Big Brother or an improvement? And what does that have to do with being pregnant?

By the subject line, I mean ‘when is it an invasion of privacy and when is it thanks for making my life simpler’? And, clearly there is more.

You are probably way ahead of us. Almost everyone is more up on current events that Dave & Janet. You’ve read all about this weeks ago. But we just found the article on a USA department store chain, ironically called ‘Target’ trying to not bombard its customers with junk mail that they did not want, but to send discounts about things that the customers WERE interested in. Good news, right?

Please have a look at
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Yes. It does say ‘how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did’ in that link.

Next is a link to the full text of the source article, which I think is a summary of an even longer article, sort of like the Russian Dolls.

Actually, at the moment at least, I, Dave, feel that I actually would like to know who wants to sell me a whatsit for 20% off, if I am looking for a new whatsit. I do not want to be deluged with the spam that I am presently seeing. Which is 99.99% stuff I do NOT want to buy. So, even though it clearly can get pretty creepy, this subject does not scare me. At least not yet.

But, for our friends that are afraid that the government will someday put a microchip in our necks, clearly the microchip idea is so twentieth century. “They” are way ahead of you on that. Now you understand the symbolism of the Target logo, the Bulls-eye.

I hope that after reading this that you don’t have trouble sleeping from now on. If you do, we just happen to be having a sale on sleeping pills.

Dave & Janet

PS: That link

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

is a very long article, but it is surprisingly interesting. At least to us. And, after reading it, I was sent to

http://charlesduhigg.com/on-democracy-now/

which has about a 22min video about the scandal connected to Apple. I recommend it.

My take on some of the Offshore Manufacturing scandals is that many folks in the USA do not appreciate that a 12yr old working for US$1/hour might actually be good news in some countries. Wages are usually super low outside the USA. Access to education is often low. If one closes a company that was paying 12 yr olds $1.00/hr, people may starve.

I feel that the yard stick needs to be, “Compared to what?” “Low wages” compared to what? “Young workers” compared to what? If a family is starving and a 12 yr old who has no access to an education, who has no access to a job that pays more than US$0.75 an hour, gets a job for $1.00/hr with perhaps better working conditions, then that may well be good news.

When we lived in Mexico in the 1980s, the government regulated wages were US$5 to $10/day, depending on the year and the value of the Peso vs the US$. During that time the average Mexican was much happier than the average America. Of course, I wish things were better for them, but they weren’t. If a company came and gave them a nicer job than they could otherwise find at the same or greater pay, then they would have loved it.

Keep in mind that friends have mentioned (back in the 1980s) that getting their boats painted in Costa Rica in a boat yard that charged $10/day for a worker turned out to not be a good deal. These friends had gotten more work of higher quality done on the same boat, in a Canadian boat yard that charged US$40/hour for a worker.

This is an extremely complex issue and much too complex for me to explain my thoughts here. Beware sound bites. They are a favorite tool of the trickster. Let me just say that IMHO some of the scandals are just things taken out of the local context and are not bad things at all.

HOWEVER, I am very sure that many, and perhaps most, Offshore Manufacturing scandals are truly nightmares by any honest measure. Most of the Apple lovers that I know are especially Socially Conscious folks. How can they deal with any verified scandals that come out about exactly how their Apple was made?

As seen in the video, to have many workers committing suicide by jumping off the roof of the factory and the company answers this by putting up nets to catch the bodies, perhaps so one will not be afraid to walk near the building?? This sounds pretty bad to me.

I do believe that it is good to have a conversation of alleged abuses of human rights, pollution, and lots of other “I had no idea!” stuff. But, beware the people masquerading as ‘Good Guys’ that are trying to fool us. Question everything or be misled.

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