Monthly Archives: October 2014

Although it is easy to point the finger and say using child labor is a terrible thing (which I agree with), you have to look from the perspective of this kids in third world countries before drawing a conclusion (To see a list of the biggest companies that have used sweatshops click here). In Florence’s blog “Business Ethics” he discusses that the child labor used in Apple’s supply chain is unethical and should never be done. It is easy to say from our perspective that it is unethical because kids shouldn’t have to work in bad working conditions while getting paid extremely low wages compared to our standards. The truth is that sometimes sweatshops are the only option for kids to survive. They don’t have caring families to meet their needs and feed them like we all had growing up. They have to fend for themselves and find ways to make money just to buy enough food to survive. According to an article “Sweatshops best alternative for workers in many countries” it explains that sweatshops generally pay better and the working conditions are much better than other jobs within third world countries. When companies get exposed for using child labor the company immediately comes in and gets rid to all of the children working in the factory. This action leaves the kids with no way to earn money  to buy food for themselves and no better alternative.

Weeks, Bob. “Sweatshops best alternative for workers in many countries.” Wichita

     Liberty. Web. Oct 23. 2014. <http://wichitaliberty.org/economics/ sweatshops-

best-alternative-for-workers-in-many-countries/>.

In Kevin Kriegbaum’s Blog “Tesla’s Unique Approach to Patents,” he highlights the fact that Tesla lets other companies use their patents without fear of lawsuits. I agree with this perspective. Kevin explained that this practice would help grow the electric car market by allowing more competition into it thus getting more exposure.  By adding Jack Trout’s Position theory to what Kevin is saying, Tesla doesn’t have to worry about the fact that more competition would take away some of their business. Tesla, in the mind of the consumers, was the first producer in the high-end electric car industry and it would take a lot of resources from other companies to shift the consumers’ mind. Also with more competition comes more marketing that will only give Tesla and other electric cars makers more exposure. This exposure is important because as of right now the electric car market only accounts for 1% of sales.

Elon Musk is not only allowing others access to Telsa’s patents for economical sustainability, but also to be environmentally sustainable.  Musk’s growing concern for global warming and wanting to get the mass market to shift to electric cars to stop global warming is a key motivator. Elon Musk said in a conference, “I don’t think people quite appreciate the gravity of what is going on with regard to global warming or just how much inertia the climate has. We really need to do something. It would be shortsighted if we try to hold these things close to our vest.”

Business Insider, 12 June 2014. Web. 15, Oct. 2014.

<http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-is-opening-up-its-patents-2014-6>.

Many cities are left wondering after the Olympic torch goes out “now what?”  For every Olympics that happens the host city constructs grand and expensive buildings that they are left with once all the fans and athletes leave. Most of these buildings either lose money or are completely abandon. For example for the 2004 summer games in Athens Greece the majority of the two dozen new buildings constructed for the Olympics are now abandoned or used in limited capacity (see picture below). All of those new buildings cost billions of dollars that were never recovered. Although these are thought of as sunk costs and the price tag of construction should not be considered in future decisions it is hard to explain that to your voters. Most host cities don’t have plans early enough on how they are going to incorporate these building into the community in order to make money on them. Neirotti from George Washington University says host cities need to plan how they are going to utilize the buildings after the Olympics when they first make the bid for the Olympics.

Stump, Scott, and Eun Kyung Kim. “What happens to Olympic venues after the torch goes out.”Today. N.p., 22 Feb. 2014. Web 10. Oct. 2014. <http://www.today.com/sochi/ what-happens-olympic-venues-after-torch-goes-out-2D12152101>.

One of the biggest issues in Canada with respect to the First Nation people is the Northern Gateway pipeline. The Northern Gateway pipeline is an attempt to transport oil from the Alberta oil sands to tankers that are connected to Asia. The main issue that is preventing this from occurring is that a lot of the pipeline will go through First Nation land. People automatically associate profit with success in business, but sometimes it is hard to see a company’s failures on a balance sheet when it comes to their social and environmental responsibilities. The main argument for this pipeline is that it will create lots of jobs and promote economic growth, but at what expense to the stakeholders? To the First Nation people their land is sacred to them and the Northern Gateway will destroy a large part of it. Another cost they have to think of is the possible environmental effects of this pipeline. If there were any leaks in the pipeline it could cause disaster and huge costs to clean up the leakage. “We call this beautiful B.C., and that is what we want to keep it as,” said Martian Louie, Chief Councilor of the Nadleh Whut’en. For a company to be sustainable they have to insure that they are sustainable in an economic, environmental, and social sense to truly be sustainable. The Northern Gateway is only concerned with the economic side.

Laanela, Mike. “Northern Gateway pipeline: First Nations outline constitutional

challenges.” CBC. , 5 Oct. 2014. Web. 6 Oct. 2014.

<http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/northern-gateway-

pipeline-first-nations-outline-constitutional-challenges1.2706376>.

As a consequence of the continued development and widespread use of the   Internet, many people are being watched and recorded almost every second of their lives. This is the reality with the growth of big internet companies like Google and Facebook. These companies are constantly recording information about everyone that uses their products. The motivation for these personal invasions is the opportunity to develop better-targeted and more effective marketing campaigns.   By tracking all of the searches that are completed on their servers, these companies are able to develop a profile on any one individual user.  This profile allows Google and Facebook to clearly identify likes and dislikes in the market place.

With the amount of information we now have available at our fingertips it makes it difficult for some companies to find their target audience through online ads. Since Google knows so much about individual preferences companies can pay Google to run ads to a particular type of person. This allows companies to find their target market with out having to spend large amounts of money to be all over the Internet to find their customers. This helps companies to focus in on their potential customers and to position themselves in away that appeals to these potential/actual customers despite the crowded market place.

Russia’s lower parliament has just passed a bill that requires all foreign Internet companies to store Russian personal data within Russia. The law was originally to be put into place on January 1, 2016, but the bill got moved up to January 1, 2015

It will be hard for he biggest internet companies to move their servers over to Russia in this shortened time frame and they risk losing tens of millions of users because of this. These internet companies make their revenue through the amount of people that see the ads on their site and with the lost of some of its users could effect their revenues. The recent acceleration of this bill has had a negative effect on some of the biggest Internet companies in the stock market with Facebook down 1.67%, Google down 2.20%, and Twitter down 2.85%. The bill still has to be approved by the upper chamber of parliament and the Kremlin before it can be put into place. The bill however is likely to pass the last steps and will most likely be put into place in the coming weeks.

Sonne, Paul, and Olga Razumovskaya. “Russia Steps Up New Internet Law.” Wall Street Journal 25 Sept.

2014: n. pag. Web.