FrumCA

All arguments to the contrary aside, I stopped making contributions to the Red Cross when I learned that they sell the blood that is donated. I also stopped donating to charities whose CEO's make exorbitant salaries. In my view donations to smaller local charities deliver more "bang for the buck".

Ambrose Loc: North America

:thumbup:

gessman Loc: Colorado

I have mixed emotions on this. With 90% of all new businesses going out of business within the first 2 years of existence, to be able to take people's throw-away stuff and turn it into a huge profit making effort and doing it often with employees who cannot do much else in life, if anything, seems to be a huge plus and takes some pretty remarkable people to make it happen, depending on the big unknown - the amount of subsidization by the government involved. I feel sure they would get some sizable tax breaks if nothing else for hiring the handicapped people they do. I am not a fan of exorbitant salaries for executives but especially for those who are in the millions and go to people who are not even making a pretense of helping society at all.

The flip side is that I have known some people who have worked for Goodwill. One in particular, a young man who was playmates with my three boys. Born Type 1 diabetic, a deaf mute, and hemophiliac, he worked, by now blind, at Goodwill for $2.00 an hour in the late '70s as a janitor and he was as happy as a lark on payday. He was one proud young man to be part of the work force and worked there until he was physically unable before passing away about five years ago in his early fifties.

Now, as motivated and industrious as he was to go with his eagerness to get up and go to work every morning, don't ask me to explain how he could get the floor clean but the people at his store were marvelous with him and evidently took up the slack created by his impairments. To think that there are people out there who can and will take on the task of making money out of other people's junk with employees like that is pretty astounding to me and way more worthy of existence than other endeavors of which I am acquainted. My feelings are that as long as they're not taking skin off your nose and you're just going to dispose of your old shirts a couple of times a year, it might just promote a very important boost to someone's pride. And, would I take a bit of those 1/2 million dollar salaries and pass it around a bit differently, you bet, but I'd still pay the management a sufficient salary that could attract people knowledgeable enough to keep it working. I think maybe $250k tops would be my break-point and lower for the sub-level managers. That'll still get you a nice living standard.