Sunday, November 27, 2011
remembering "The Quiet American"
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The Grouch FAILS TO Read a bit of Popularized Psychology
Monday, November 21, 2011
some publications
“Advertising; The Uninvited Guest”: Think; Summer 2011, Volume 10, issue 28, pp. 53-66.
“Creating a Cultural Niche for the A-Social?; Or,Speculation about how cultural factors might defeat altruism.”
The Contextual Nature of Cognition and Dancy’s Moral Particularism,SORITES, Issue 18, February 2007, pp.18-28,
“American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism: Reflections on Social Categories and Political Power”, The Journal of Mundane Behavior, 2.3, October 2001,
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Why I hate Albertson's
Message for InHome Care, Inc. and Medicare...
On "Venting"
Saturday, November 19, 2011
The Illness Which is the U.S.A.
a miserable country
Thursday, November 17, 2011
weather report:
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Weather Report: El Paso, Texas, U.S.A.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
cradle to grave exploitation
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
those crazy Gringos....
Monday, November 7, 2011
diary entry
the sheer misery of the u.s.a.
Friday, November 4, 2011
El Paso, Texas: weather report
Thursday, November 3, 2011
a great man---my foot!
Apple’s enormous, complex global supply chain for iPod production is aimed at obtaining the lowest unit labor costs (taking into consideration labor costs, technology, etc.), appropriate for each component, with the final assembly taking place in China, where production occurs on a massive scale, under enormous intensity, and with ultra-low wages. In Foxconn’s Longhu, Shenzhen factory 300,000 to 400,000 workers eat, work, and sleep under horrendous conditions, with workers, who are compelled to do rapid hand movements for long hours for months on end, finding themselves twitching constantly at night. Foxconn workers in 2009 were paid the minimum monthly wage in Shenzhen, or about 83 cents an hour. (Overall in China in 2008 manufacturing workers were paid $1.36 an hour, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.)
Despite the massive labor input of Chinese workers in assembling the final product, their low pay means that their work only amounts to 3.6 percent of the total manufacturing cost (shipping price) of the iPhone. The overall profit margin on iPhones in 2009 was 64 percent. If iPhones were assembled in the United States—assuming labor costs ten times that in China, equal productivity, and constant component costs—Apple would still have an ample profit margin, but it would drop from 64 percent to 50 percent. In effect, Apple makes 22 percent of its profit margin on iPhone production from the much higher rate of exploitation of Chinese labor.44