A Sign of the "Times"

This week in the New York Times, there were lots of really interesting stories, it was hard to just pick a few to write about! But I guess I will give it a go.
Monday- Today I read a really interesting story about the conterfeiting crackdown in China, specifically in Beijing's Silk Street Market where many vendors sell knock-offs of designers purses. This crackdown, involving five major design companies, Prada, Burberry, Gucci, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton, suing the Silk Street Market, has caused much unrest and many protests from the vendors. The vendors' lawyer claims that the vendors are "too ignorant" to realize what they are selling. To me, that sounds like a poor excuse. The vendors are looking to receive compensation for the money that they have lost with this recent crackdown, and I find this a little ridiculous. China is a place where so many goods are counterfeited and pirated, and while it is unfortunate if that is the only way these vendors can make money, what they are doing is illegal, and I don't see how they deserve any compensation. If anything, the companies whose goods are being copied and sold for very little money deserve compensation.
While this article interested me just because of all the controversey and the two distinct sides to this issue, I also found in interesting that China is actually doing something about stopping pirated goods from being sold. I feel as though here in the U.S. people are constantly stealing music and movies offline and yet almost nothing is done about it. Yes, some people have been find thousands of dollars for getting pirated music offline, however, out of the many, many people I know, pretty much all of them have stolen music. And I do not know one person who has ever been fined or even warned of a fine. Perhaps the United States should also try to crack down on vendors who sell pirated goods, or find a more efficient way to keep people from getting pirated goods online.

Tuesday- Today my eye was immediately caught by the story involving the secret letter that Obama sent to Russia's president. The letter supposedly said that if Russia helped to stop Iran from developing long-range, nuclear missles, that the United States would not deploy a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe, which Russia did not want built. While I realize that stopping Iran from making nuclear and long-ramge missiles is very important, I fear that not deploying the missile defense system is just as dangerous as Iran with weapons. Also, it is obvious in the article that Russia did not want the missile defense system built, or, if it was to be built, wanted it on their turf so that they could ultimately help to control it. This makes me wonder what Russia is so worried about. And while we are on better terms with Russia than we are with Iran, seeing the conflict between Russia and Jordan last year, it makes me wonder if we should be so willing to make deals with them.
The defense of our country is just so very important in this day-in-age, and while I am sure this deal was meant to help protect our country from Iran, I wonder if this is the best way to go about it. If the United States, one of the most influential countries in the world, has not been able to keep Iran from making weapons, who is to say that Russia will be able to?

Wednesday- Today I read about a very interesting new frontier of the debt collecting business- collecting from the dead. The article discusses how a new group of employees at debt collecting companies are trained to be empathetic listeners, and then go out and start collecting from either the estates of those who have died and still owe payments on credit cards or utilities, or from the relatives of these dead people. This is apparently the area of debt collecting that is the most succesful, in fact. Because relatives often feel compelling to grant the last wishes of a loved one or want to honor their memory, they are often more willing to pay the debts of their passed on realatives than living people are willing to pay their own debts.
While it is important that at least one area of the debt collecting business is healthy and strong, I was a little disappointed to read that debt collectors do not make it totally clear to relatives that they are not required by law to pay their loved one's debts. While they will tell them they are not legally bound to pay if someone asks, a lawyer whose firm handles deceased debt collection said that if a relative does not ask, they won't tell. This does not really seem fair to me, and I hope that more people realize they are not legally bound to paying the debts after reading this article.

Thursday- Today I read an article that went more in depth about the salmonella outbreak and the third-party audits that occur at major food production plants across the country. The article mainly focused on one auditor, Eugene Hatfield, who last year inspected the Peanut Corporation of America, the plant that was the original source of the salmonella outbreak that sickened thousands of Americans. I was shocked to read about the details of this inspection. For one, the plant knew in advance that Hatfield was coming and so had time to clean the plant, making it better than usual actual conditions. Also, even though Hatfield was going to the plant on the request of Kellogg, who uses the plant's peanuts, he was paid by the plant itself, which in my eyes would make him more likely to favor the plant. Also, he did not even test any of the food products for food-borne pathogens, which seems to me should be a very important aspect of the inspection. This lack of testing is apparently common procedure for testing by third-party auditors, which doesn't really seem to make sense.