to employ people at an exploitatively low wage. This is not really the name thing.

> Even if there were no minimum wage laws worker exploitation does not necessarily follow.

To answer this question you have to go no further than to study history.

When there where no minimum wage laws workers where exploited.

You have to go back no further than the first industrial revolution to see evidence of this.

Now that exploitation brought about the rise of the union movement.

I don't think it is a coincide that as we now witness the decline of the union movement, there is a corresponding rise in the exploitation of workers.

Those who don't study their history are destined to repeat it.

Germany doesn't have a minimum wage either.

It's becoming more complicated in Germany. See e.g. http://www.economist.com/node/21536648

>So this only applies to Monsanto, or do local companies have to do the same things?

This would naturally apply to any company, local or foreign.

> Utterly untrue. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Just six words: "right to work", "at will employment".

And only four to counter: "Be a hard worker".

    > companies can have a direct effect on laws by pouring money into the government,so it kind of is democratic, right?

"corporations are people my friend!" ;)

I realized the other day that it's a grammatically correct way of saying "corporations are made of people." Consider the famous quote: "Soylent green is people!" It doesn't mean that Soylent Green is a person, it means Soylent Green is made of people.