THE BIG SQUEEZE 

I don't travel by air all that often, so I can't get used to the squeezed-in
seats.  Every time I get in a plane it seems they've shaved another half-inch
from the seat width, and the rows are an inch closer together.  When the person
in front of you leans back nowadays, his or her head ends up right in your lap.

Sometime in the past year the airlines also stopped pretending to serve meals. 
Now they toss a bag of peanuts in your direction.  The peanut bags are getting
smaller.

The only time I watch TV is when I stay in hotels, which is about as often as I
fly, so I get surprised by rising ratio of advertising to program.  Recently I
tried to watch a movie, but it was more than half ads.  Even PBS has ads now,
getting ever longer.

They show ads on the plane too, when you're strapped in and can't escape.  Ads
are everywhere in airports, blatting from TVs, even pasted on the backs of
stall doors in the bathrooms.

The squeeze, the squeeze, the money-making squeeze, taking up more space in our
lives, filling it with less worth.  Grabbing our attention, offering
everything, while cutting quality and raising price.  The shrinking chocolate
bar.  The appliance without an on-off switch.  (You have to plug and unplug it
-- saves the manufacturer at least a buck a unit.)  The new shoes that fall
apart one month sooner than the previous ones did.

Banks charge for talking to a real live teller, the telephone company for
information, gas stations for road maps, all of which used to be free. 
Pensions and health insurance are less generous than they used to be, if they
exist at all.  Half-pound packages contain 7 3/4 ounces.  I don't know how long
it's been since 2-by-4s actually measured 2 by 4.

The squeeze constricts everything it touches, most recently health care.  Once
patients were sick human beings, now they're items on an assembly line.  A
friend of mine, one of many caring practitioners still valiantly trying to
maintain quality, was just told that her patients will now be scheduled not
every half-hour, but every 15 minutes.

They used to make house calls; now you come to them, they're 45 minutes late,
they give you 15 minutes and charge you ten times as much.

I don't think the eternal squeeze is necessary to business, only to a certain
size and type of business, one that is so big, so plurally owned, so distant
from its products and customers, that it can only measure itself by size and
spreadsheets.  There are plenty of companies, some large but most small, that
still pride themselves on the quality of their products and their relationships
with clients.  When you interact with them, you don't feel squeezed.

Around me are family farmers who sell flowers, vegetables or milk,
fresh-produced, to folks who live nearby.  They take joy in the beauty of their
produce and the health of their soil, and they're content to do good work and
make enough to support the family.  They wouldn't shrink the size of a "pint"
box of strawberries just to make a few cents more.

Stonyfield Yogurt is a medium-sized company still dedicated to pure product,
decent treatment of workers, and premium prices to dairy-farmer suppliers.  The
Interface carpet tile company is a billion-dollar company going to great
expense to reduce the environmental impacts of its operations.

I know a guy who has a restaurant in San Francisco that serves inexpensive,
colorful, healthy food, lovingly prepared.  He always has a waiting list for
reservations.  "You know," he told me, "if I charged 25 cents more per meal, I
could pay off my start-up costs in 18 months instead of 3 years."  "Why don't
you?" I asked.  "Well, I make a fair profit," he said, "and I don't want to
have that kind of relationship with the people who eat here."

If you have a thousand customers a week and you could get 25 cents more out of
each of them, that would be $250.  Not worth doing.  But if you have 10 million
customers, 25 cents apiece adds up to $2.5 million a week, $130 million a year.
 
No way you could pass up the chance to squeeze out that money.  And use it to
grow to 100 million customers.  If you don't, your competitors will.

I think our love/hate relationship with business comes from the fact that we
regularly encounter these two different kinds of businesses -- our friends and
neighbors, doing good work and hoping to make a buck, and the players in the
big leagues, where they play a different game.  Disney and Wal-Mart, once
lovable companies, have grown into monsters with no apparent goal except to
engulf the world.  General Motors, Nike, Microsoft, Texaco, Dow, Sears, Delta
at some point had to stop competing on the basis of quality and start competing
on the basis of lower costs, attained by squeezing suppliers, customers,
workers, resources, regulators, and competitors -- especially small competitors
still trying to run a heartfelt business.

The five hundred largest corporations, larger than many nations in terms of the
amount of money that flows through them in a year, account for one-fourth of
the world's economic output, but only employ one-fourth of one percent of the
world's workers.  When they talk at us about the importance of creating jobs,
encouraging private enterprise, freeing the market, they're trying get favors
for the big guys by touching our respect for the little ones.  

That's just one more example of the squeeze.

(Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at
Dartmouth College.)

Motto:  ARCCAL A NYUGATI
                                                   SZEMET FELZABALASA FELE!

Gazdasagi ujsag hire: az amerikai dohanyipari szovetseg a karteritesi perek
hatasara beadta a derekat es effektive peren kivul megegyezett a dohanyzas-
ellenes lobbival, hogy 25 even keresztul osszesen 368.5 milliard USD-t fizet
az USA koltsegvetesen keresztul az egeszsegugynek. Az evenkenti atlag 14.7
milliardos reszlet az iparag USA nyeresegenek tobb mint duplaja (szorult hely-
zetben lehettek, ha ilyen alkuba belementek). A megallapodas tovabbi reszletei
szerint fokozatosan csokkenteni kell a cigarettak nikotintartalmat. Korlatoz-
zak a reklamozt is (utcan, interneten, sportesemenyeken, koncerteken tilos).
Az iparag tovabbi 500 millios kampannyal koteles elerni, hogy fiatalok kozotti
dohanyzas tiz ev alatt a harmadara csokkenjen.

A hatalmas koltsegeket a vallalatok varhatoan dobozonkent kb. 50 centes
aremelessel es agressziv piacszerzessel kompenzaljak: Azsiaban, Afrikaban es
Kelet-Europaban. A dohanygyartok sok adot fizetnek, komoly allami intervencio 
(a keleti terjeszkedessel szemben) sehol nem varhato.

				***

Par hete mar en is irtam rola, most a Figyeloben szerepelt: a kozelmultban
elfogadott reklamtorvenyt a kormany javaslataval es az egeszsegugyi ervekkel
szemben a kepvizeloi inditvanyok jelentosen puhitottak. Fontosabb lazitasok:
- kozteruleti dohanyreklamok minden formaja engedelyezett, kiveve az iskolak,
  orvosi rendelok 200 meteres korzetet. Nem szamit azonban kozteruleti rek-
  lamnak az eladohelyen elhelyezett, kozteruletrol is lathato reklamfelulet.
- ujsagok hatso boritojan is szabad cigarettat reklamozni, valamint a
  szamitogepprogramok bejelentkezo kepernyojen is (!!!)
- a reklammegrendeleshez nem kell csatolni a termek minosegi bizonyitvanyat
- nem tilos a gyermekeknek es fiatalkoruaknak szolo, felnottek (kulonosen a
  szulok es pedagogusok) iranti bizalomra epito reklam ("apad is bagzik")
- lehet dohanyt es szeszt ingyenes mintaadassal reklamozni

A fenti torvenymodositasok szoveget a dohanyipar keszitette, a kepviselok
szo szerint nyujtottak be. A lazitasban kovetkezo kepviselok jeleskedtek:
- HASZNOS MIKLOS (kdnp), be is vallotta, hogy jartak nala a dohanyipartol
- Az alabbi kepviselok egy csoportban nyujtottak be az ipar inditvanyait:
  PUCH LASZLO (maszop), VARGA LAJOS (maszop), MOLNAR GYULA (maszop), BU:KY
  DOROTTYA (szadesz), BRETTER ZOLTAN (szadesz), FARKAS GABRIELLA (mdnp),
  BALSAI ISTVAN (mdf), valamint KO'SA LAJOS (fidesz).
- Az orszaggyules alelnoke KO'RO'DI MA'RIA (szadesz) talalkozot szervezett
  a koalicios kepviselok es a dohanyipar kozott. A lobbizok a maszopo's
  kepviselokkel kulon is tartottak egy tanacskozast.
- DOKTOR TORGYAN JOZSEFNE CSEH MARIA javaslata alapjan engedelyeztek az
  ingyenes mintaadassal torteno dohany- es szeszreklamozast.

Az egeszsegugyi szempontokat probalta (legnagyobbreszt sikertelenul) erve-
nyesiteni az MSZP-s Cseha'k Judit es az SzDSz-es Be'ki Gabriella.

Mivel a parlamenti szavazas altalaban nem titkos, a modosito inditvanyok
mellett illetve ellen szavazo kepviselok listaja nyilvanos, hozzaferheto.
Patai Andras, a Dohanyipari Szoveteseg fotikara szerint "a dohanyipar be
akarja tartani a torvenyt es el akarjak kerulni a hirdetesek tartalmat be 
folyasolo - etikai illetve esztetikai - vitakat." (kutya legyek, ha ertem).

				***

A fenti adatok a Budapesti Kereskedelmi Kamara lapjanak julius 14-i valamint
a Figyelo julius 3-i szamabol szarmaznak. A dohanyipar torvenytiszteletet es
etikai hozzaallasat az eddigi viselkedes alapjan felmerve a jovot a kovetke-
zokeppen latom: az iskola bejarataval szemben levo dohanyuzletben delutanon-
kent ingyen cigarettakat osztogatnak a diakoknak, a kovetkezo szoveggel: "ez
mentolos cigaretta, friss lesz tole a leheleted, es anyukad is cigizik."

				***

Meg egy modosito inditvanyt talaltam: MEZO" ISTVA'N (maszop) javaslatara
toroltek a reklamtorvenybol azt a korlatozast, hogy dohany- es szeszreklam
csak a csomagolt termek kepet es a termek jellemzo adatait tartalmazhatja.
A reszletes vita archivumanak tovabbi mazsolazasara sajnos nincs idom, igy
a "feketelista" felsorolasat sajnos nem folytatom.
(http://www.mkogy.hu/iromany/mod/03712imo.htm, aki raer, szornyulkodhet).

De azert gondoljatok bele: azok a kepviselok, akiket a dohanyipari lobbi le
tudott fizetni, hasonloan engedekenyek akkor is, amikor masik maffia keresi
meg oket torvenyjavaslatokkal es modosito inditvanyokkal... a kovetkeztete-
seket vonjatok le magatok.

Udv/Laci del Budapest y Pomaz

Ha jol lattam, Laszlo Barna irt egy kb. egy honapos Kornyeszbe:

BP kornyezetvedelem:
> ... nagyon tanulsagos szavak ezek, igy beszel a penz
> manapsag. (a BP a vilag negyedik legnagyobb olajcege, 62 milliard dollaros
> evi forgalommal)...

Csak egyeterteni tudok a cikk tartalmaval: A fo problema az, hogy a 
multinac. vallalatokat veszelyezteti a kornyezetvedelem: Ha tudatosul 
az emberekben, hogy milyen mertekben felelosek a vilagcegek foldunk 
jelenlegi es kesobbi okologiai allapotaert, annak profitjuk latja 
karat. Ezert aztan ezek a vallalatok igyekeznek "zold pofat vagni", 
ezzel a kozvelemenyt maguk fele forditani, s ami meg fontosabb, a 
konkurrenciat egetni. Hiaba van a megdonalc-nal szelektiv 
hulladekgyujtes, ha mindenki, akit egy kicsit is erdekel, tudja, hogy 
egy szemettelepre hordjak a cuccot. Az emberek megnyugszanak, megvan 
a heti jocselekedet, nem a bo:rgerkingbe mentunk, de megis a meki az 
egyik legnagyobb kornyezetszennyezo. Ugyanigy egy kisse elrontja az 
ember szajizet az, hogyha kiderul, az X olajvilagvallalat furotornyat 
elsullyeszteni nem hagyo Greenpeace mozgalmat az Y olajceg penzeli. 
S a legnagyobb baj, hogy a dollarmilliardos vallalatok penze a sajat 
politikai kepviselojuket juttatja eloterbe. 
Es az emberek egy reszet nem erdekli., mi lesz holnap, masik nem 
hiszi el, amit az az egyket eszelos tudos mond, a harmadik resz pedig 
tudja nagyon jol, tenne is valamit szivesen, de egyreszt a 
korulmenyek nem nagyon teszik lehetove, masreszt - es ez a 
jellemzobb - az "ez a kicsi nem szamit" hozzaallast kovetik.
Na, leallitom magamm...

	ROBEE,
		aki tudja ezeket, megis kajal a megdoncibe es idonkent 
		tabortuzet rak, muanyag balackos kukakolat vesz stb...
		
Mert pofazni konnyu