The Corporation

Image taken from http://blog.wataugawatch.net/2009_09_01_archive.html

According to the video we watched in the last class here are some answers to important questions that are very interesting:

1) Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? Where should the line be drawn?
After watching the video “The Corporation”, it’s pretty clear that corporations are not individuals, and that’s why they shouldn’t be treated as if they were, so they shouldn’t have the rights that individuals have, because as they say in a documental corporations are like a big fish that if you give him the chance he will eat you. So it wouldn’t be fare that corporations have the same rights that individuals have because there wouldn’t be a balance in the society, and the power they will get if something like this happened would be incredible.
The rights we have as individuals are something that belong to us, and if we give them to corporations they will just increase their earnings and power and would start doing unethical things having the rights as a shield. It would be just unimaginable that companies have these rights because there wouldn’t be a drawn line between what a company can do or not, I think that if this happened all the effort that many unions and persons have made to keep the balance of power equal would be dropped in the trash.

2) How can we ensure corporations are held accountable for their actions?
In today’s world it is very difficult to ensure that the companies respond for their acts, because there are many interest that are moved behind the justice, but the solution for this problem is to put several laws for companies that take advantage of their power to make illegal acts. Another thing that the government should do to control this kind of acts is to give some tax benefits for companies that really concerned about their employees and the society.

3. Should individuals bear any responsability for the actions of a corporation? If so, to what degree
Us as individuals should respond for what we do, that’s why I think that individuals should be responsible for their acts but just if the individual acts with bad purposes. I think that the ones that administrate the corporation or the ones that have high charges inside it are the ones that should have more responsibility, because at the end they are the ones that take the decisions and the ones that lead the company for the good or bad way, but how I said before just if the person acts with bad faith.

4. What are the benefits of the corporate form? could an alternative model offer these as well?
The corporate form of organization has an advantage over its two rivals in at least three respects:
1) It diffuses financial responsibility,
2) It survives the death of its owners
3) It permits of larger accumulations of capital
(Taken from http://chestofbooks.com/finance/economics/Elementary-Economics/Advantages-And-Disadvantages-Of-The-Corporate-Form-Of-Organi.html)
We also have to recognize that there are some big companies like Microsoft or coca cola that are very concerned about their employees and about the entire society, so this kinds of corporations are just impossible to change because what they offer to the state and to the society its unbeatable for any other system or model.

Migrants and the IOM

Due to the process of globalization, it is pretty easy to travel from one country through another without many restrictions and to make a life in every part of the world, that’s why migration has increased a lot in the last two decades, and has became a really big problem for many developed countries.

Institutions like the International organization for migration (IOM) are extremely important to help these migrants to have rights and better life conditions, specially for the female migrants that are the most affected one because of the gender discrimination
(Image taken from www.wordpress.com)
The IOM is an institution that works to help ensure the orderly and humane management of migration, to promote international cooperation on migration issues, to assist in the search for practical solutions to migration problems and to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced people (Taken from http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/about-iom/lang/en)
For the IOM it’s very important that female migrants have the better conditions and that’s why they have a lot of campaigns to protect the rights of the women migrants and the most important thing to capacitate them to make a better job in what they do an example of this campaigns are:

- In siria for example the IOM gives the female migrants short-term assistance to reduce their vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation.

- In Italy there is a campaign called "Migrant Women for Development in Africa" (WMIDA), which support West African women migrants interested in using their remittances to establish small or medium enterprises in their countries of origin through joint ventures with Italian partners and host communities. (Taken from http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/migration-development/pid/2027)

- In Costa rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua the IOM have a campaign called "No More Human Trafficking" or "No más trata de personas", which has the propose of fighting against the human trafficking in Central America and Mexico.

Here is a pretty interesting video that describes the situation of migrants in Thailand:

India a desirable market

India is one of the biggest countries in the world, and that’s why big companies and firms from every part of the world are trying to merge into this market with different corporative strategies like acquisitions and merging. It is important to say that acquisition and merging are completely different strategies and not the same as many people think; The main difference is that “Acquisition is when a new company takes over another and clearly establishes itself as the new owner, and a merger happens when two firms agree to go forward as a single new company rather than remain separately owned and operated” (taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mergers_and_acquisitions). Althoyght both strategies are very used, its more common to see an acquisition than a merging.

Image taken from http://www.pharmainfo.net/luckypharmacist/mergers-and-acquisitions-trends-pharma-sector

In the last 2 decades India has been a country where merging and acquisitions have incredible grown, as a consequence of the government’s politics that have been implemented. There are perfect example of acquisitions and mergers in India, big companies like telecom, finance, FMCG, construction materials and automobile have entered to the Indian market by adquiring companies or by merging.

Here are the main acquisitions and mergers that have entered to India:
“Hindalco acquired Canada based Novelis. The deal involved transaction of $5,982 million. Tata Steel acquired Corus Group plc. The acquisition deal amounted to $12,000 million. Dr. Reddy's Labs acquired Betapharm through a deal worth of $597 million.Ranbaxy Labs acquired Terapia SA. The deal amounted to $324 million. Suzlon Energy acquired Hansen Group through a deal of $565 million. The acquisition of Daewoo Electronics Corp. by Videocon involved transaction of $729 million. HPCL acquired Kenya Petroleum Refinery Ltd.. The deal amounted to $500 million. VSNL acquired Teleglobe through a deal of $239 million.”(Taken from http://www.economywatch.com/mergers-acquisitions/india.html)