Tuesday, November 25, 2003
When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. demands a lower price for the shirts and shorts it sells by the millions, the consequences are felt in a remote Chinese industrial town, at a port in Bangladesh and here in [San Pedro Sula] Honduras, under the corrugated metal roof of the Cosmos clothing factory.
Isabel Reyes, who has worked at the plant for 11 years, pushes fabric through her sewing machine 10 hours a day, struggling to meet the latest quota scrawled on a blackboard.
She now sews sleeves onto shirts at the rate of 1,200 garments a day. That's two shirts a minute, one sleeve every 15 seconds.
"There is always an acceleration," said Reyes, 37, who can't lift a cooking pot or hold her infant daughter without the anti-inflammatory pills she gulps down every few hours. "The goals are always increasing, but the pay stays the same." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-walmart24nov24,1,1849079,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
All you need to know about Wal-Mart: LA Times 3 part story
A wonderfully full story of the retail monster that has altered the scene. The above was excerpted from Part II; below is culled from Part I:
From a small-town five-and-dime, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has grown over 50 years to become the world's largest corporation and a global economic force.
It posted $245 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year — nearly twice as much as General Electric Co. and almost eight times as much as Microsoft Corp. It is the nation's largest seller of toys, furniture, jewelry, dog food and scores of other consumer products. It is the largest grocer in the United States.
Wal-Mart's decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation.
The company has prospered by elevating one goal above all others: cutting prices relentlessly. U.S. economists say its tightfistedness has not only boosted its own bottom line, but also helped hold down the inflation rate for the entire country. Consumers reap the benefits every time they push a cart through Wal-Mart's checkout lines.
Yet Wal-Mart's astonishing success exacts a heavy price.
By squeezing suppliers to cut wholesale costs, the company has hastened the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. By scouring the globe for the cheapest goods, it has driven factory jobs from one poor nation to another.
Wal-Mart's penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company's own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.
Then there are casualties like Kelly Gray. As Wal-Mart expands rapidly into groceries, it is causing upheaval in yet another corner of the economy. When a Supercenter moves into town, competitors often are wiped out, taking high-paying union jobs with them.
The U.S. Budget: Not a balance sheet to admire
Remember when Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility? As we know, that’s part of the b.s. cover for the actual goal- to reward their very wealthy supporters. From the Washington Post (Jonathan Weisman):
As Congress rushes to conclude its 2003 session, Republican leaders are trying to garner votes for controversial legislation by loading the bills with billions of dollars in added costs that analysts said would expand the budget deficit for years to come. The year-end binge has alarmed analysts in Washington and on Wall Street, coming as it does after three years of presidential and congressional initiatives that have both substantially boosted government spending and shrunk its tax base.
"The U.S. budget is out of control," the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs & Co. warned Friday in its weekly newsletter to clients.
In the final days of the congressional session, GOP leaders added billions of dollars to energy and Medicare bills to help persuade key factions to support the legislation. Overall, the energy bill would cost $33 billion and the Medicare bill $400 billion.
Less noticed were congressional moves to expand veterans' benefits by $22 billion and increase spending on forest-thinning projects from $420 million a year to $760 million to ensure passage of forest legislation promoted by the White House. Lawmakers are also trying to extend 14 expiring tax cuts through 2004, at a cost to the Treasury of more than $7 billion.
All those actions come in the face of a federal budget deficit already projected to rise from a record $374 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 to close to or above $500 billion in the current fiscal year.
"The only thing I can tell you is evidently the word 'tomorrow' no longer exists in the vocabulary of otherwise responsible members of Congress," said Warren Rudman, a former New Hampshire Republican senator and long-standing budget hawk. "They are acting as if there is no tomorrow."
Former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin said, "Our political system has simply lost its willingness to take the very difficult path of maintaining fiscal discipline." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8763-2003Nov23?language=printer
Medicare: Who Benefits from this bill? Take an Educated Guess. Yes, all of the Administration’s policies are intended to enrich their contributors.
Over the weekend Thomas Edsall of the Washington Post made it crystal clear.
More than three dozen of President Bush's major fundraisers are affiliated with companies that stand to benefit from the passage of two central pieces of the administration's legislative agenda: the energy and Medicare bills.
The energy bill provides billions of dollars in benefits to companies run by at least 22 executives and their spouses who have qualified as either "Pioneers" or "Rangers," as well as to the clients of at least 15 lobbyists and their spouses who have achieved similar status as fundraisers. At least 24 Rangers and Pioneers could benefit from the Medicare bill as executives of companies or lobbyists working for them, including eight who have clients affected by both bills.
By its latest count, Bush's reelection campaign has designated more than 300 supporters as Pioneers or Rangers. The Pioneers were created by the Bush campaign in 2000 to reward supporters who brought in at least $100,000 in contributions. For his reelection campaign, Bush has set a goal of raising as much as $200 million, almost twice what he raised three years ago, and established the designation of Ranger for those who raise at least $200,000.
With the size of donations limited as a result of the campaign finance law enacted last year, fundraisers who can collect $100,000 or more in contributions of $2,000 or less have become key players this election cycle. The law barred the political parties from collecting large -- sometimes reaching $5 million to $10 million -- "soft money" contributions from businesses, unions, trade associations and individuals. This has put a premium on those who can solicit dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of smaller contributions from employees, clients and associates.
The energy and Medicare bills were drafted with the cooperation of representatives from dozens of industries. Power and energy company officials; railroad CEOs; pharmaceutical, hospital association and insurance company executives; and the lobbyists who represent them are among those who have supported the bills and whose companies would benefit from their passage. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5053-2003Nov21.html
Energy Bill: This looks to be delayed until next year. Here’s another summary as to what it’s about. From Irwin Stelzer at the Weekly Standard:
Rather than confront this problem by imposing a tax on imported oil....
Ah, a tax. But George Bush and Tom DeLay would rather chew off their own arms than admit that a tax increase is part of the answer to any problem, wouldn't they?
It's pretty sad that a bill nearly three years in the making could end up so completely irrelevant to the problem at hand. Unfortunately, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, this is not an administration that tries to solve problems, it's an administration that says here's a problem and how can we use it to advance the base's agenda?
But it is not the expensive and useless provisions that the bill contains that should most trouble us. The major liability of this bill is not what it contains, but what it doesn't. It leaves our energy policy stuck where it has been ever since Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and their successors talked the talk but failed to walk the walk towards a sensible response to our dependence on imports. We continue to rely on aircraft carriers and troops to assure adequate supplies of oil to fuel our cars and heat our homes. No photo op of a smiling president, pen in hand, surrounded by the grinning authors of this senseless legislation, can conceal that shameful fact. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/417ioaua.asp
Or, as John McCain termed it "the no lobbyist left behind" bill, or as Michigan congressman John Dingell, veteran Democrat, said, picking up the document "is like lifting the lid of a garbage can and smelling the strong smell of special interests."
What’s Happening, Miami: At the trade meetings / demonstrations: Over the top police presence and activity, rubber bullets, arrests. More at http://www.ftaaimc.org/en/index.shtml
As to the substance of the talks, some reason to smile, if not celebrate. A summary from The Nation (Sarah Anderson)
The ministers' final declaration essentially lays out a road map for a free-trade non-agreement. Caving in to pressure from Brazil and other nations, US officials agreed to allow countries to pick and choose which parts of the final FTAA they will sign on to, in addition to some minimal, as yet undetermined mandatory obligations.
If the reaction of the big-business community is any barometer, the new "FTAA à la carte" approach is good news for free-trade critics. Frank Vargo, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, complained that "this is not what we want and we have some serious concerns." NAM members had been salivating over the prospect of an FTAA based on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which granted new protections for international investors and stripped the power of governments to impose conditions on foreign investment. But the hollowed out FTAA approach agreed to in Miami will allow Brazil, South America's largest economy and arguably the most restrictive on foreign investment, to opt out of regulations that would proscribe its ability to regulate foreign investors.
When they decided to adjourn early, trade ministers may also have been considering the interests of the City of Miami, which budgeted some $12 million for costs related to the meeting, most of it for security. Downtown Miami was shuttered for most of the five-day event, and local businesses and residents are wondering whether the government overreacted. http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20031208&s=anderson2
Impeachment Poll: from mediachannel.org. Keep that word alive!
At least one in three Americans believe that George W. Bush should face impeachment for misleading the public and Congress about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to create support for war on Iraq. This is a new finding from a national survey conducted by the Retro Poll organization between October 29 and November 12. The actual proportion supporting impeachment was 40% but with a margin of error of plus or minus 8%, 1 in 3 remains a conservative population estimate. "We are seeing a rising tide of public anger that no one is paying attention to," said Dr. Marc Sapir, Retro Poll's Director.
9/11 Postscript: Enough Money?,,,, and for what?
Jo Becker, Sarah Cohen and Spencer S. Hsu of the Washington Post recounted how some funds are going unspent and some funds…well, they’re going for “questionable” projects.
…In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, lawmakers doled out the money quickly, with few restrictions and vague guidelines. Left to interpret needs on their own -- and with little regional coordination -- cash-strapped local and state officials plugged budget holes, spent millions on pet projects and steered contracts to political allies.
The District funded a politically popular jobs program, outfitted police with leather jackets and assessed environmental problems on property prime for redevelopment. In Maryland, the money is buying Prince George's County prosecutors an office security system. In Virginia, a small volunteer fire department spent $350,000 on a custom-made fire boat. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments used some of the money for janitorial services.
The Washington Post traced the path of the region's first wave of homeland security aid from its distribution through its final use, a trail that has been largely unexamined by federal regulators. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6311-2003Nov22.html
Christopher Lydon: I’m often asked if I know what he’s up to: Lydon joined with Matt Stoller to run a new site- with interviews- focused on the effect of technology- especially the “blogosphere”, on the presidential race. Here’s the link: http://www.bopnews.com/
Enjoy your holiday…
-R (http://www.global-equality.org/news/blog)
Isabel Reyes, who has worked at the plant for 11 years, pushes fabric through her sewing machine 10 hours a day, struggling to meet the latest quota scrawled on a blackboard.
She now sews sleeves onto shirts at the rate of 1,200 garments a day. That's two shirts a minute, one sleeve every 15 seconds.
"There is always an acceleration," said Reyes, 37, who can't lift a cooking pot or hold her infant daughter without the anti-inflammatory pills she gulps down every few hours. "The goals are always increasing, but the pay stays the same." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-walmart24nov24,1,1849079,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
All you need to know about Wal-Mart: LA Times 3 part story
A wonderfully full story of the retail monster that has altered the scene. The above was excerpted from Part II; below is culled from Part I:
From a small-town five-and-dime, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has grown over 50 years to become the world's largest corporation and a global economic force.
It posted $245 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year — nearly twice as much as General Electric Co. and almost eight times as much as Microsoft Corp. It is the nation's largest seller of toys, furniture, jewelry, dog food and scores of other consumer products. It is the largest grocer in the United States.
Wal-Mart's decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation.
The company has prospered by elevating one goal above all others: cutting prices relentlessly. U.S. economists say its tightfistedness has not only boosted its own bottom line, but also helped hold down the inflation rate for the entire country. Consumers reap the benefits every time they push a cart through Wal-Mart's checkout lines.
Yet Wal-Mart's astonishing success exacts a heavy price.
By squeezing suppliers to cut wholesale costs, the company has hastened the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. By scouring the globe for the cheapest goods, it has driven factory jobs from one poor nation to another.
Wal-Mart's penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company's own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.
Then there are casualties like Kelly Gray. As Wal-Mart expands rapidly into groceries, it is causing upheaval in yet another corner of the economy. When a Supercenter moves into town, competitors often are wiped out, taking high-paying union jobs with them.
The U.S. Budget: Not a balance sheet to admire
Remember when Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility? As we know, that’s part of the b.s. cover for the actual goal- to reward their very wealthy supporters. From the Washington Post (Jonathan Weisman):
As Congress rushes to conclude its 2003 session, Republican leaders are trying to garner votes for controversial legislation by loading the bills with billions of dollars in added costs that analysts said would expand the budget deficit for years to come. The year-end binge has alarmed analysts in Washington and on Wall Street, coming as it does after three years of presidential and congressional initiatives that have both substantially boosted government spending and shrunk its tax base.
"The U.S. budget is out of control," the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs & Co. warned Friday in its weekly newsletter to clients.
In the final days of the congressional session, GOP leaders added billions of dollars to energy and Medicare bills to help persuade key factions to support the legislation. Overall, the energy bill would cost $33 billion and the Medicare bill $400 billion.
Less noticed were congressional moves to expand veterans' benefits by $22 billion and increase spending on forest-thinning projects from $420 million a year to $760 million to ensure passage of forest legislation promoted by the White House. Lawmakers are also trying to extend 14 expiring tax cuts through 2004, at a cost to the Treasury of more than $7 billion.
All those actions come in the face of a federal budget deficit already projected to rise from a record $374 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 to close to or above $500 billion in the current fiscal year.
"The only thing I can tell you is evidently the word 'tomorrow' no longer exists in the vocabulary of otherwise responsible members of Congress," said Warren Rudman, a former New Hampshire Republican senator and long-standing budget hawk. "They are acting as if there is no tomorrow."
Former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin said, "Our political system has simply lost its willingness to take the very difficult path of maintaining fiscal discipline." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8763-2003Nov23?language=printer
Medicare: Who Benefits from this bill? Take an Educated Guess. Yes, all of the Administration’s policies are intended to enrich their contributors.
Over the weekend Thomas Edsall of the Washington Post made it crystal clear.
More than three dozen of President Bush's major fundraisers are affiliated with companies that stand to benefit from the passage of two central pieces of the administration's legislative agenda: the energy and Medicare bills.
The energy bill provides billions of dollars in benefits to companies run by at least 22 executives and their spouses who have qualified as either "Pioneers" or "Rangers," as well as to the clients of at least 15 lobbyists and their spouses who have achieved similar status as fundraisers. At least 24 Rangers and Pioneers could benefit from the Medicare bill as executives of companies or lobbyists working for them, including eight who have clients affected by both bills.
By its latest count, Bush's reelection campaign has designated more than 300 supporters as Pioneers or Rangers. The Pioneers were created by the Bush campaign in 2000 to reward supporters who brought in at least $100,000 in contributions. For his reelection campaign, Bush has set a goal of raising as much as $200 million, almost twice what he raised three years ago, and established the designation of Ranger for those who raise at least $200,000.
With the size of donations limited as a result of the campaign finance law enacted last year, fundraisers who can collect $100,000 or more in contributions of $2,000 or less have become key players this election cycle. The law barred the political parties from collecting large -- sometimes reaching $5 million to $10 million -- "soft money" contributions from businesses, unions, trade associations and individuals. This has put a premium on those who can solicit dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of smaller contributions from employees, clients and associates.
The energy and Medicare bills were drafted with the cooperation of representatives from dozens of industries. Power and energy company officials; railroad CEOs; pharmaceutical, hospital association and insurance company executives; and the lobbyists who represent them are among those who have supported the bills and whose companies would benefit from their passage. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5053-2003Nov21.html
Energy Bill: This looks to be delayed until next year. Here’s another summary as to what it’s about. From Irwin Stelzer at the Weekly Standard:
Rather than confront this problem by imposing a tax on imported oil....
Ah, a tax. But George Bush and Tom DeLay would rather chew off their own arms than admit that a tax increase is part of the answer to any problem, wouldn't they?
It's pretty sad that a bill nearly three years in the making could end up so completely irrelevant to the problem at hand. Unfortunately, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, this is not an administration that tries to solve problems, it's an administration that says here's a problem and how can we use it to advance the base's agenda?
But it is not the expensive and useless provisions that the bill contains that should most trouble us. The major liability of this bill is not what it contains, but what it doesn't. It leaves our energy policy stuck where it has been ever since Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and their successors talked the talk but failed to walk the walk towards a sensible response to our dependence on imports. We continue to rely on aircraft carriers and troops to assure adequate supplies of oil to fuel our cars and heat our homes. No photo op of a smiling president, pen in hand, surrounded by the grinning authors of this senseless legislation, can conceal that shameful fact. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/417ioaua.asp
Or, as John McCain termed it "the no lobbyist left behind" bill, or as Michigan congressman John Dingell, veteran Democrat, said, picking up the document "is like lifting the lid of a garbage can and smelling the strong smell of special interests."
What’s Happening, Miami: At the trade meetings / demonstrations: Over the top police presence and activity, rubber bullets, arrests. More at http://www.ftaaimc.org/en/index.shtml
As to the substance of the talks, some reason to smile, if not celebrate. A summary from The Nation (Sarah Anderson)
The ministers' final declaration essentially lays out a road map for a free-trade non-agreement. Caving in to pressure from Brazil and other nations, US officials agreed to allow countries to pick and choose which parts of the final FTAA they will sign on to, in addition to some minimal, as yet undetermined mandatory obligations.
If the reaction of the big-business community is any barometer, the new "FTAA à la carte" approach is good news for free-trade critics. Frank Vargo, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, complained that "this is not what we want and we have some serious concerns." NAM members had been salivating over the prospect of an FTAA based on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which granted new protections for international investors and stripped the power of governments to impose conditions on foreign investment. But the hollowed out FTAA approach agreed to in Miami will allow Brazil, South America's largest economy and arguably the most restrictive on foreign investment, to opt out of regulations that would proscribe its ability to regulate foreign investors.
When they decided to adjourn early, trade ministers may also have been considering the interests of the City of Miami, which budgeted some $12 million for costs related to the meeting, most of it for security. Downtown Miami was shuttered for most of the five-day event, and local businesses and residents are wondering whether the government overreacted. http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20031208&s=anderson2
Impeachment Poll: from mediachannel.org. Keep that word alive!
At least one in three Americans believe that George W. Bush should face impeachment for misleading the public and Congress about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to create support for war on Iraq. This is a new finding from a national survey conducted by the Retro Poll organization between October 29 and November 12. The actual proportion supporting impeachment was 40% but with a margin of error of plus or minus 8%, 1 in 3 remains a conservative population estimate. "We are seeing a rising tide of public anger that no one is paying attention to," said Dr. Marc Sapir, Retro Poll's Director.
9/11 Postscript: Enough Money?,,,, and for what?
Jo Becker, Sarah Cohen and Spencer S. Hsu of the Washington Post recounted how some funds are going unspent and some funds…well, they’re going for “questionable” projects.
…In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, lawmakers doled out the money quickly, with few restrictions and vague guidelines. Left to interpret needs on their own -- and with little regional coordination -- cash-strapped local and state officials plugged budget holes, spent millions on pet projects and steered contracts to political allies.
The District funded a politically popular jobs program, outfitted police with leather jackets and assessed environmental problems on property prime for redevelopment. In Maryland, the money is buying Prince George's County prosecutors an office security system. In Virginia, a small volunteer fire department spent $350,000 on a custom-made fire boat. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments used some of the money for janitorial services.
The Washington Post traced the path of the region's first wave of homeland security aid from its distribution through its final use, a trail that has been largely unexamined by federal regulators. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6311-2003Nov22.html
Christopher Lydon: I’m often asked if I know what he’s up to: Lydon joined with Matt Stoller to run a new site- with interviews- focused on the effect of technology- especially the “blogosphere”, on the presidential race. Here’s the link: http://www.bopnews.com/
Enjoy your holiday…
-R (http://www.global-equality.org/news/blog)
