Big Brands Close Factories in Bangladesh

This situation was brought to my attention by the Toronto Star newspaper based in Toronto, Canada. That is the reason I like to read foreign press reports.

When governments do not protect their citizens who will? We all remember the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh which took the lives of 1,129 people and injured thousands more on April 24, 2013. That was not the first time there have been building code violations. Corruption and bribery in Bangladesh is well known.

Historically the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911 in Brooklyn New York killed 145. High levels of corruption in both the garment industry and city government generally ensured that no useful precautions were taken to prevent fires. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory’s owners were known to be particularly anti-worker in their policies and had played a critical role in breaking a large strike by workers the previous year.

Finally the Bangladesh issue is being addressed, but not by their government. A North American-led group of companies operating in Bangladesh said Friday, July 11 2014, that it had closed or partially shut seven factories for remediation after inspectors found structural problems and safety concerns.

Bangladeshi garment workers arrive for work in Dhaka

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety said it will extend compensation to workers for up to four months if they are unable to work due to the closures.— The current group of 26 includes the following companies: Ariela and Associates International LLC; Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited; Carter’s Inc.; The Children’s Place Retail Stores Inc.; Costco Wholesale Corporation; Fruit of the Loom, Inc.; Gap Inc.; Giant Tiger; Hudson’s Bay Company; IFG Corp.; Intradeco Apparel; J.C. Penney Company Inc.; The Jones Group Inc.; Jordache Enterprises, Inc.; The Just Group; Kohl’s Department Stores; L. L. Bean Inc.; M. Hidary & Company Inc.; Macy’s; Nordstrom Inc.; Public Clothing Company; Sears Holdings Corporation; Target Corporation; VF Corporation; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; YM Inc.

The four months compensation is a wonderful gesture. My question is what will those workers do to make a living if building owners and manufacturing businesses do not co-operate? As poor as their pay may be it is more than they earned before the factories came to Bangladesh.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Here are short biographies of all 56 signers of the Declaration. The first, largest, and most famous signature is that of John Hancock. Most were well educated. All were well off.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

8 Other Laws That Could Be Ignored Now That Religions Get To Pick And Choose

From AOL.com

NUDITY LAWS Entire colonies of people are dedicated to the belief that being compelled to wear clothes is wrong. Others don’t believe they should be compelled to make love only indoors.

TAXES Most religions profess a deep affinity for peace (while drenching history in blood in the name of religion, but whatever). Why should religious pacifists be compelled to pay taxes that subsidize war?

LSD There isn’t much more religious of an experience than talking directly with God. Hell, Huston Smith included a section on acid in his definitive book The World’s Religions.

GROWING HEMP If you’ve ever talked to a hemp evangelist, you know belief in the crop borders on the religious.

STONING The Bible is packed with tales of impure women meeting a just end under a pile of stones. Today, in certain countries, they’re known as honor killings. Will the court make an exception to murder for the deeply religious?

GENITAL MUTILATION Female circumcision — more commonly and accurately known as genital mutilation — is central to the practice of some religions, according to some people who have strong beliefs. What is a democracy to tell people otherwise? In fact, the same could go for domestic violence, polygamy and whatever else.

PASTEURIZED MILK For some Amish folk, following a strict religious interpretation of “Do unto others what you would have others do unto you” means selling raw, unpasteurized milk, a practice banned under U.S. law for its potential to carry dangerous bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE To hell with the Violence Against Women Act, when the Quran authorizes you to strike a disobedient wife, as illustrated in Chapter 4, Verse 34. And we don’t have to limit the freedom to Muslim men. As Deuteronomy 25:11-12 testifies, “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”

Why the Rich get much Richer

On My 28 I posted a commentary titled “Goodbye Middle Class.” On June 26 David Lazarus posted this column in the Los Angeles Times.

His column abridged, (underlined and bold not part of the Times editing) At CVS Caremark, it doesn’t pay to be really good at your job. The nation’s second-largest drugstore chain adjusts its annual raises to how much an employee makes. The higher your salary, the lower your raise. The top workers at CVS stores — those earning the highest hourly wage for their job classification — are “red lined” by the company and receive no raises at all. CVS, which gave its chief executive a 26% raise last year to almost $23 million in total compensation, isn’t alone in making sure its rank-and-file workers don’t make too much money.

And this is why, in any discussion of income inequality, we keep reaching the same point — the rich get richer, while everyone else gets table scraps. “It’s not personal. It’s business,” said Mike Lipis, a Los Angeles compensation consultant. “You’re trying to make the most of your limited compensation dollars.”

I wrote recently about a report showing that the head of CVS, Larry Merlo, enjoyed the widest gap in the country between a CEO’s salary and that of his less-worthy underlings. According to compensation researcher PayScale, Merlo’s $12.1-million salary last year was 422 times the size of the median CVS wage of $28,700.

A top-performing CVS pharmacy technician earning a base wage of $9.30 an hour will similarly merit a 4.75% raise. But a red-lined pharmacy technician earning $15.67 an hour will see no raise.

Politicians have an excellent issue for the coming elections. It’s a good bet that none of them will even address the pay discrepancy. The reason? The source of the contributions for their campaigns.

Don’t look for the media to emphasize the salary discrepancies. Those heading the media companies are some of the highest paid people.

Leslie Moonves, CEO of CBS Corp. $62,157,026 in 2012

Philippe P. Dauman, CEO of Vaicom Inc.$37,165,750 in 2013

Marissa A. Mayer, CEO of Yahoo Inc. $36,615,404 in 2012

Robert A. Iger, CEO of Disney Co. $34,321,055 in 2013

David M. Zaslav, CEO of Discover Communications $33,349,798 in 2013

Merger and Acquisition Leads to Monopoly

What if there was just one phone company, one television service provider, and one company owning all the supermarkets? Do you believe that prices would be lower or higher?

This proposed $48 billion merger of AT&T with DirectTV along with the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger will enable two very large companies to become even bigger. The benefit will be reduced competition for the newly formed businesses. The impact will be higher cost cable and satellite TV service for the public. Unless the public is very vocal these mergers will be approved. The company lobbyists will begin making their rounds to congressional offices starting now. Every congressman needs to be scrutinized before the next election.

AT&T is a relatively small player in its offering called U-Verse television service. Their acquisition of DirectTV will make them a major participant in the TV service business. AT&T claims this will in no way reduce competition. That is the same argument Comcast makes in its proposed purchase of TWC. The consequences are more significant than merely permitting two or three companies dominating the delivery of television services.

There will be less competition and the decisions those companies make will determine the programs you watch.

Interestingly Morningstar, the on-line evaluator of stocks and bonds, does not believe there is any financial or strategic benefit in the AT&T acquisition.
“The biggest benefit to AT&T from this deal would be increased leverage in negotiating with content owners like Disney. By highlighting the fact that other pay television providers need to keep pace with Comcast and putting its own deal forward, AT&T is forcing regulators to consider a world with significantly increased concentration in media distribution.”

Consumer Reports lobbying arm, Consumers Union, says that neither of these consolidations are good for consumers.

Both Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice must approve this merger. The Washington Times reports that every single member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, holding hearings on the Comcast purchase of TWC has taken money from Comcast.

So if you were betting on the approval of that purchase, what do you believe the outcome will be?

Freedom of Speech is Under Attack

This is about fear. We must never say anything that will alienate any group. It’s about political correctness. Where are the moderate Muslims?

I did not attend Brandeis University. I am a graduate from Penn State. I always thought Brandeis University is the school where all ideas can be expressed.

About Brandeis on its web site: The name Brandeis was not chosen by accident. Our founders sought to name the university after an individual of impeccable moral fiber, leadership, intellectual ability, integrity and social conscience. The name that stood out was that of the late U.S. Supreme Court associate justice Louis D. Brandeis.

A few weeks ago Brandeis University took the step of dis-inviting Ayaan Hirsi Ali from giving a talk at the forthcoming commencement ceremony on the grounds that the faculty who had protested her appearance had pointed out that she was not simply critical of Islamic practices, but blamed the religion of Islam itself for the kind of backward positions many Islamists took. Explaining her shock at the Brandeis position, Hirsi Ali gave the following statement to Time magazine:

“I assumed that Brandeis intended to honor me for my work as a defender of the rights of women against abuses that are often religious in origin. For over a decade, I have spoken out against such practices as female genital mutilation, so-called “honor killings,” and applications of Sharia Law that justify such forms of domestic abuse as wife beating or child beating. Part of my work has been to question the role of Islam in legitimizing such abhorrent practices.”

Source: http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2014/04/26/aayan-ali-hirsi-the-islamists-and-the-question-of-free-speech-in-the-academy/

The Economist calls this “Enlightened intolerance.”

Salon.com says “Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the dangerous anti-Islamic logic of the war on terror.”

“It is difficult to conceive of a braver woman alive today than Ayaan Hirsi Ali,” said James Kirchick in The Daily Beast.com. Born into a Muslim family in Somalia, she was subjected to genital mutilation as a child, fled to the Netherlands to avoid a forced marriage, and became an outspoken critic of Islam, and Its treatment of women. Death threats followed, and she had to go into hiding after a Muslim fanatic murdered a filmmaker with whom she had worked and warned her that she was next. Now living in the U.S.under 24-hour police protection, Hirsi Ali remains “a heroic example to women around the world”-but not to Brandeis University. Last week, under pressure from Muslim groups, Brandeis canceled plans to award Hirsi Ali an honorary doctorate, claiming that her attacks on Islam went against the university’s “core values.” It was another depressing example of the “thought police” on college campuses squelching free speech.

“Brandeis got it right,” said Rabbi Eric Yoffie in HuffingtonPost.com. An honorary doctorate would have been an endorsement of Hirsi Ali’s deplorable views. She has said that “violence is inherent in Islam,” and called the entire religion a “destructive, nihilistic cult of death.” She doesn’t even distinguish between moderate and radical Muslims. “As we Jews know, there are real consequences when entire populations are represented in the public imagination by their worst elements.” But Brandeis has honored controversial figures before, said William Kristol in The Weekly Standard. Previous recipients include playwright Tony Kushner, who once labeled the creation of Israel “a mistake,” and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has compared Israel to Hitler. Is there one rule for critics of Judaism, and another for critics of Islam?

One group has remained shamefully quiet over the muzzling of Hirsi Ali, said Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe: liberal feminists. They call opposition to employer-provided contraceptives “a war on women.” But “the savagery of honor killings or child marriages”? It does not stir their outrage. Brandeis should have followed ColumbiaUniversity’s example, said Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times. When Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak there in 2007, Columbia’s president let him-but only after denouncing his most offensive views in interviews, statements, and the introduction to his talk. The best response to offensive speech isn’t censorship-it’s “more speech.”

David Bancroft