Post by Sunday at midnight
[2 articles]
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Shopping Trends in Korea Go Green for the first time, as a strong trend, this year
3. Marketing news from the Korea Times indicates that this was a main theme. Other themes was how perpetual media fear about flu drove people to consume certain things--perhaps the worst being the untested vaccines of course.
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12-03-2009 18:46
'G.I.R.L.' Sums Up 2009 Shopping Trends
By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
For local shoppers, it turns out this year was largely about green living, flu prevention, revisiting the past and bargain hunting.
Shinsegae E-Mart, the nation's top discount retail chain, analyzed 2,874 different types of products sold from January through November to 210 million visitors.
And if their findings are any indication of shopping trends, most of the money went to goods that can be summed up in one buzzword: the acronym "G.I.R.L."
"G" stands for green consumer, "I" for the effects of influenza A (H1N1), "R" for rebirth and "L" for low price, the retail expert said Thursday.
Products related to green living saw a steep sales jump this year, indicating that eco-friendly consumption is anything but a fleeting trend.
More than 850,000 reusable shopping bags were sold this year alone, up from just 1,800 last year, according to company data.
Sales of mugs and non-plastic food containers soared 62 percent and 15 percent, respectively, while sales of paper cups and plates saw almost a 35-percent drop from the previous year.
The outbreak of the H1N1 flu, which took a turn for the worse in late summer, drummed up sales of all kinds of flu prevention products in the second half of this year.
E-mart said masks, hand sanitizers and thermometers flew off the shelves early, but sales of health-related products, such as red ginseng and vitamins, soon started catching up.
Sales of red ginseng and vitamins climbed 25 percent and 59 percent, respectively.
"The flu has been a real boon to retailers this year," said Chang Joong-ho, an E-mart marketing expert, who added that the flu scare brought positive ripple effects across other health-related goods.
Another category that enjoyed solid growth this year is traditional goods, namely "makgeolli," (Korean traditional rice wine) and red thermal underwear.
E-mart statistics show that sales of makgeolli jumped nearly 200 percent from one year ago, labeling the product as one of this year's hit items. Red thermal underwear sold 30 percent better than last year.
The final shopping trend reflects the toughened economic reality this year.
"Consumers didn't stop shopping altogether, but they did go after the cheapest," said Chang, who highlighted "low price" as the top shopping keyword of the year.
According to data, sales generated by E-mart's own label goods accounted for almost 24 percent of the retailer's overall revenue this year, showing that many consumers turned to the discounter for its dirt-cheap in-house brands.
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/12/123_56635.html
[2]
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Politicized Consumption in Korea: several cases of price rigging across state and private institutions
3. Fascinating on the commentary at the conclusion--that this rigging of the price of liquified natural gas has been coordinated for six years between 'competitors' in Korea without anyone in the Korea government seeming to notice? I find that hard to believe no one noticed. Why? Given other cases of consumptive flows, without multi-institutional agreement around the flow, certain captive consumer flows and price hikes like this one would have been challenged long ago--when it started in 2003. The article is a list of other 'market items' in Korea that have been found out as having rigged, coordinated prices among competitors as well.
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12-03-2009 17:50
War on Price Rigging
LPG Suppliers Fined for Hampering Fair Competition
The nation's antitrust regulator is waging a war on rampant price rigging by
consumer product manufacturers,
fuel suppliers and
construction firms.
But the country still has a long way to go before firmly establishing competition rules and better protecting consumer rights. Needless to say, price fixing and other unfair business practices undermine the very foundation of [the legitimating ideology of] capitalism and the [ideology that there is a] market economy. [Is there? I argue for the institutionally desired stable clientelism of politicized raw material regimes as the basis of the political economy instead of open markets...]
More worrisome is that a large number of local corporations have little sense of compunction about playing a dirty game only to maximize their profits at the sacrifice of their competitors or consumers. Critics point out that unfair practices are so widespread that almost all companies are directly or indirectly engaged in price cartels, bid riggings and other forms of anti-competition activity.
On Thursday, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) decided to impose a combined fine of 668.9 billion won ($580 million) on six major liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) suppliers for fixing prices for their products. Those subject to the penalty are E1 Corp., SK Gas, SK Energy, GS Caltex, Hyundai Oilbank and S-Oil Corp., most of which are affiliated with the nation's family-controlled conglomerates, or chaebol.
In July, the FTC slapped a 260-billion-won fine on Qualcomm of the U.S. for abusing its dominant position in the Korean market for code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile phone chips. On Nov. 3, the commission ordered four beverage suppliers ― Lotte Chilsung, Coca-Cola Korea, Haitai and Dongah Otsuka ― to pay a combined total of 940 million won for blocking discount stores from lowering the retail prices of their products below fixed levels. On Nov. 18, it also imposed a 226.3 billion won fine on 11 manufacturers of soju, the nation's popular liquor, including Jinro, Doosan, Daesun and Kumbokju.
Announcing the latest punitive action, the FTC said the LPG suppliers have been fixing their product prices for six years from 2003. It also accused them of increasing the prices in unfair ways, thereby leading to a hike in heating and transportation costs for consumers. In other words, the suppliers have pocketed undue and illegitimate profits [there's that concept of passive 'legitimation' maintaining the clientelistic economy] by selling LPG at much higher prices than what they ought to have been.
We believe the FTC has taken the right action against the companies, although it is belated. The FTC said it has found out that the suppliers raised LPG prices almost simultaneously and by the same margins in many cases. Some industry sources estimated that the firms have pocketed roughly several trillion won through the price collusion over the last six years. If so, it seems that the fine is only a slap on the wrist, considering the astronomical amount of ill-gotten gains. [If combined fine was only 668.9 billion won ($580 million), and profits were trillions of won (billions of dollars), then it pays to be criminal, and the incentive is to do it once more.]
Now, we have to ask a question: How could the LGP suppliers have rigged prices for such a long period? What has the regulator done to discover and crack down on such an unfair and illegal practice? We have no choice but to jump to the conclusion that the FTC has been negligent in ensuring fair competition [in being an institution along the raw material substrate path maintaining this politicized material regime]. We urge the regulator to reflect on its past inaction and negligence. And it should put action before words to become a true guardian of the rules of competition.
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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/12/137_56625.html
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Nicole Niedermeier
ReplyDelete“Consumption Dwarfs Population as Main Environmental Threat”
Fred Pearce article is about the taboo that not population growth is the driving force behind our wrecking of the planet, it’s overconsumption. By almost any measures, a small portion of the world’s people (affluent, developed world) use up most of the Earth’s resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions. Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world’s richest half-billion people - that’s about 7% of the global population - are responsible for 50% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest 50% are responsible for just 7% of emissions. Overconsumption has a great effect on greenhouse gas emissions.For a wider perspective of humanity’s effects on the planet's life support systems, the best available measure is the “ecological footprint,” which estimates the area of land required to provide each of us with food, clothing, and other resources, as well as to soak up our pollution.
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“More people must inevitably be bad for the environment, taking more resources and causing more pollution, driving the planet ever farther beyond its carrying capacity. But hold on. This is a terribly convenient argument - “over-consumers” in rich countries can blame “over-breeders” in distant lands for the state of the planet.”
“Moreover, most of the extra consumption has been in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population.”
“By almost any measure, a small proportion of the world’s people take the majority of the world’s resources and produce the majority of its pollution.
The world’s richest half-billion people are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions”.
“They show that sustaining the lifestyle of the average American takes 9.5 hectares, while Australians and Canadians require 7.8 and 7.1 hectares respectively; Britons, 5.3 hectares; Germans, 4.2; and the Japanese, 4.9. The world average is 2.7 hectares. China is still below that figure at 2.1, while India and most of Africa (where the majority of future world population growth will take place) are at or below 1.0.”
“I do not deny that fast-rising populations can create serious local environmental crises through overgrazing, destructive farming and fishing, and deforestation. My argument here is that viewed at the global scale, it is overconsumption that has been driving humanity’s impacts on the planet’s vital life-support systems during at least the past century.”
“We cannot be sure how the global economic downturn will play out. But let us assume that Jeffrey Sachs, in his book Common Wealth, is right to predict a 600 percent increase in global economic output by 2050. Most projections put world population then at no more than 40 percent above today’s level, so its contribution to future growth in economic activity will be small.”
“Look at it another way. Just five countries are likely to produce most of the world’s population growth in the coming decades: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The carbon emissions of one American today are equivalent to those of around four Chinese, 20 Indians, 30 Pakistanis, 40 Nigerians, or 250 Ethiopians.”
“Even if we could today achieve zero population growth, that would barely touch the climate problem - where we need to cut emissions by 50 to 80 percent by mid-century. Given existing income inequalities, it is inescapable that overconsumption by the rich few is the key problem, rather than overpopulation of the poor many.”
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http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2140
Alexandra Vorobyova
ReplyDelete"Should We Stop Buying Christmas Presents?"
With Christmas shopping season already nigh upon us (what with Black Friday already passed) and everyone cringing everytime they get bombarded with cliché carols every time they enter a store, it's interesting to see a new point of view- an economist who says that most Christmas presents are a complete waste and that we're much better off buying few presents for a select few people than buying useless and unneeded junk for everyone in our direct proximity. This economist, Mr Waldfogel, recently wrote a book called "Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents For The Holidays" and advocates buying less actual, tangible presents in the favor of gift certificates, charitable donations, or just plain nothing, citing figures that estimate the deadweight loss involved in Christmas gift buying and the plain flawed logic behind the whole idea.
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"In the Christmas present market, the second part of the equation often fails. And with people spending $145bn (£87bn) a year worldwide on festive items, that could be more than $25bn (£15bn) of waste, says Mr Waldfogel. It's what's known in economic terms as a deadweight loss.
The economist emphasises that he isn't advocating the end of Christmas presents as a concept.
"We do pretty well in buying things for people we know well. And children would be devastated if they didn't get presents."
But when it comes to buying for people who live far away or who we don't know well, he thinks we might give gift vouchers a try instead. (...)
But gift vouchers also often lie dormant in dark recesses of the recipient's cupboards, never to emerge. "10% of the value isn't used - it ends up being transferred from the giver to the retailer," says Mr Waldfogel.
He wants retailers to accept a measure that allows vouchers to expire and trigger a donation of the value to charity. And, Mr Waldfogel suggests, a present of a donation to charity, or charitable goat purchase, should be acceptable.
(...)
And there would also be economic consequences if people suddenly stopped buying presents. Typically half of retailers' profits come from the fourth quarter, notes Mr Davies.
But in opposition to the economic benefit, there is also the sheer waste of unwanted presents."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8391774.stm
Christoffer Grønlund
ReplyDeleteH.I.V. Tests Turn Blood Into Cash in China
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This article touches upon, as I see it course, politics, progress and strong ethical matters. One of Bill Gates' foundations are 'sponsoring' money for people in China who 'are turning them self in' for AIDS-testing, however, it is not only the men and women giving blood who is being given money - it is also the ones taking the tests...Actually they get much more if the test i positive! Meanwhile this initiative is being reality because of the Chinese government coorperating with private companies, which ensures (woups, that was partial!) alot of money ost due to corruption. For me personally the ethical point of view, however, is more important - first of all: Why should people be paid to figure out if they are sick? Second: Why is it feasible to pay more for positive tests? - that makes people jumping for sick people!?
I could go on and on... I won't - but read the article, it is most interesting.
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TIANJIN, China — A young, boisterous crowd gathered in front of the Purple Tribe nightclub on a recent Friday night, but hardly anyone was interested in going inside.
Instead the men, most of them gay, waited their turn to duck into a dingy storage space next to the club. A needle prick and a wince later, they emerged with a triumphant grin, having exchanged a test tube of blood for a pocketful of cash. “This is my third time in two weeks,” Zhang Haoyun, an 18-year-old store clerk, boasted as he walked away holding a cotton swab to the bend of his arm.
On any given night, in 14 cities around the country, hundreds of people flock to makeshift blood collection centers in bars, bathhouses and apartments where workers test for syphilis and H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The ambitious testing initiative, started in 2007, is financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which will spend $50 million over five years in an effort to slow the spread of AIDS in China. So far, more than 110,000 people have been tested.
But the Gates H.I.V. prevention program in China is unusual because it offers a financial incentive to those drawing the blood — about $9 per sample and an additional $44 for those that come back positive — which is shared with donors. The program has provoked a flurry of criticism from some established AIDS organizations that say the money has given rise to a network of fly-by-night groups whose only interest is collecting money.
Here in Tianjin, a northern city of 11 million people, two dozen organizations have sprung up in the past year, many of them run by bar owners or bureaucrats affiliated with the government. Some of the groups do not provide counseling to those giving blood and make little effort to help those who test positive get medical treatment.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/health/policy/03china.html?ref=health
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHyun-deok,Park
ReplyDeletePollution killed Thi Vai River
Thi vai river is located at Veitnam. And it is polluted by industrial firms including monosodium glutamate (MSG) maker Vedan. These plants have released a great amount of untreated wastewater. Therefore farmers cultivating near the river are suffered great loses. But the firm did not compensate to them yet and government also does not comment to that.
Actually environmental restriction of firms around this river has been strengthened since last year. However pollution is at a standstill.
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The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said Wednesday it had completed the report evaluating the impacts on farmers of pollution caused by industrial firms, including monosodium glutamate (MSG) maker Vedan, which dumped untreated wastewater into the Thi Vai River.
The evaluation was conducted by researchers from the Institute of Environment and Resources and concerned agencies basing on polluting elements in the river that caused harmful effects on farmers in Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces.
Researchers also found high contamination of organic polluting substances in seven kilometers upstream the 76-kilometer river. Concentration of other polluting elements is also up to eight times the allowed levels in several places.
The Taiwanese invested firm has paid up its fine of more than VND267 million (US$15,000) and more than VND111 billion ($6.2 million) of the VND127-billion environment protection fee, the department said.
the department didn’t comment on compensation that affected farmers have demanded from Vedan.
In September, Vedan rejected the latest compensation request of VND569 billion ($31.7 million) from farmers affected by its pollution of the environment, saying it needed more evidence and that it cannot afford such large sums.
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http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=54078
Anna Maislinger
ReplyDeleteReal vs. Artificial Christmas Trees
Appropriate for the season here’s an article about Christmas trees. It discusses the Pros and Cons of Artificial and Real Trees. I prefer real trees as they are recyclable and I don’t want to miss the smell. Furthermore lots of trees are growing where I live, so they don’t have to travel. – It would just like to know if they are raised organically. Anyway, … Merry Christmas.
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The Pros and Cons of Artificial
Given the current economic climate, artificial trees may be especially appealing for their investment value when compared with the recurrent, annual expense of a real Christmas tree. Their convenience is also appealing to consumers as they don’t need watering, don’t leave pine needles all over the floor and transportation from tree farm to home isn’t an issue. But many experts believe artificial trees actually have a greater negative environmental impact when all aspects of their life cycle are considered. Today’s artificial trees are typically manufactured with metal and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a non-biodegradable, petroleum-derived plastic. In addition, many older varieties may contain lead, used as a stabilizer in the manufacturing process. Despite their PVC contents, artificial trees are non-recyclable and non-biodegradable, meaning they will sit in a landfill for centuries after disposal. Furthermore, approximately 85 percent of artificial trees sold in the U.S. are imported from China, according to the National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA), adding to their overall environmental footprint.
The Pros and Cons of Real
There are about 500,000 acres in production for growing Christmas trees. Each acre provides the daily oxygen requirements of 18 people. Approximately 33 million real Christmas trees are sold in North America each year, according to the U.S. EPA. Luckily, about 93 percent of those trees are recycled through more than 4,000 available recycling programs. Also known as “treecycling,” the act of recycling a Christmas tree is a leading reason many experts agree they are more environmentally friendly than their plastic counterparts. Treecycling is an easy way to return a renewable and natural source back to the environment instead of disposing it in a landfill, where decomposition rates are slowed due to lack of oxygen. Christmas trees are recycled into mulch and used in landscaping and gardening or chipped and used for playground material, hiking trails, paths and walkways. They can be used for beachfront erosion prevention, lake and river shoreline stabilization and fish and wildlife habitat. A single farmed tree absorbs more than 1 ton of CO2 throughout its lifetime. With more than 350 million real Christmas trees growing in U.S. tree farms alone, you can imagine the yearly amount of carbon sequestering associated with the trees. Additionally, each acre of trees produces enough oxygen for the daily needs of 18 people. In order to ensure a healthy supply of Christmas trees each year, growers must use sustainable farming techniques. For each tree harvested, one to three seedlings are planted the following spring, ensuring a healthy supply of trees. According to the NCTA, the Christmas tree industry employs more than 100,000 Americans, an important economic consideration in the real versus artificial debate. Besides the aforementioned cons associated with real Christmas trees, they are farmed as agricultural products, meaning repeated applications of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers may be used throughout their lifetime. The ideal tree would be raised organically, using integrated pest management techniques rather than chemicals. [...]
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http://earth911.com/blog/2009/11/25/real-vs-artificial-christmas-trees/
Young Han
ReplyDeleteDay after tomorrow all over again!!!
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I have quite enjoyed the spectacular scenes of the motion film "Day after tomorrow", but I am not sure if I will enjoy when it happens in real time. Researchers at University of Saskatchewan found some information about previous case of sudden iceage that occured on Earth by looking at carbon isotopes. The problem is, if it happened once, there is no telling that it won't happen twice. What happened in the past, though, is that Greenland's glacier melted and cool water poured into Atlantic and Artic ocean and it stopped the circulation of warmer water in the North Atlantic, bringing this conveyor blent to a hault. Considering that reduction of ice in north/south pole is becoming an issue as we are going through global warming, this certainly could happen again, and when it happens, it will not give mankind enough time to react upon it. The article says this could happen in a decade or in matter of two years at the shortest. I thought devastation of this event is well portrayed in the movie that I mentioned, and ironically, this is something that we have to take serious as a consequence of global warming.
Looking ahead to the future, Patterson said there was no reason why a big freeze shouldn't happen again.
"If the Greenland ice sheet melted suddenly it would be catastrophic," he said.
This kind of scenario would not discount evidence pointing toward global warming — after all, it leans on the Greenland ice sheet melting.
"We could say that global warming could lead to a dramatic cooling," Patterson told LiveScience. "This should serve as a further warning rather than a pass."
"People assume that we're political, that we're either pro-global-warming or anti-global-warming, when it's really neither," Patterson added. "Our goal is just to understand climate."
Patterson and his colleagues detailed their findings at the European Science Foundation BOREAS conference on humans in the Arctic, in Rovaniemi, Finland.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34242705/ns/technology_and_science-science/
Sujin Kwon
ReplyDelete"Biotechnology -- A Solution to Hunger?"
Once I read an excerpt of the book "12myths of world hunger". It is about what are not really true about world hunger, with which we can draw some arguments that GMOs are not really helping world hunger disappear. People are still talking about if biotechnology is THE solution to world hunger. But this world is not actually lack of food. We could also found it out in Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion, that unfair distribution is one of the biggest problem in this capitalism society. GMO's not good for environment in the long-run. It ruins the fertility of the soil and harmful insects get more immune after eating those organisms. We need to rethink about it so bad. I will also write the last reaction paper about this.:)
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The world’s food supply is abundant, not scarce. The world’s production of grain and other foods is sufficient to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person, per day. The real reason for hunger in the world is poverty, which often strikes women--the nutritional gatekeepers in many families--the hardest. Economists argue that resolving hunger requires political solutions and not just agro-technical solutions. According to them, instead of looking at biotechnology as a yet unproven and non-existent breakthrough, decision makers should look at the full body of research that shows that solutions to eliminate hunger are not technological in nature, but rooted in basic socio-economic realities. This is not to say that technology, including biotechnology, does not play a role in reducing, say, malnutrition, but there is no technology that can override the immediate political and social forces that keep people poor and hungry. The global biotechnology industry has funnelled a vast majority of its investment into a limited range of products that have large, secured markets in the First World—products which are of little relevance to the needs of the world’s hungry.
Biotechnology has applications that can significantly solve the problem of world hunger. Green is the colour of agricultural biotechnology, of fertility, self-respect and well-being. In my opinion, policymakers should pragmatically consider modern biotech discoveries and assets as an important tool for solving the problem of global hunger.
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http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/chronicle/cache/bypass/lang/en/home/archive/Issues2009/pid/5084;jsessionid=B0CE063EEF4B8AD45B15E2FBE8EE86A9?ctnscroll_articleContainerList=1_0&ctnlistpagination_articleContainerList=true