Word: pricing
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...bought the team in 2003, Abramovich has sunk over $1.1 billion into it, and bagged five trophies. That makes each bit of silver pretty expensive, but for a man whose personal fortune is estimated to be as high as $23 billion, the glory appears to be worth the price...
...national budgets are currently spent on agriculture, and investment is hampered by precolonial land rights that still prevail in most of sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile the cost of fertilizer has risen even more dramatically than the cost of fuel, leaving farmers facing a triple whammy: oil- and food-price rises, plus a lack of credit. Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian businessman and Africa's richest man, said small farmers are not supported by governments. "Farmers would have to grow gold" to make a profit, he commented...
...label endorsed by American TV personality Kathie Lee Gifford had been produced using child labor in Honduran sweatshops. Gifford sobbed on air, saying she hadn't been aware of conditions at the factory. For corporations and consumers alike, it brought home the realization that globalized production comes at a price: the cheap labor that lured multinationals to developing countries often goes hand in hand with less appealing hallmarks of developing nations - harsh working conditions and unenforced labor laws. Governments in most developing nations weren't monitoring conditions, so Western firms found themselves "held responsible for problems they didn't really...
...shadowy industry has sprung up in China in recent years that caters to factory owners anxious to disguise breaches of clients' codes of conduct - illegal overtime, say, or a lack of fire extinguishers on the factory floor. Unscrupulous consultants offer quick fixes before a factory is audited; for a price, they can even pose as a fake management team to convince auditors that a sound leadership structure is in place. Factory owners can also buy computer software that presets the times when workers punch in and out, so no illegal overtime shows up on time cards. Lower-tech tactics, employed...
...They're smart to do so, because, in some ways, auditing is helping to promote the very practices it purports to detect. In The China Price, Alexandra Harney describes how Chinese suppliers set up "five-star factories" whose model working conditions impress auditors, while also creating "shadow" factories to meet actual order deadlines. With a minimum of paperwork or safety codes, staffed by migrant workers who often put in 12-hour days seven days a week, these shadow factories are unregulated, but common. The craze for auditing has, paradoxically, led factory owners to create such factories. It also sops...