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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (1432)	11/14/2003 12:14:50 AM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

Wal-Mart: outlaw at home and in China Archive Recent Editions 2003 Editions Nov 15, 2003 Author: Scott Marshall People's Weekly World Newspaper, 11/13/03 11:59 Opinion Wal-Mart is an outlaw. It is also the largest retailer in the world and the largest private employer in the world. It is financially larger than Switzerland and employs more than eight times the number of troops Bush has deployed in Iraq. The recent news of INS raids on undocumented workers cleaning Wal-Mart stores revealed the company’s common practice of illegally not paying overtime to immigrant workers forced to toil long hours under brutal conditions. While the INS raids are despicably in tune with the Bush/Ashcroft assault on civil liberties and workers’ rights, they also highlight the criminal nature of Wal-Mart’s corporate dealings with labor. And as all of U.S. labor knows, this is only the surface of the many illegal, anti-union practices of Wal-Mart. But Wal-Mart is not just a criminal in the U.S. It is also guilty of breaking labor law in China. In China, unions are protected by labor law. Chinese labor law mandates that if any workers request a union the company must recognize the union and agree to negotiate a labor contract. pww.org

To: RealMuLan who wrote (1432)	11/14/2003 1:27:19 PM
From: X Y Zebra	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6370

The high accident rate is blamed on the combination of new drivers, poor roads, and a lax attitude to traffic laws. The new statistics reinforce China's growing reputation as one of the world's most dangerous places to drive. I was in Hangzhou about 5 years ago or so... I was taken around to see several small factories (primarily in the garment trade) in, around, and outside of the city. We employed a taxi driver who gave us one of the most incredible rides I have ever been. This guy had very good reflexes, an insatiable hunger for speed, and a keen death-wish sense. Yes, I specifically requested to be in the front passenger seat. --I would not have missed this for the world. You can say I craved the excitement as much as our Chinese Scarfiotti did, but that is not something new for me, when it comes to cars. -g Without shame I admit that I trusted this driver once I saw his quick reflexes in action... not to say that we were not exposed all the same. To say we were "exposed to harm" is an understatement. The hazards we encountered were amazing.... I mean he was going flat-out, (easily over 90 mph plus), passing slower traffic in all fashions; I mean on each side of the road, sometimes, three cars wide (on a two lane road). By traffic, I mean anything from other similar cars, a million bicycles, busses, ox-driven carts to a strange craft made of what that looked like a hand hauling cart, except that it was motorized by this farming implement that looked like a tiller. Needless to say, the speed differentials made this ride an incredible test for the brakes, not to mention the driver's reflexes.... and no-fear attitude. One of the main resources this Chinese Scarfiotti used in order to go successfully through the above traffic was the continuous use of the car's horn.... I mean he might as well have had a siren on as he repeatedly used it to call the other people attention indicating he was coming through. We missed more than ten bicyclists literarily by centimeters... How these riders did not turned into this driver's path (given the fact that they themselves were zigzagging in and out to avoid other hazards), is unexplainable... Now... This was about 5 years ago ... Next year, the first ever Chinese Formula One Grand Prix in Shanghai will be held in September... Once the young Chinese who drive a car are exposed to the glamour, speed, sound, and excitement of a Grand Prix... Driving in and around Shanghai will be equivalent to one of those destruction derbies like the one in the Star-Wars episodes... Compared to that, Italian driving will be a mere relaxed Sunday drive... And don't forget that the first rule of Italian driving is to throw away the rear view mirror... -lol