At long last, the city of Clevland, Ohio is getting a Wal-Mart. And the citizens are lining up. But not to shop there (at least not yet): they are lining up to apply for jobs, at a rate of 20 applicants per opening.

Cleveland's first Wal-Mart is about to open, and with it comes 300 jobs in a metro area that is struggling economically. The result, according to the Plain Dealer: 6,000 people applied, or 20 applicants for every one job. "We had to recount (the applications) three times," Mia Masten, Wal-Mart's director of corporate affairs in its Midwest division, told the newspaper.

Lest you think that everyone sees this as a good thing, think again:

Most of the jobs are lower-paying, lower-skills positions, and the demand for those posts disturbs some people. "That's Depression-era kind of imagery," Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters Ohio, told the Plain Dealer. "You can't have an economy that works that way. It speaks to the need to generate a different kind of employment in Cleveland."

Continue reading "The Ash Heap of Economic History" »

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Compared to their Liberal and Social Democratic counterparts, conservatives both in the US and the UK have a reputation for being the party that promotes individual liberty and self-responsibility. Perhaps as a consequence of these stances, they also are known as the "eat-your-spinach" party. A recent health care proposal advanced by the UK's Conservative party will do nothing to reverse that image. In short it's a combination of carrots (incentives), sticks (penalties), and carrot sticks:

Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free NHS treatment being denied under the Tory plans. Patients would be handed "NHS Health Miles Cards" allowing them to earn reward points for losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving immunisations or attending regular health screenings.

Like a supermarket loyalty card, the points could be redeemed as discounts on gym membership and fresh fruit and vegetables, or even give priority for other public services - such as jumping the queue for council housing. But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as hip replacements until they cleaned up their act. Those who abused the system - by calling an ambulance when a trip to the [general practitioner] would be sufficient, or telephoning out of hours with needless queries - could also be penalised.

The report calls for a greater emphasis on the "citizen's responsibility" to be healthy and says no one should expect taxpayers to fund their unhealthy lifestyles.

While I am sure that Popeye would approve, I have never lived in the UK and can't predict how the public there will react to such plans. My hunch is that it won't be long before advocacy group says it's unfair to deny artificial hips to those eating too much fish and chips. I also suspect that if implemented, the government will have considerable problems with monitoring people's unhealthy behavior. I mean, how exactly will the government hope to find out who "binge" drinks and smokes "heavily" and who does not? With a network of informers? By video cameras outside every Dunkin' Donuts around the country? And how will those terms be defined and by whom? Who determines what is a needless question and what is not? Finally, at what point does promoting self-responsibility become too much of a good thing and begin to be an infringement on people's individual liberty? If this plan is implemented, we may soon find out.

Continue reading "Eat Your Spinach... or else!" »

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For the second time in two years, rioters ransacked a KFC in Karachi Pakistan. According to an AP reporter, rioters were neither protesting the high cholesterol content nor its nefarious role as an agent of globalization and spearhead of Western hegemony. Rather, it seems like opportunism borne of an ordinary power outage:

Hundreds of residents angered over a 16-hour power outage rioted in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi overnight, ransacking a KFC restaurant and two banks, police said Thursday. At least six people were hurt as youths burned tires on roads, stoned passing cars and caused extensive damage to commercial property in the south of the city during two hours of unrest. Police used tear gas to control the mob, and arrested 13 people, police officer Azad Khan said. The riot ended when power was restored early Thursday. The KFC restaurant near an upscale district of the city was badly damaged, and rioters made off with the cash register. Two guards at the restaurant were among those injured in the violence.

The last time something like his happened was in May 2005. Then, there was a serious issue motivating it. But again, there was no clear connection to KFC:

Six people were killed when a KFC restaurant was set on fire by a mob angry about a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in Karachi, bringing the overall death toll to 11, police said Tuesday. The fast-food chicken restaurant was targeted in overnight rioting after Monday's attack on the Madinatul Ilm Imambargah mosque, where three assailants clashed with police before exploding a bomb in violence that killed two attackers, two policemen and one worshipper and wounded 26 others. Sunni Muslim extremists were suspected in the mosque attack, and it was unclear why KFC was targeted in retaliatory rioting, along with arson attacks on vehicles, shops, three bank branches and three gas stations. However, the restaurant is heavily associated with the U.S. and rioters in Pakistan typically attack symbols of Washington while on a rampage.

The common thread between these two attacks may be that the KFC was in an "upscale" neighborhood and thus, one "heavily associated with the US." And if in the minds of Pakistanis affluence is associated with America, that ought to be considered a good thing. That having been said, Karachi may be the only place on Earth where something from Kentucky is taken as a symbol of Washington D.C.

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I order a book today- "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole" - by Benjamin R. Barber, author of Jihad vs. McWorld. I don't expect that I will like it very much. That's not judging a book by its cover, however. I like the cover. It's the book's central thesis, as recently expounded in very well-written but off-the-mark LA Times editorial entitled "Overselling Capitalism", that makes me say this. That's not to say the entire argument is wrong. Here are the parts Barber gets right:

Capitalism's core virtue is that it marries altruism and self-interest. In producing goods and services that answer real consumer needs, it secures a profit for producers. Doing good for others turns out to entail doing well for yourself.

Here's where the argument starts to go awry:

Capitalism's success, however, has meant that core wants in the developed world are now mostly met and that too many goods are now chasing too few needs. Yet capitalism requires us to "need" all that it produces in order to survive. So it busies itself manufacturing needs for the wealthy while ignoring the wants of the truly needy. Global inequality means that while the wealthy have too few needs, the needy have too little wealth.

Agreed. Free markets have enabled the developed world to meet our most "core" or material wants. And yes, the world is full of poor and needy people. The question is "why?" According to Barber, it's the developed world's promotion of infantile "consumerism" that's to blame for the crisis that he sees threatening capitalism and democracy:

The world teems with elemental wants and is peopled by billions who are needy. They do not need iPods, but they do need potable water, not colas but inexpensive medicines, not MTV but their ABCs. They need mortgages they can afford, not funny-money easy credit.To serve such needs, however, capitalism must once again learn to defer profits and empower the needy as customers. Entrepreneurs wanted! With micro-credit, villagers can construct hand pumps and water filters from the clay under their feet. Pharmaceutical companies ought to be thinking about how to sell inexpensive retro-virals to Africans with HIV instead of pushing Botox to the "forever young" customers they are trying to manufacture here. And parents can refuse to relinquish their gatekeeping roles and let marketers know they won't allow their kids to be targeted anymore.

This is where Barber has it wrong. The problem of the undeveloped world is not that too few n the developed world care. Nor is the problem that we are self-absorbed consumerists. Rather, it's because too much of the developed world doesn't provide the appropriate environment and precursory conditions that would allow for investment. The poorest and neediest people live in countries that do not have capitalistic-friendly institutions like respect for the rule of law, property rights, and individual liberty. Corruption and illiberal political systems are what keep people needy. Those who run their countries are the ones that need to change their ways. As soon as they do, their will be more business of the kind Barber wants to see, but not before.

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"Take a number." "Please be seated and wait for your number to called." "Now serving # 4165." These are not phrases you are probably used to hearing in a hospital or a doctor's office. But according to a recent LA Times article, you will if the advocates of universal health care have their way. Entitled "Universal Healthcare's Dirty Little Secrets", two Cato Institute scholars describe the numerous "hurdles to care" experienced by patients in several countries whose governments provide health coverage.

Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare."

But this is not news, really. Everyone has heard about the long waiting lists, about people dying waiting for care. What is news is that the underlying assumption motivating much of the debate doesn't have much empirical support:

You may think it is self-evident that the uninsured may forgo preventive care or receive a lower quality of care. And yet, in reviewing all the academic literature on the subject, Helen Levy of the University of Michigan's Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured, and David Meltzer of the University of Chicago, were unable to establish a "causal relationship" between health insurance and better health. Believe it or not, there is "no evidence," Levy and Meltzer wrote, that expanding insurance coverage is a cost-effective way to promote health. Similarly, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year found that, although far too many Americans were not receiving the appropriate standard of care, "health insurance status was largely unrelated to the quality of care."

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Alicia Colon of the New York Sun writes about Bob Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, who's fighting back against the Al Gore and the global warming lobby's attacks on the coal industry:

"Some wealthy elitists in our country," he told the audience, "who cannot tell fact from fiction, can afford an Olympian detachment from the impacts of draconian climate change policy. For them, the jobs and dreams destroyed as a result will be nothing more than statistics and the cares of other people. These consequences are abstractions to them, but they are not to me, as I can name many of the thousands of the American citizens whose lives will be destroyed by these elitists' ill-conceived ‘global goofiness' campaigns."

Mr. Murray was a coal miner in Ohio who survived two mining accidents and built funds from a mortgaged house into a private coal mining company with more than 3,000 employees. He expresses concern about the proposals in Congress that will ration the use of coal, warning of much worse adverse consequences to Americans than those experienced after the 1990 amendment of the Clean Air Act.

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Tired of having the problem of childhood obesity laid at its doorstep, McDonald's is taking (the) steps to reshape its image: it is going to start offering step classes in its restaurant's playplaces.

Mcdonald's is getting serious about childhood obesity--to the point where it is considering replacing play areas in thousands of its restaurants with kids' gyms where young customers can burn off their Happy Meals. The new R-Gyms--where R stands for Ronald--would replace the slide-centric PlayPlaces with a setup offering sports-oriented activities such as stationary exercise bikes, rope climbing and other aerobic activities for kids up to 12 years of age.

While counter staff and fry cooks are not expected do double as aerobics instructors, they getting training in how to promote the R-gym concept: They are now to ask children under 12, "Do you want exercise with that shake? "

Continue reading "Taking the Steps" »

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Reuters is reporting that the poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko may have received his fatal dose in a sushi bar:

Police investigating the death of a former Russian spy from suspected radiation poisoning have found levels of radiation in a London sushi bar where he ate just before he became sick, health officials said on Friday.

"The police reported that they had found some radiation there (in the Sushi bar). We are assessing the level of that and the potential risk to people that might cause," Pat Troop, head of the independent Health Protection Agency, told the BBC.

The HPA said polonium 210, a radioactive isotope, had been discovered in the body of Alexander Litvinenko, who died overnight at a London hospital after wasting away during three weeks of illness.

Commentary

Some gruesome and public was the murder of Mr. Litvinenko that if I owned a sushi bar right now in London I'd be very worried. Logically, that the late spy may have been poisoned in one sushi bar should in no way constitute an indictment of all London sushi bars. And logically, no one who isn't on the wrong side of the Russian mob or other unnamed, revenge-seeking parties should have to worry about being deliberately poisoned anywhere at anytime.

Continue reading "Like Nobody's Businessman II: A Dish Served Cold" »

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Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 18:3

I held off posting anything concerning ex-Senator John Edwards' inquiries to Wal-Mart about obtaining a PlayStation3 until more facts came to light. Boy did they ever. The reason why this story is news is because Edwards has become a very vocal critic of Wal-Mart of late. Clearly aware of the rank hypocrisy of trying to get a copy of PS3 before it goes on sale to the general public and from a retailer that one has just attacked the day before, the Edwards camp yesterday shifted the blame onto a "young" volunteer:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Thursday that a staff member for former Sen. John Edwards -a vocal critic of the retailer- asked his local Wal-Mart store for help in getting the potential 2008 presidential candidate a Sony PlayStation 3. Edwards said a volunteer did so by mistake. Edwards told The Associated Press that the volunteer "feels terrible" about seeking the game unit at Wal-Mart a day after his boss criticized the company, saying it doesn't treat its employees fairly.

"My wife, Elizabeth, wanted to get a Playstation3 for my young children. She mentioned it in front of one of my staff people," Edwards said. "That staff person mentioned it in front of a volunteer who said he would make an effort to get one. He was making an effort to go get one for himself. "Elizabeth and I knew nothing about this. He feels terrible about this. He made a mistake, and he knows he should not have used my name," Edwards said. Edwards said the volunteer was "a young kid" unaware of what he called flawed Wal-Mart policies. He called the Wal-Mart statement an effort to divert attention from its own problems.

Commentary

Continue reading "Be Ye Like Little Children" »

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The Smoking Gun has a video of a confrontation at a Florida convenience store between a machete-wielding would-be robber and a machete-wielding clerk:

On Tuesday (Nov. 14), a man wearing a blue sweatshirt and baggy jeans approached the counter of the Lil' Saints store in Stuart and pulled the weapon from his pants. After he moved away from the counter for a moment, clerk Guillermina Sanchez, 46, grabbed her machete from under the cash register. After a 20-second standoff (during which time the man frantically pressed keys on the register in a bid to open it), the robber left the business. Detectives believe the suspect in the November 13 incident was also behind a mid-October robbery at the store which netted him about $500.

This description is deficient in at least three regards. First, it fails to mention is that the robber didn't leave the business until the Guillermina's machete had been passed (out of view of the camera) to a fairly burly man, presumably her boss or co-worker. When he appears behind the counter with machete in hand, the robber bolts and it looks as if the man gives chase. Second, the description fails to mention that there was briefly another female clerk behind the counter with Ms. Sanchez. Finally, it neglects to state that the store was somewhat busy at the time. There were two customers helped immediately before the attempted robbery and at least one more immediately after. Thus, this was anything but a late-night stand-off between a robber and a clerk.

These facts are noteworthy because of a serious debate that has been underway for several years between the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and various state and local government agencies responsible for workplace security. The particular bone of contention is whether or not the presence of multiple staff members deters crime in convenience stores. Not surprisingly, the NACS thinks it does not. Interestingly, on its "Industry Resources" page one can find detailed talking points arguing against the "two-clerk" solution. And on another page that take exception with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's "Recommendations for Workplace Violence Prevention Programs in Late-Night Retail Establishments", circa 1998.

OSHA asserts that the presence of two clerks is an effective deterrent to robbery. No reliable basis exists for that proposition. Rather, factors such as effective cash management, adequate lighting, and customer traffic are far more effective in deterring robbery. Because the location and environment of each outlet is unique, different strategies are appropriate for different outlets. OSHA's apparent belief that "one size fits all" is completely unrealistic.

Commentary

Continue reading "Inconvenience Store" »

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According to the AP, officials from the Philip Morris company, the nation's largest cigarette maker, have been meeting recently with representatives of the entertainment industry. The ostensible reason is to devise a campaign to curb youth tobacco use.

Richmond-based Philip Morris USA said Wednesday that it will run advertisements in Daily Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and other trade publications imploring moviemakers: "Please Don't Give Our Cigarette Brands a Part in Your Movie." The ad campaign begins this week and will last several months, Philip Morris spokesman David Sutton said.

Critics are nonplussed:

Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the industry has been unmoved by previous appeals to shield children from smoking scenes. "Hollywood has ignored the very serious problem that smoking in the movies contributes to youth tobacco use," said Myers, adding that "the problem goes beyond which brands are shown."

Indeed it does go beyond that. Although Philip Morris denies permission for its brands to be shown in movies intended for general audiences, film makers are not required to ask permission. If PM really wanted them to stop then it could, as another critic suggests, threated to sue. But they wouldn't dare do that. These are not stupid men and they are not pick a fight with an industry that provides them with billions of dollars of free advertising:

Continue reading "Product Placements & Silver Smoke Screens" »

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The first article for Assignment 11 is entitled "Starbucks: To Drink or not to Drink"

Again we have an article which is especailly amenable to analysis using Baron's "Four I's". And again there is considerable variation in what you identified as belonging to the four major elements of the framework. Here is a sample of what you defined as the "Issues": "Globalization"; corporate social responsibility, labor and environmental standards, e.g. recycling, organic and sustainable agriculture; food safety, e.g. genetically modified organisms; economic and social justice, especially for coffee pickers and for cooperatives owned by them.

Your list of interests included: vandals, anti-globalization and anti-capitalist protesters, especially those at the 1999 World Trade Organization talks in Seattle; the Organic Consumers Association; Conservation International; Fair Trade & Global Exchange; and the Dead Dog Cafe.

Discussion of "Institutions" in the article is minimal. The only one that comes immediately to mind is public sentiment. That is to say, Starbuck's is concerned about its public image. What is not clear is whether the company is concerned only about its image with its actual and potential customers or for everyone. We are told that they support literacy programs and community projects in neighborhoods where they own stores. From that statement I might reasonably infer that they do not (materailly) support such programs in the neighborhoods where they do not own stores. If so, then even public opinion is not a major factor here.

Either way, Starbucks seems to be concerned in a way not shared by large coffee companies like Phillip Morris, Kraft, Sara Lee, and Folgers. The difference in how Starbucks has been treated by non-market interests is instructive: its good deeds and its desire to be seen as doing good make them a target of non-market action rather than protecting them from it.

What makes Starbucks a target of organizers? In part, people are reacting to those Coke and Disney aspirations, the threat that Starbucks is propagating cafe monoculture throughout a globalized world. In part, it may be the company's desire to be seen as a corporate good citizen. Writing in the Financial Times, Alison Maitland quotes Ronnie Cummings, director of the US Organic Consumers Association: "We target them because they're the only big coffee company that pretends to be socially responsible. It's better to start with them. Kraft is never going to do anything. When you're the grassroots with limited resources, you have to pick your targets carefully."

This gives new meaning to the phrase "no good deed goes unpunished."

Continue reading "The Human Costs of Coffee, II" »

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The second article for Assignment 11 is entitled "Children: The Other Side of the Coffee Tour." It seems ideally suited for a Baron's Four I's analysis. Still, there is plenty of room for discussion about what exactly are the "Issues", who are the "Interests", what are the important "Institutions", and what "Information" is relevant.

Defining Terms

Recall that the Four I's are defined by Baron as follows:

• Issues are "the basic unit of non-market analysis and the focus of non-market action."
• Interests include "the the individuals and groups with preferences about or a stake in the issue.
• Institutions include "government entities such as legislatures and regulatory agencies as well as nongovernmental institutions such as the news media and public sentiment."
• Information "pertains to what the interested parties know or believe about the issues and forces affecting their development."

Of those who used the Baron framework for thsi article, there was widespread agreement on the major issue. As shown below, almost every one mentioned the exploitation of child labor along with a host of other broader economic, social, and cultural problems.

• " the usage of child labor in very bad working conditions"
• "Malnutrition, safety and health problems, and wages..."
• "abusing children"
• "child labor"
• "pay, working conditions, and living quarters"
• "the usage of child labor to work in very bad conditions.
• "Child and old labor, low wages, poor living and health conditions"
• "child labor, low-wage labor, saftey and health conditions in the workplace."
• "Child labor; poverty, high unemployment and illiteracy
• "low wage labor."
• "Child labor-social problem"

There was less consensus, however, about who the Interests and Institutions are. At the end of the article were the names of four organizations. Given the above definitions, you should have been able to classify them accordingly:

Interests:

COFFEE KIDS: An international nonprofit working with local organizations to improve the lives of families in coffee-growing communities. Programs range from economic development to health care to providing scholarships for schooling. The website has links to project profiles, coffee facts, and community solutions.

US/LEAP U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project
A nonprofit organization that runs a variety of campaigns to support rights for workers in Central and South America. Their efforts largely support workers employed directly or indirectly by US companies. Click on the coffee link to find out how they are urging corporations to ensure that coffee growers who supply them are paying their workers a decent wage with decent working hours.

Institutions:

THE UN WORKS PROGRAMME
Its "Department of Public Information" has developed programs to "end child labor around the world."

THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION, International Labour Office
They are currently sponsoring IPEC (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour) to help phase out child labor on Central American plantations. The program includes social rehabilitation and protection to help the region's 800,000 children working in agriculture.

Although there could be some discussion about whether or not the last two organizations might also be considered Interests, no one should have missed including these four groups in one or the other category.

Continue reading "The Human Costs of Coffee" »

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