| Corporation Snoops on
Children (12/10/98)
Turning children into consumers is one of
the main accomplishments of the culture of captalism (see Global Problems and the
Culture of Capitalism, pp. 23ff). It permits, and even encourages, corporations
to infiltrate schools toward this end. Thus ZapMe!
Corp., a new marketing company, secretly snoops on schoolchildren as they browse the
Internet using ZapMe! computers, and then sends the information to advertisers and
marketers, according to the Associated Press (AP). "This is borderline child
abuse," said Ralph Nader. "We want to warn parents about leaving their children
in the care and custody of a corporate predator." According to AP, ZapMe!
monitors "students’ Web browsing habits, breaking the data down by age, sex and
ZIP code. It delivers this information to advertisers and marketers, who use it to target
students in school with laser-like precision." Check out the story at Commercial Alert.
Greenhouse Gas Emission Reach New Highs in the U.S.
(11/20/98)
The EPA issued a report noting that total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose 10.3 percent in 1996 from 1990 baseline
levels, to 1,814.5 metric tons of carbon equivalents (MMTCE). The largest single year
increase in emissions over this time period was registered in 1996 (58.4 MMTCE or 3.3
percent). The biggest factor in the rise was the increased use of fossil
fuel. Check the story at Environmental News Service,
or read the EPA report.
AIDS is Devastating Africa (10/28/98)
To find anything on the scale of
what AIDS is doing in Africa, according to one observer, "one
has to go back to the 16th-century and the introduction of small pox in the Aztec
population of what is now Mexico to find anything on that scale, and before that to the
bubonic plague in Europe in the 14th-century to see that kind of heavy toll."
You can read the report "The Demographic
Impact of AIDS/HIV," or check out the New York Times article, Report on Aids in
Africa. The Times also maintains a collection of articles on AIDS in Africa.
Corporate Campaign Against Environmental Action (10/9/98)
Imagine if
hurricanes were named after corporations rather than people; headlines might read
"Exxon rips through the Carribbean"; "Shell devastates Florida."
That's the prospect discussed at Corporate Watch
in their latest feature article, "The Gathering
Storm: Corporations and Climate Change." The article discusses the
latest public relations campaign by some corporations to undermine the Kyoto
Protocol to reduce the environmental affects of carbon emmisions. Check out the full
article.
The "Asian Crisis"
The collapse of the
economies in East Asia (Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia), and the economic difficulties
of Japan, and their spread to Russia, Latin America, and the Core economies of the West,
reveal the degree of integration of the world economies discussed in Chapter Three, The
Rise of the Merchant, Industrialist and Capital Controller. While economists differ
in their explanation for the collapse, Walden Bello, in his article, "The End of a
Miracle," in The
Multinational Monitor, offers what we think is one of the most concise and easy to
understand explanations. You can find additional information and recent articles on
the "Asian Crisis," at Nouriel Roubini's site, Asia's Economic Collapse:
Some Views.
The "Debt
Crisis"
Another of the major issues influencing
world events is the "debt crisis," the money owed by countries in the periphery
to Core financial institutions. In some cases, the debt exceeds the yearly GNP (see the
discussion in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, pages 101ff). The
British newspaper, The Guardian, is orchestrating a campaign to convince financial
agencies, such as the World Bank, to eliminate the debts. To find out more, check out
their site, Breaking the Chains.
You can also find more information at the Third World
Network, an excellent site for understanding the affects on economic globalization on
counties in the periphery. You can also go to Jubilee
2000/USA, an organization devoted to canceling the debt of impoverished nations by the
year 2000.
The 1998 Human Development Report
The latest
development report from the United Nations Development Programme is available at the
Programme's Website or through the International Development Network. It discusses
global consumption patterns and the growing gap, in the Core and the Periphery, between
rich and poor. Among its findings are the following:
The three richest people in the
world own assets that exceed the combined Gross Domestic Products of the world's 48
poorest countries.
Eighty-six per cent of the
world's goods and services are consumed by just 20 per cent of the world's people, yet
those who consume the least-namely, the poor-suffer the most from the resulting pollution
of the land, air and water that they depend on for survival.
People in Europe and the US spend
$17 billion each year on pet food, almost one-third of which could provide the extra money
needed for basic education for all.
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The Bombing of Iraq (12/20/98)
In battles between
nation-states and their leaders, it is often the innocent who pay with their lives or
their livelihoods. This certainly seems to be the case in the dispute between Iraq
and the United States. Hundreds of thousands have died because of the economic
embargo and bombings ostensibly designed to dislodge Saddam Hussein from power.
Z-Net, one of the larger alternative news networks, has provided a list of articles and
statements from politicians such as Bernie
Sanders, and from writers such as Howard
Zinn and Edward Said on the situation in Iraq. Amnesty International has also issued an appeal to the
governments of Great Britain and the United States over the indiscriminate killing of
civilians in Iraq.
The Scope of Global
Illiteracy (12/10/98)
"Nearly a billion people will enter the
21st century unable to read a book or sign their names and two thirds of them are women.
And they will live, as now, in more desperate poverty and poorer health than those who
can. They are the world’s functional illiterates—and their numbers are
growing." Thus begins the summary of the latest UNICEF Report, The State of the World's Children--1999.
This includes 130 million children of primary school age growing up without access to
basic education. Check out the report or the summary.
Hurricane Mitch Devastates Central America (12/1/98)
One of the worst natural
disasters ever recorded, Hurricane Mitch has destroyed the physical, economic, and
social infrastructures of Honduras and Nicaragua, as well as other Central American
countries. The Latin American Network Information Center at the University of
Texas has set up a special site on Hurricane Mitch and its aftermath.
Big Tobacco Spreads Overseas
(11/11/98)
With North American sales
declining, tobacco companies have turned their attention to Europe and the
periphery. As a result, the World Health Organization estimates that tobacco related
deaths in the periphery will rise from one million in 1990 to two million in 2000 (see Global
Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, p. 240-241). In the report, Addicted to Profit: Big
Tobacco's Expanding Global Reach, Ross Hammond documents how tobacco companies
are expanding, and who is helping them. The report is long, but you can
examine an abbreviated version, Big Tobacco's Global Expansion.
Product Diversity Surpasses Biodiversity! (10/27/98)
According to this tongue-in-cheek report,
there are now more consumer products in the world than there are species of living things,
and the gap is growing. Check out the article and the graph
at The Onion.
World Development Report (10/20/98)
How can the world
address the gap in knowledge between countries? How does that gap affect the social
and economic problems faced by millions of people? The twenty-first World Development Report from the World Bank tries to address that problem with suggestions that
include getting countries, NGOs, and the private sector to cooperate to address the extent
to which economic and social development is hindered by the "knowledge gap."
Global Economic Crisis (10/9/98)
Here are some recent reports addressing the global
economic problems that now threaten to spread from Asia, Russia, and Latin America, to the
United States. You might start with the report from the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), "World
Economic Outlook." The report is in pdf format, and you need to download
it.
You can also examine the World
Bank document, Global Economic Prospects and the
Developing Countries 1998/99: Beyond Financial Crisis—World Bank that is, in some
ways, critical of the IMF.
The October 8, 1998 issue of The Scout Report for
Business and Economics has a collection of news articles on the 'Global Financial
Crisis," and Northern Light has a special page of links on the global financial crisis.
Do you want to know how the global
economic downturn can affect you? ABC News does a nice job of illustrating that in
their feature, The
Global Economy Hits Home.
Environmental
Trends
Environmental deterioration is one of the prices we
pay for perpetual economic growth. In fact, one of the conclusions reached by many
observers is that we will never sacrifice economic growth for environmental preservation
(see the full discussion in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism,
p233ff). This recent report,
Environmental Trends, supports this idea and reveals some of the long-term
environmental effects of capital accumulation. The report appears at Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly, an
excellent site for keeping up with the latest developments and research on the
environment.
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