Your argument is void because the buyer never finds out what conditions the products are made in unless the factory workers protest such as in this case. Social responsibility is not part of the sales pitch, all the buyer see's are the shiny packaging and the sparkly tv commercials with their favorite celebrity. Were the buyer able to make an informed decision regarding his/her purchase, perhaps they'll choose otherwise.
A prime example of why money needs to be taken out of politics. It takes all this shouting from the 99% but nothing speaks to the congress members like the sweet dollars of the 1%.
If wikipedia was able to raise $20M in donations, an anti-sopa fund raised for lobbying could be quite effective, but then congress members would look utterly corrupt.
Pay is certainly a good thing. But perhaps the companies need a heavy touch of social responsibility as part of their manifesto. Unfortunately social responsibility does not fly in the name of profit. That is what I mean by exploitation.
I'll assume you're bringing up those 2 countries as a direct comparison to North Korea and China? Correct? China seems to be doing alright for now. As for NK? Well when the country was formed, it got the better half compared to South Korea, in that it had all valuable resources and manufacturing. Now you have to ask how did this country with its head start manage to fall behind to its southern counterpart? Had the playing field been level, ie no sanctions placed and NK was allowed to partake in international trade, the story today would be very different.
I'm not just talking about China. It really doesn't matter which country the factories are in. The poor will always get exploited. Be it child labour in India or Indonesia, or closing of GM Flint Michigan.
Exploitation of the poor is at the root of capitalism if you think about it from a basic level. It's all about making profit, and for that you need cheap labour provided by the poor, globalization provides an abundance of poor people to be exploited. Don't like the working hours here? Hey we got queues of peasants lined up outside to replace you. Get back to work.
"Instead of the raise they requested, these workers were given the following ultimatum: quit with compensation, or keep their jobs with no pay increase. Most quit and never got the money."
That's a pretty shitty thing to do. Had the manufacturing process not been outsourced to Foxconn, would this kind of behavior fly under the Apple or Microsoft brand image? Probably not.
Well there's only so many dictators we can knockout at any one time. We've been targeting those oil rich countries in the past decade where the ROI will be worth our while. The minerals of North Korea do look pretty sweet but we need some time to refill our barracks and sort out our own economic mess first. Don't worry though we've got economic sanctions in place against NK already so they won't be developing much.
Truthed. My friends company struck a deal with groupon in a strategic attempt to get more exposure, even though they sold their products at a loss. Yes their website got a large traffic spike on the day it hit groupons front page, but no, none of the traffic stuck. Just FYI.
I've been in HK for the past 2.5 years. The air isn't too bad. For example today, sunny and clear skies. I think it would only have a measurable effect on health if you were to live here 30+ years. I would say in any given week, maybe 1-2 days it's slightly smoggy here.
Singapore is a good choice though. I've also considered it. Some may complain about the hot/humid tropical climate all year round but I like that. It's also the most racially diverse country I've visited. Given your wife is Indian she will have an easier time settling in there than in HK where it's predominantly Chinese but with a huge expat crowd on the island side. Cantonese is not necessary here, you could get by without a single word really as most people speak English and Mandarin here. There is probably more chance of getting some Mandarin practice in too than in SG where they speak a variety of Chinese dialects.
How the hell can u work like that for a number of hours at a time? The weight of the laptop on your legs, not to mention the heat from the fan must make it bearable for only a short time. A desk/table for minimum requirement surely.
The thinness is definitely cool! But controlling the device through bending gestures doesn't seem all that intuitive. I would rather have a thicker easy-to-use phone. Next step is to get touch screen on that.
"The Chinese treasury uses $1T in USD reserves to stop the run on the bank."
How does it do that? Do you mean the whole money is an illusion thing? And people only work when they have trust in the government backed bills? Cos this argument can work for any country too really..
Ok, so your overall point is that "Chinese now have dollars that buy 1/2 as much as the dollars they used to buy the treasuries". But isn't this due to inflation and the dollar becoming devalued due to sub-prime disaster and overall global loss of faith in the US economy? Having the $3trillion in US gov securities is still good because it still shelters it from price fluctuations. So the cost of things made in China will still be cheap and US/Europe will still import them. If the $3 trill had been invested in harder assets as you suggests, the Chinese would have made a nice profit yes, but it doesnt safe-guard its import/export industry.
Holding $3 Trillion in boring American gov securities seems like a safe way to shelter itself from price fluctuations if the FED decides to play with the interest rates.
can you give some examples of some cool things this can be used for? I watched the youtube video and checked out the site but I'm still a little confused. What I got was you can control stuff on your PC from you iphone? So nodeler creates a sync somehow? Also whats the technology used behind this?