The kids were willing to pay to be accepted (page 98)
Sales were not falling because consumers were blind to brands, but because the companies had their eyes on the wrong demographic sector. (...) His parents could have cared for their money, but the kids were willing to pay to be accepted. (...) The peer pressure was becoming a powerful market force that left pale the consumerism of their parents.
Mickey Mouse goes to Haiti
50.000 workers in Nike's factory in Yue Yuen (China) should've to work 19 years to earn what Nike spends in commercials in 1 year. Annual sales of Wal-Mart are 120 times the budget of Haiti. Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disney, earns $9.800 per hour, while a Disney worker in Haiti earns 16.8 $ cents per hour. The 181 M$ in stock options that Eisner received in 1996 would be enough to sustain during 14 years the 19.000 workers and their families in Haiti.
What do open and responsible Parliaments and Congresses serve for? (page 395)
The last decades, many civic movements have tried to invert the conservative economic trends by electing liberal, Labourist or social-democrat governments, only to discover that their economic politics is the same, or that it is yet more directly subjected to the wills of the international corporations. Centuries of democratic reforms have allowed creating more transparent governments but have been revealed soon as inefficient in the new climate of multinational power. What do open and responsible Parliaments and Congresses serve for, if a bunch of impenetrable corporations decide so many issues of the world politics in the back alley?
(…) An important defeat occurred in 1986, when the US government managed to eliminate the barely known Commission of the United Nations on Transnational Corporations. Founded in the mid-1970s, this commission was devoted to elaborate a universal code of conduct for those companies. Its goals were to prevent abuses by corporations, like the selling of medicines in developing countries which were illegal in the developed world, examining the labour and environmental effects of the exportation of industries to developing countries, and imposing more transparency and responsibility to the private sector.
Bedford avenue, Williamsburg, New York, NY, USA (2009)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario