Why Economic Criminals View Bangladesh as a Model for Workers Everywhere

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/why-economic-criminals-view-bangladesh-model-workers-everywhere




As I write, there are terrible reports indicating that the death toll in Bangladesh, where the building housing garment factories collapsed, is far greater than currently reported. The initial reports from a disaster often prove inaccurate in important ways so I urge caution and the need to confirm whether the newer reports are accurate.

The higher death toll is not what prompts this article. I write to discuss the intersection of control fraud, austerity, globalization, labor “reform,” and economic development. Control frauds, for those new to the term, is a type of fraud in which the person controlling a seemingly legitimate entity uses it as a “weapon” to defraud the unsuspecting public. The targets of fraud are often employees.

The Road to Bangladesh

The most interesting event I have participated in is the Kilkenomics Festival in Kilkenny, Ireland held in early November. It is an economics festival in which people with expertise in finance (dressed in jeans) partner with professional comics (dressed in suits) to discuss serious economic issues. The organizers sell roughly 3,000 seats to non-wonks from Ireland and Europe. The comedians keep us honest and minimize the jargon.

I appeared in six or seven events last November, including interviews with the BBC and Ireland’s Pat Kenny on RTE. One of the subjects we discussed repeatedly was the intersection of austerity, “free trade,” and labor “reforms.” I made the point that the EU had a single game plan for the Eurozone’s southern periphery. They inflicted austerity, forcing the Eurozone into a gratuitous second recession and the southern periphery into an über-Depression with unemployment rates significantly worse than the largest European economies generally suffered during the Great Depression. (Cynically, and the EU is a past master in cynicism, the EU refers to the result as a “mild recession.” It also avoids the word “austerity” like the plague and calls it “pro-growth.”)

[Blue_Tires]

1. kick

[Nye Bevan]

2. Seven people in Bangladesh have already been arrested for this.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/28/179651195/deadly-bangladesh-collapse-building-owner-arrested