Posted in Economics & Globalization, Technology & Science, tagged advantage, affluence, Americans, animals, Apple, auto industry, best practices, bottom line, brand-name, buying power, capitalists, CEOs, China, Chinese, Coach handbags, coffee, conscious consumerism, consumer, controversy, corporations, cost effective, cost savings, country of origin, deindustrialization, Dollar, dysfunctional, Economics & Globalization, efficiency, electronics, exploitation, export, factory, fair trade, Forbes, Foxconn, free trade, globalism, goods, Green, Honda, human rights, import, industrial policy, investment, iPad, iPhone, labor, level the playing field, local, loss, made in America, manufacturer, mark-up, market, marketplace, markup, MBAs, middle class, myth, name-brand, New York Times, non-GMO, outsource, overseas, PC, perils of a service economy, policy, premium, price hikes, private enterprise, products, profitability, profitable, protectionism, race to the bottom, rational self interest, reconceptualize, relocalization, renegotiate, responsibility, shame, shifts, shop, shrinking, slave, social contract, solutions, Southeast Asia, standards, Steve Jobs, store-brand, suicides, sustainable, sweatshop, symbiotic, target market, taxes, Technology & Science, Third World, Toyota, trade, underpaid, US, vanity pricing, wealth, workers, zoo on January 31, 2012|
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The secret is out: Apple has a worm inching its way through its corporate flesh. January was a tough month on the Cupertino, California company venerated for its innovation and vision.
The controversy emerged when an Apple contractor in China, a manufacturing facility known as Foxconn where many brand-name electronics are assembled largely by hand, made headlines when dozens of workers threatened to jump to their deaths over a labor dispute. Foxconn’s solution? Erect netting beneath roofs and windows.
It doesn’t end there. For 12-hour shifts, six-days-per week and a live-in lifestyle workers allegedly earn just $17, the New York Times reports. Forbes and PC Magazine added their own angle to the news. One such detail described a high-level manager who, at a Chinese zoo, asked a zookeeper to provide advice on how to deal with his workers, drawing a direct comparison between factory workers and undomesticated animals. It gets worse. A NYT piece, “In China, Human Costs are Built into iPad“, refers to two dozen accidental worker deaths that have occurred as a result of unsafe working conditions. Finally, in “This American Life” the narrator of “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory” recounts a first-hand meetup with underage Chinese workers, among scores of others who suffer permanent neurological tremors and ticks as a consequence of over-exposure to a chemical toxin.
For all the outrage, many argue such are the inescapable growing pains of a Third World labor force “coming up”. At one time, the United States, too, was known for worker exploitation, a chief reason child labor laws gained traction and unions became a bulwark against corrupt and abusive management practices. And yet, even at the height of the union movement in the US such organizations represented only a fraction of the workforce. Nonetheless, what began as labor negotiating with management to build a viable American middle class has transformed in recent decades to its polar opposite: a perception that unions destroy American prosperity.
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Posted in Economics & Globalization, Politics & Public Policy, tagged 21st Century, adopting, agitators, allegations, alter the way we live, American, analogy, Asean Plus Six, Asian, bailout, Barack Obama, barriers, block, bode, body, borders, bottom line, brainwash, broken, bureaucracy, business, capitalism, challenges, change, civil unrest, codependent, coercion, collectivist, commonwealth, communism, comparative advantage, competition, concentration of power, confederacy, conflicting, consolidate, conspiracy, conspirator, Constitution, cooperation, corporation, crisis, culture, currency, customs union theory, deconstruct, deliver on, downside, economics, emergent, enmeshed, evolution by stealth, expedient, experiment, fascism, fearmonger, federation, fiction, finance, foolhardy, force, foreign policy, framework, free trade, freedom, Friedmanesque, Friedmanism, future, global, globalization, goal, groups, guarantee, H.G. Wells, H.W. Bush, history, hope, horizon, human, idealism, imagined, impersonal, in name only, independence, individual, interregionalism, is United States, Jerome Corsi, jobs, justice, language, law, legal, legislation, liberty, lies, logical extension, maps, market, Media & Social Media, member, metaphor, military complex, myth, NAFTA, NASCO, nation, national sovereignty passe, nationalization, nature, neocapitalist, neoclassical economists, net gain, new deal, new economy, new empire, new world order, North American, NWO, offset, opponents, opportunity, opt out, optimal currency area theory, organization, oversell, peacetime, policy, policymakers, practical, pragmatic, president, Prime Minister Brown, principles, progress, promise, proposals, prosperity, psychology, public opinion, push, raindrops, real, reality, reconstruct, Reform, regional security complex, regionalization, relationship, representative, representative democracy, rights, Ross Perot, rule of law, scale, secure, security, serious questions, shift, Single Market and Economy, socialism, speak out, specialization, SPP, states, stimulus, subservient, succession, SuperCorridor Project, sustainable, theory, threat, timeline, Trans-Texas Corridor, transnational, transnational progressives, treaty, trend, Union, unrest, Urban Legend, usher in, Utopian, venture, wages, weakest link, WFM, Woodrow Wilson, workers, world federalism movement, world leaders on October 30, 2009|
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President H.W. Bush, borrowing a phrase from an earlier era, popularized the term “New World Order” (NWO) in the early 1990s. But while the New World Order has legitimate roots, it has come to be associated with little more than paranoid conspiracy.
Given what we’ve witnessed in recent times, however, is it wise to continue to dismiss the notion out-of-hand?
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