Hard News: The Creepy Party
287 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 8 9 10 11 12 Newer→ Last
-
Musing: if I was from a developing country I'd find it terribly wearying to be expected to be so *aspirational* all the time.
Hell, from a developing country? From this country too.Sometimes I just like to chilax without guilt,but I am saying that having all the benefits of this one. :)
-
Also, developing countries are not all the same. Some places, like Venezuela have chosen not to be a big sweatshop for the West. Arguably people are better off there with a chance to control their destiny rather than be serfs of Nike and Apple.
-
Some places, like Venezuela have chosen not to be a big sweatshop for the West.
Venezuela being, of course, greatly aided in that choice by the presence of significant mineral reserves of great value to the West. Countries lacking in such natural bounty tend to have fewer choices about how they improve their economic performance.
Musing: if I was from a developing country I'd find it terribly wearying to be expected to be so *aspirational* all the time.
Not surprisingly, really. But even if they don't aspire to the full western ideal (and if you listen to fundamental Muslims it only takes a few doses of MTV to "fix" that) most people anywhere in the world want to be able to afford to feed their families, drink clean water, get medical care, etc. These "exploitative" employers, generally, pay better than most other jobs in these economies. It may not be much better but it's still better, and that money does help to improve the lives of the workers and their families.
Have some multi-nationals taken horrible advantage of workers in developing nations? Yes, absolutely. Did they pay their workers better than the normal wage in those economies? Largely, yes. And for a lot of people in those economies, working 16, 18, 20 hours a day for a pittance piece-rate is still better than the alternative. Does it excuse the hours and conditions? No, it doesn't, but it's easy for us as people living in countries with labour protection standards and minimum wage laws to get all sneery about how exploited workers are in developing economies without considering that, once upon a not-so-long-ago time, workers in our economies were being exploited and underpaid and all the other ills we're now determined to abolish elsewhere. It doesn't quite work that way, and the zealots may well find that if they get their way they actually make the lot of the developing-economy workers worse because the jobs will dry up.
-
Back to the creepy party. I thought this was funny. United they stand.
-
It will still be cheaper to produce in Vietnam or cambodia or China - just not quite as cheaper as it is now
And if it's not enough cheaper, the jobs will go away again. If it comes down to a 5% tax break to the company to get it to come back and employ local workers, most western governments will pass the law before the ink is dry on the statute. Especially in the big pork economies of the EU and the US. Wages off-shore have to be a lot cheaper to make up for the incentives that can be offered by governments that want to keep jobs on-shore.
Is your objection to off-shoring the loss of local jobs, or the fact that foreign workers are paid considerably less than local workers for the same work?
-
No, it doesn't, but it's easy for us as people living in countries with labour protection standards and minimum wage laws to get all sneery about how exploited workers are in developing economies without considering that, once upon a not-so-long-ago time, workers in our economies were being exploited and underpaid and all the other ills we're now determined to abolish elsewhere.
In Italy we still have sweatshop, actually. Beside the horrifying conditions in which the largely foreign seasonal workers are kept in the agricultural industry in the south, there are honest to god sweathshops in the textile industry, run by the mafia (although often the end product belongs to very respectable companies, including major labels), employing Italian nationals as well as immigrants. And yes, it's often the only work they can get, and yes, they get beaten up or worse if they talk to the press. It's still how a lot of families survive, but it's still wrong. And it still needs to be put a stop to. Otherwise, why not eliminate labour protections, everywhere, including at home, and let the market decide how much the workers of your country are worth? Why have a forty hour week? Why have a minimum wage? Doesn't it lead to what you wonderfully called "inefficiency" upthread, which is to say, not paying your workforce the absolute minimum you can get away with?
Krugman may like to call it an aesthetic as opposed to an ethical standard, but we need to draw a line somewhere. Poorer countries will always have a cheaper workforce than ours whilst they are poorer, so they need not lose their competitive advantage. But so long as they are manufacturing the stuff that we buy, I think we should expect that their workers be treated with the minimum standards of dignity that we afford to ours.
Fair and sustainable development is not compatible with the exploitation of the most desperate, worse still if it is allowed to masquerade as giving the developing world a fair shake. And bad empoyers hurt everybody, including the workforce in the first world whose jobs are being outsourced.
-
our tariffying future...
We are all in this together, we only have the one Planet. When today's developed countries were, well, Developing, we didn't have the technology we have now.
quite...
and it will be interesting to see where that technology arc goes...
...after seeing it praised by other folk here, I am currently reading The Windup Girl, seems like
a very possible future to me... -
I think I've mentioned it before but the whole monetary system is rooted in fantasy and using exchange rates between countries to establish "fair" rates of pay is a road to confusion. We need a system based closer to thermodynamics to work out a better exchange system for labour pricing, think about it.
Anypoo, Windup Girl...
Mmm, Megadont. Are they a bit like Mammoth?.
You like Mammoth?
I know, I've posted it before but hey. -
horrifying conditions in which the largely foreign seasonal workers are kept in the agricultural industry
Sorry, confused here - are you talking about Italy, or NZ's agricultural sector - most notably our wine industry?
-
Sorry, I don't mean to be competitive but the situation is a little worse over there. (Apologies for self-linkage, don't have time to look for another summary in English.)
-
I am currently reading The Windup Girl, seems like
a very possible future to me...Yes, I have been having nightmares since reading that, and then there was all this about the Russian Seed bank stuff. If anyone has a few spare billions, and some ships, we could relocate it to New Zealand maybe?
-
scaretakers...
If anyone has a few spare billions, and some ships, we could relocate it to New Zealand maybe?
personally I think that is the exact position NZ could be taking - as a biological control zone (and possibly even in Antarctica)...
- No GM/GE or nuclear power and seed banks / nurseries as back up to Northern Hemisphere seed banks - I think the recent Russian fires threatened not only nuclear power plants (and created airborne radioactive ash from around Chernobyl) but also threatened a seedbank as well - though I may have misconstrued the story you linked to and confabulated my own reality...meanwhile Thailand considers a nuclear future...
-
Musing: if I was from a developing country I'd find it terribly wearying to be expected to be so *aspirational* all the time
I think they just need to learn to be more relaxed about their aspirations.
-
there are honest to god sweathshops in the textile industry
For those who are interested, the first part of Roberto Saviano's 'Gomorrah' will give you a good background to that.
An extract from this review:
His Chinese employer introduces him to the world of dressmaking sweatshops. We learn to distinguish between those who work directly for the clans, handling guns, money and drugs, and the workers who are exploited by them, producing high-quality products for the most miserable wages and with no social security. These men and women are deliberately kept needy and hungry: otherwise they might have the leisure to think about what’s happening to them and leave. Saviano meets a talented dress-cutter paid a pittance for extremely skilled work. The same man travels in the boot of a car to give well-paid lessons to the Camorra’s Chinese rivals, at the risk of his life. A barrage of statistics establishes the role of Neapolitan sweatshops in the world of haute couture. Saviano’s style is fragmented, cumulative, insistent, dramatic. The reader must understand how important all this is, and the intensity of its effect on Saviano (in my translation):
All the fashion of the parades, all the genius of the most dazzling shows comes from here. From Naples and Salento. The main centres for black-market textiles . . . Casarano, Tricase, Taviano, Melissano, or Capo di Leuca, lower Salento. This is where they’re from. From this hole. All manufactured goods come out of the dark. That’s the law of capitalism.
-
My mother gave me a copy of the book two years ago when I visited, and I made the mistake of reading it on the plane. It set me up for a classic "crying in an enclosed public space" moment.
-
I was from a developing country I'd find it terribly wearying to be expected to be so *aspirational* all the time
I think they just need to learn to be more relaxed about their aspirations
There must be the seeds of an Onion article in there somewhere. Something about how Brazil and Columbia are getting tired of having Venezuela crashing on their couch all the time, talking about how they should just chill, stop being part of the world that The Man has created, y'dig? Stop worrying about buying and owning all that stuff. Get back to mother earth and all those good minerals, man. Stop being so uptight and hassling me to move out and get my own place, y'know?
-
My mother gave me a copy of the book two years ago when I visited, and I made the mistake of reading it on the plane. It set me up for a classic "crying in an enclosed public space" moment.
Not the most uplifting of reads, is it?
I'm thinking of getting rid of every book I own, and replacing them with a single copy of 'eat pray love'.
-
I think the recent Russian fires threatened not only nuclear power plants (and created airborne radioactive ash from around Chernobyl)
Now don't get me wrong here and start flaming my arse but...
There is a lot of misunderstanding around Nuclear Power and its associated risks, even today there are pastures in the UK that have "Too high" amounts of ionising radiation from Chernobyl to allow the consumption of sheep raised on them, the amounts are not even as high as you would get from a dental Xray but still "Too High" for those that make those decisions. Pah!
There is a BBC Horizon Programme that highlights this point, Nuclear Nightmares -
Not the most uplifting of reads, is it?
No. Great book though. I'm not watching the film for love or money.
-
personally I think that is the exact position NZ could be taking - as a biological control zone (and possibly even in Antarctica)...
Totally agree.
In the mean time though, we are running out of Helium. That's it for party balloons, and steampunk dirigibles then.
-
That's it for party balloons, and steampunk dirigibles then.
Hydrogen works just as well so long as you don't smoke.
-
Steve, if you want to eat radioactive food, it's up to you. Grind gas mantles and old smoke detectors over your chips or something.
The rest of us mostly would rather not, hence farmers with fallout in their fields don't get to sell product.
And the dental X-ray analogy is misleading. That's high level exposure for a fraction of a second. Some ingested radionucleides, like Sr-90 are with you for life.
-
Yeah, like I said "Don't Flame my arse" which I guess is an open invitation to do just that. However...
And the dental X-ray analogy is misleading. That's high level exposure for a fraction of a second. Some ingested radionucleides, like Sr-90 are with you for life.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency
Although some of the radioactive isotopes released into the atmosphere still linger (such as Strontium-90 and Caesium-137), they are at tolerable exposure levels for limited periods of time.... Exposure to low but unusual levels of radiation over a period of time is less dangerous than exposure to a huge amount at once, and studies have been unable to link any direct increase in cancer risks to chronic low-level exposure.
I did, actually, watch that documentary with a respected Scientist friend of mine and we were both intrigued. There is, or seems to be, a public perception about the dangers of radiation that exceeds the actual effects and if the world is ever going to eliminate excessive use of fossil fuels Nuclear energy is an option open to those without NZ's renewable sources. However, once again the common perceptions are those that rule the roost, as it were.
And all this is before we look at the situation with Iran with all the political posturing.
I must add that I would in no way condone Nuclear power for New Zealand, too expensive and we do not need it. Think of the potential impact on our tourism alone. -
And the dental X-ray analogy is misleading.
Also the people that regularly take x-rays (currently striking) stand behind a protective shield when they take x-rays of me in hospital.
-
Jeeze Kyle, are you that dangerous?.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.