McDonald’s Makes Money Anywhere No Matter What!

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2008-11-10-mcdonalds-sales_N.htm

 

I found this article interesting in the fact that we talk about how most sweat shops and victims of globalization are from Africa or Asia yet McDonalds in all its bad health having menu is actually doing good in this bad economic period. I also found it interesting that according to this McDonalds saw profits go up 11.5% in in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa division. With all the people that are broke and barely have enough money to buy food or have to get loans out to plant crops to sell to make money and repay their loans its nuts that people can afford to eat at McDonalds. this article says that a contributing factor to McDonalds good fortune during this economic downturn is because of their dollar menu. Its still funny cuz most of the citizens in the countries that are hurt by globalization and sweatshops can’t even afford to buy 3 meals on the dollar menu for the day let alone feed their family. I think this might be skewed because maybe no one ever ate at McDonalds at this and now a few more are so that could contribute to this. It’s crazy that most people in these countries work a 12 hour day and they could probably only buy one sandwich off the dollar menu with that 12 hour work day’s wages.

Be ware of Chinese Dairy

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081010/ap_on_re_as/as_asia_tainted_milk

In this article it talks about a tainted milk outbreak in China that is causing children who consumed it to develop kidney stones. This milk is tainted with with malamine a chemical that is used in plastics, paints and adhesives. It is apparently added to watered down milk to make it seem more rich in protein and fool quality control tests. this practice has been widespread in the Chinese milk industry and even the most reputable brands have been implicated. So far 36 people have been arrested and one couple has sued a company for $22,000 for travel and medical costs incurred after their 14 month-old developed kidney stones. But unfortunately for them it is not known if their lawsuit will continue because liability lawsuits in China are rare, also it is up to the government to decide if the lawsuit can continue another huge hurdle. Just like we have discussed in class how the WTO can overrule national law it makes you wonder if the will get involved and call this a trade barrier or if they will get involved and go so far as saying that protein testing will be a trade barrier. Like we also talked about how the theory behind the WTO is to promote global trade and have wealth trickle down, it makes you wonder if people dying or getting sick from a product will keep the WTO looking out for the Chinese dairy industry or for the consumers that they need to continue commerce and in turn keep “stimulating world trade”. I guess we will have to wait and see.

The 65-mpg car Ford won’t sell in US

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/the-65-mpg-car-ford-won’t-sell-in-us.aspx

I read this article last night and it made me think how profits determine everything for a company even if they already have factories in other countries. Ford Motor Company has a sub-compact car that it sells in Europe called the Fiesta ECOnetic which gets 65 miles-per-gallon. The ECOnetic is not a hybrid but a “clean” diesel fuel car that is very popular in Europe but not sold here in the United States. Ford’s American President Mark Fields acknowledges that it is “an awesome vehicle” and continues ”But there are business reasons why we can’t sell it in the U.S.” Fields goes on to make the argument that the main “business” reason is that it is because the ECOnetic runs on diesel. He states that most americans think of large tractor trailers or smelly fuel. Volkswagen has a “clean diesel” fuel car that has recently passed strict California emission laws and is selling here in the US now. Another factor given for this business decision is that diesel fuel has higher taxes aimed to larger tractor trailers that cause diesel to range in price .40 cents to $1 more per gallon than regular unleaded fuel. But the main “business” reason is because they car’s engines are built in the UK so the labor cost is more expensive because the pound is stronger than green backs. Ford plans on making a gas version of the fiesta in it’s plants in Mexico so why not build diesel engines there? Well it would cost Ford $350 million dollars to build a new plant and that plant in turn would have to turn out 350,000 engines per year for it to make it profitable for Ford. I think it’s funny that I bet Ford went into Mexico with the promise of new jobs with competitive wages when it opened the plant where the gas version is going to be made. But now since it thinks people in North and South America won’t be so open to buying diesel vehicles they won’t “create” more of these new jobs with competitive wages for the people that would have to build this new plant and for the people who eventually would work in the new plant. American companies like Ford are only willing to “help” foreign countries with “new jobs with competative wages” when they make more money. Large corporation’s can try to church up what they are doing to these countries and employees but it still sounds like what pimp does with his “employees”, reaps the benefits of their work and sacrifices.

Week One: If only you had AT&T

The commercial that I’ve seen that got me thinking of globalization is an AT&T one that shows a family traveling abroad in Spain I believe. They talk about how they don’t have AT&T and are gonna miss a warning about the nude beaches in Spain but if they did have AT&T they would of gotten the warning and not exposed their children to that. Again some might not be able to see how this has to with globilization but I would guess 95% of the phones used on the AT&T network are made in China or some other “developing” nation and the workers probably make dick for a wage. While some might say I’m beating on my cellphone drum example again for this blog you might be some what right. As Americans we want to have all the new cutting edge technology as far as phones and PDA’s go, we will even pay obscene amounts of money for these cool little gadgets yet the people that assembled these cool gadgets probably didn’t even earn the sales tax we pay on these gadgets. Just something to think about.

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