Passage 5Eliminating Sweatshops at Nike; Just Do It!
Over the past decade, Nike has been one of the most profitable companies in the United States. However, at a time when the company’s spokesperson, Michael Jordan, was bringing in over $10 million, the young, mostly women workers in its Indonesian plants were taking home only $ 2.23 a day. (31)______, working conditions in Nike’s Serang plant, 50 miles west of Jakarta, were far from ideal. Hundreds of workers, some children, were crowded into vast sheds where they glued, stitched, pressed, and boxed 70 million pairs of (32)______a year. Collusion between local management and government made organizing workers into unions both difficult and dangerous, and the high level of unemployment left workers powerless. Taken together, these labor practices helped keep cost so low and quality so high that a pair of running shoes that (33)______ for $ 75 retail in the United States cost just $18.25 to manufacture.
With this type of cost and price structure, it is easy to see how Nike became so profitable. However, the ability to sustain these practices became an issue in 1996 when the U.S. media exposed these sweatshop conditions. As consumers became increasingly aware of (34)______ their sneakers were actually being made, some felt guilty, and human rights groups went so far (35)______ to organize boycotts of Nike products. Given the damage to Nike’s image and future profitability, something had to be done.
At first, Nike CEO Phillip Knight defended his operations, noting that Nike pays its workers no (36)______ than its rivals do and that these workers make more than minimum wage in the host countries. Critics countered that the level of pay was (37)______ the subsistence level and much lower than what is paid by other U.S. companies such as Coco-Cola, Gillette, and Good-year.
To end this image problem (38)______ and for all, on May 12,1998, Knight pledged to (a) raise the minimum worker age requirement, (b) adopt U. S.-style safety and health standards, and (c) allow human rights groups to help monitor working conditions in all foreign plants. He again showed his commitment to reform six months later (39)______ raising wages 22 percent to offset the currency devaluation that rocked Indonesia in the fall of 1998. Knight used both occasions to challenge his competitors to do the same, realizing that their failure to do so would put Nike at a competitive disadvantage. Although it is currently unclear how these (40)______ will respond, it is obvious that Nike is at least trying to establish its image as a trend setter in both footwear and working conditions in international locations.
The past decade has witnessed an enormous worldwide political, economic and cultural()
Healthcare Reform During the past two decades, all of the industrialized nations have enacted some form of healthcare reform. America is no exception. Just a few years ago, the U. S. was consumed by a vigorous public debate about healthcare. In the end, the debate reaffirmed that the U. S. would retain its essentially market-based system. Instead of reform imposed from the top down, 3 the American healthcare system underwent some rather profound self-reform, driven by powerful market forces. The market—not the government—managed to wring inflation out of the private healthcare market. 4
Today, it appears that U.S. healthcare costs are again on the rise. At the same time, American patients—like patients elsewhere—are becoming more vocal5 about the restrictions many face in their healthcare plans. Talk of government-led reform is once again in the air. 6
We must think twice, though, before embarking on “reform” if that means imposing further restrictions on our healthcare markets. The more sensible course is to introduce policies that make the market work better—that is, to the advantage of consumers. I base this argument on our company’s decades of experience in healthcare systems around the world, which has given us a unique global perspective on the right and wrong way to reform healthcare. The wrong way is to impose layer after layer of regulation and restrictions. We have seen this approach tried in many countries, and we have always see it fail—fail to hold down costs, and fail to provide the best quality care. Medicine is changing at so rapid a pace that no government agency or expert commission can keep up with it. Only an open, informed and competitive market can do that. This lesson holds true for the U. S., and for all countries contemplating healthcare reform. Free markets do what governments mean to do—but can’t.
The right approach10 is to foster a flexible, market-based system in which consumers have rights, responsibilities, and choices. Healthcare systems do not work if patients are treated as passive recipients of services: 11 they do work if consumers are well-informed about quality, costs, and new treatments, and are free to act responsibly on that knowledge.
Of course, reform should never be driven purely by cost considerations. Instead, we ought to devise new ways of funding healthcare that will make it possible for all patients to afford the best care. Ideally, these new approaches would not only reward individuals and families but also encourage innovation, which can make healthcare systems more efficient, more productive, and ultimately of greater value for patients.
The path we choose will have enormous implications for all of us. We are in a golden age of science, and no field of scientific inquiry holds more promise than that of biomedicine. 13 Not only can we look forward to the discovery of cures for chronic and acute disease, but also to the development of enabling therapies that can help people enjoy more rewarding and productive lives.14 New drugs are already helping people who would once have been disabled by arthritis or cardiovascular disease stay active and mobile.15 More effective anti-depressants and anti-psychotics are beginning to relieve the crippling illness of the mind, allowing sufferers to function normally and happily in society. The promise is quite simply—one of longer, healthier lives. 16
What is at issue are the pace and breadth of discovery, and how quickly we can make the benefits of our knowledge available to the patients who need them.
Therefore, the policy environment the biomedical industry will face in the next century may make or break the next wave of biomedical breakthroughs. 17 Will that environment include protection for intellectual property, freedom for the market to determine price, and support for a robust science base? 18 Will healthcare systems nurture innovation, or remove incentives for discovery? Will they give consumers information and options, or impose stringent rules and regulations that limit access and choice? For the U. S., as for the rest of the world, the healthcare debate is by no means over. And for all of us, the stakes are higher than ever.
What has happened in the past half-century?
What lessons can be learned from the past in this decade?
Your database instance is functional for the past one month. The Automatic Workload Repository(AWR) snapshot retention is set to 7 and the STATISTICS_LEVEL initialization parameter is set to TYPICAL. You receive a complaint about the poor performance of the database between 7 PM and 9 PM of theprevious day. Choose two actions any of which can be referred to first to diagnose the problem. ()
Which of the following past particle (过去分词) is used as an predicative(表语)?
In the past, news was _____.
Many great scientists and inventors of the past, such as Nikola Tesla, has possessed the ability of extraordinary, visualization skills that enabled them to analyze the most minute details of complex machines before the devices were even constructed.