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Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 216 of the 2015 2nd edition of Pietra Rivoli’s excellent 2005 book, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy:

Rich Americans – or even middle-class Americans – excel at throwing things away, and the richer we become, the bigger the mounds of cast-off clothing swell. The Salvation Army at one time tried to sell all of the clothing in its stores or to give it away, but the supply now so far outstrips domestic demand that only a fraction of the clothing collected by the Salvation Army stays in the United States. There are nowhere near enough poor people in America to absorb the mountains of castoffs, even if they were given away.

DBx: Contrary to the ignorant tweetings, twitterings, and other revelations of the ‘thoughts’ of many pundits and politicians, ordinary and even poor Americans are now much more materially prosperous than they were in the past and as compared to most people in the world today. To assert (as do the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders) that capitalism doesn’t work, or to proclaim (as do the likes of Donald Trump and Peter Navarro) that ordinary Americans are suffering because of increased globalization, is to display nothing but ignorance noxiously mixed with lust for power.

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