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post #1 (nov 5th) Are shoe donations really the answer?

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post #1 (nov 5th) Are shoe donations really the answer?

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The Economist writes that the fad around “Toms” shoes and others may not be so great after all. It could dwindle domestic markets, cause poor countries to rely upon aid, and shoes may be something that people don’t want or need. Providing these shoes has actually been found to not be “transformative” at all. Providing these shoes is creating just another problem if it causes local businesses to close. Instead of solving the actual problem of how to get people out of extreme poverty, donating shoes probably just puts a band-aid over it.

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CAPITALISM has clocked the ethical consumer. Shoe brands like TOMS and Skechers tease in customers by matching purchases with a donation of a pair of shoes to a child in need. So far, TOMS has handed out 60m pairs of shoes, letting fashion-conscious consumers feel good about boosting children's health, access to education and confidence. But evidence suggests that shoppers' warm glow is unjustified.

Handing out aid in kind gives plenty to worry about. It could suck life from local markets, and foster a culture of aid-dependency. Handing out goods rather than cash runs the risk of spending money on things people neither need nor want. To find out if its intervention had worked, TOMS, to its credit, asked a group of academics to investigate and gave them assurances that they could publish whatever they liked. In late 2012 they randomly picked which of 1,578 children across 18 rural communities in El Salvador would receive pairs of TOMS' black-canvas, rubber-soled shoes. By comparing the places and children who received the shoes with ones that did not, they could work out how much these boots really gave back.
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The first of two studies found that TOMS was not wrecking local markets. On average, for every 20 pairs of shoes donated, people bought just one fewer pair locally-a statistically insignificant effect. The second study also found that the children liked the shoes. Some boys complained they were for "pregnant women" and some mothers griped that they didn't have laces. But more than 90% of the children wore them.

Unfortunately, the academics failed to find much other good news. They found handing out the free shoes had no effect on overall shoelessness, shoe ownership (older shoes were presumably thrown away), general health, foot health or self-esteem. "We thought we might find at least something," laments Bruce Wydick, one of the academics. "They were a welcome gift to the children...but they were not transformative."

More worrying, whereas 66% of the children who were not given the shoes agreed that "others should provide for the needs of my family", among those who were given the shoes the proportion rose to 79%. "It's easier to stomach aid-dependency when it comes with tangible impacts," says Mr Wydick.

The findings have prompted TOMS to change its strategy. It is adopting approaches more likely to have a big impact, such as matching purchases of sunglasses with free sight-correction. Increasingly it gives shoes as rewards for children who join community-building projects. Even so, its "one for one" shoe offering faces a basic problem: it is aimed at children who want shoes, but are too poor to buy them. For children that poor, other things would help more. As Mr Wydick notes: "You can't eat shoes."

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CAPITALISM has clocked the ethical consumer. Shoe brands like TOMS and Skechers tease in customers by matching purchases with a donation of a pair of shoes to a child in need. So far, TOMS has handed out 60m pairs of shoes, letting fashion-conscious consumers feel good about boosting children's health, access to education and confidence.

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post #5 (Nov 25th) Dinersbecoming a thing of the past.

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post #5 (Nov 25th) Dinersbecoming a thing of the past.

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This article shares how the diner culture in New York is becoming obsolete. Many of these diners have long histories in New York and are closing due to high rises, high rent, and places like Starbucks. Small businesses can almost not compete anymore with the trend of Starbucks, which is becoming more a monopoly. Losing diners also creates a loss of culture, a homogenized world (Myer, John). This global culture that is developed by core countries is affecting us here at home; we lose cultural wealth. One possible consequence is that tourism would decrease as we lose our “collective identity” (Regnault).

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For the past 25 years - since the divorce - I've lived a good part of my life in diners. Without them I might be slimmer, but also crazier and more unhappy. Judging by the crowds at the Metro Diner, on 100th Street and Broadway, my current haunt, I suspect that other New Yorkers feel the same way.

To say that the Metro has become my second home would be too vague and sentimental. Better to use the sociological term "the third place" (home and work being the first two), or to quote Robert Frost, the place "where, when you have to go there/ They have to take you in."

American coffee shops, like English pubs, Viennese coffee houses and Greek kaffenions, tend to engender klatches, informal clubs. At the old Key West Diner on 94th Street and Broadway, now known as the Manhattan Diner, the laughter of the comedian Anne Meara and her friends used to fill the room. And where would the sitcom classic "Seinfeld," the idea of which was conceived in a coffee shop, have been without the regular scenes at Monk's Café?

The best days of the New York City diner, however, appear to be over. Among the 2016 casualties were the Lyric Diner in Gramercy and the 40-year-old Del Rio in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, while La Parisienne near Columbus Circle and the 53-year-old Market Diner in Hell's Kitchen closed in 2015. Then there was Cafe Edison, a 34-year-old coffee shop that shut in 2014 to much sadness in the Broadway community.

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Inside the Metro Diner during the morning rush. Credit An Rong xu for The New York Times

Manhattan has certainly seen more diner closings than other boroughs. That said, with rising costs in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, classic diners like the Neptune and Bel Aire, both in Astoria, Queens, could soon be under threat. In Downtown Brooklyn, the building that has housed the original Junior's Restaurant since 1950 was almost sold. But after considering several offers, the owner Alan Rosen decided that the community still needed cheesecake more than luxury high-rises.

Urban renewal, astronomical rents, changing eating habits and the preponderance of no-refill coffee places like Starbucks have all contributed to the demise of the New York diner. There are roughly half as many as there were 20 years ago, according to records from the health department.

Losing New York diner culture would probably be a watershed in the city's history. How will New Yorkers get along without these antidotes to urban loneliness?

"The coffee shop orients us here, in this city and not another," Jeremiah Moss, of the blog Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, said. "If we are regulars, we become known, connected, to a network of people who remain over the span of years, even decades. In the anonymous city, these ties can be lifesavers, especially for the elderly, the poor, the marginal, but also for all of us. Without them, the city becomes evermore fragmented, disorienting and unrecognizable."

The Metro is a treasure trove of local history. It is in one of the few wood-frame buildings left in Manhattan. Built by the grocer Henry Grimm in 1871, it was bought in 1894 by the brewer Peter Doelger. He turned the ground floor into a restaurant and saloon, with families entering through the back while gentlemen drank beer in the front. (Around the same time, Mr. Doelger's cousin Matilda married a prizefighter, John West, whose daughter Mae - yes, the Mae West - may have picked up some of her unconventional performance style from hanging around the Doelger bar.)

There are roughly half as many diners like Metro, pictured, in New York City as there were 20 years ago, according to records from the health department. Credit An Rong Xu for The New York Times

Over the course of its existence, the Grimm building also housed a milliner's shop, a tearoom and, in the 1950s, the rehearsal studio and offices of the avant-garde Living Theater.

The sociologist Ray Oldenburg, in "The Great Good Place," a book about diners and taverns, suggests that the past is an essential element of all third places, which are usually in older sections of cities, and in those areas "exists the fading image of the city itself and the kind of human interaction, the easy and interesting mixing of strangers that made the city what it was."

But not only what it was.

One of the charms of the Metro, and of many other diners in the city, is that the employees' backgrounds are as varied as the languages spoken by the tourists who have found their way here. Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Romania - these are just a few of the countries where staff members come from. Together they constitute a microcosm of the immigrant groups that continue to arrive in New York - who not only made the city what it was, but the best of what it is and could be.

My first diner nesting place was Harvey's Coffee Shop on 78th and Broadway, in Manhattan, where I would order matzo ball soup and a Coke after seeing my therapist across the street. Harvey was known for his Yiddish-speaking Puerto Rican countermen and for serving deliciously seasoned chopped meat on white bread.

After Harvey's closed, I moved to the Utopia on 73rd and Amsterdam, a venerable place with a low ceiling, Greek-themed murals and waiters who seemed to never age. As my thighs outgrew the narrow booths, I moved to the Central Park Cafe/Restaurant, at 97th and Columbus.

Metro is in one of the few wood-frame buildings left in Manhattan. Credit An Rong xu for The New York Times

In the 1990s, the Cafe replaced Mikell's, a beloved jazz and rhythm-and-blues club. This was the liveliest of my hangouts. Every morning a group of retired men in baseball caps, along with a spirited Jayne Mansfield look-alike, heckled one another and batted sports statistics back and forth for hours. The music of their banter was pure Bach counterpoint.

After the Cafe succumbed in 2005, I spent months looking for my next "third place." Diner regulars can be particular. The ambience has to be friendly but not intrusive, the sound level low but not funereal, the smell a little greasy but not cloying, and the décor more utilitarian than fussy. I eventually settled in at the Metro.

Among diners, the Metro is quietly sophisticated. The décor is self-consciously Art Deco, the booths spacious. There is a generous, though tasteful, use of diner decorator staples like vinyl, Formica and chrome. Politicians, including former Gov. David A. Paterson of New York and the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, have been spotted in the booths. The hostess, Jenny Bello, wears outfits that could rival the wardrobe collection from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in the 1950s.

Fanis Tsiamtsiouris, known as Frank, and Fotios Hilas own the Metro along with three other diners. They calculated that the Metro poured about 700 cups of coffee, made 150 hamburgers and used over 1,200 eggs every day. The place opened in 1989, when Mr. Tsiamtsiouris consolidated five stores, among them a kosher butcher, a copy store and a Cuban-Chinese restaurant.

Though diners are sometimes bought by other enterprising immigrants, many of the surviving ones are still owned by Greek-Americans. Historians differ on how and when Greek immigrants got into the business, but they agree that a growth spurt occurred right after World War II. Their story is a classic American one that combines entrepreneurs putting in long hours, families helping one another and informal associations creating a safety net of connections.

Employees' backgrounds at Metro are as varied as the languages spoken by the tourists who have found their way there. Greece, Mexico and Poland are just a few of the countries where staff members come from. Credit An Rong Xu for The New York Times

"When my family came over in 1967, we had an $8,000 debt to pay, so we all went to work," Mr. Tsiamtsiouris said. "So first I was a cleanup guy, then busboy, then a waiter, then a manager." He had one uncle in the business when he started out, he recalled, and he met many other owners through Pan Gregorian, a food industry cooperative.

In the back of the Metro's long room, the area is set up with small tables for regulars like me who linger over breakfast. Rosa and Dumitra, Diana and John, and Enid and Fabiano know what we're going to order, but pretend to let us decide.

For years the unofficial queen of the Metro was Batyah Hyman, also known as Betty, a beautiful, 80-something Swedish and South African woman who sat at the head of the room. I don't remember how we drifted into conversation - probably a political issue that we disagreed about. Somehow we sensed that we could be friends, or at least "affiliated," the way Mr. Oldenburg, the sociologist, described friendship among regulars at a place like the Metro.

She lives around the corner, but Ms. Hyman no longer eats breakfast at the Metro. She drops by from time to time, and the waitress Rosa Soto babysits her grandchildren. Nobody has dared to claim her table.

A few years ago, one of my oldest friends, the political scientist and philosopher Marshall Berman, died in the Metro. An eloquent writer about New York neighborhoods, I think he would have appreciated his heart's choice of where to expire.

Correction:

An article last Sunday about New York's disappearing diner culture misidentified the music club at 97th Street and Columbus Avenue that was replaced in the 1990s by the Central Park Cafe/Restaurant. It was Mikell's, not Michael's Pub. Michael's Pub, where Woody Allen used to play clarinet, was on East 55th Street.

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More Than Coffee: New York's Vanishing Diner Culture

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For the past 25 years - since the divorce - I've lived a good part of my life in diners. Without them I might be slimmer, but also crazier and more unhappy. Judging by the crowds at the Metro Diner, on 100th Street and Broadway, my current haunt, I suspect that other New Yorkers feel the same way.

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post #2 (Nov 6th) Child labor in Turkey for U.K brands

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post #2 (Nov 6th) Child labor in Turkey for U.K brands

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Child refugees from Syria have been found working in Turkish factories for popular U.K brands. Refugees make about a pound per hour and the children are paid in cash by a middleman on the street. This reminds me of China Blue because just like the girls in China we saw, these kids are not able to go to school and reach their fullest potential. It also leaves adults who need jobs without them and it raises the question of what policies receiving countries should be enacted to prevent this

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Syrian refugee children have been making clothes for British shoppers, an undercover BBC investigation has found.

Panorama investigated factories in Turkey and found children had been working on clothes for Marks and Spencer and the online retailer Asos.

Adult refugees were also found working illegally on Zara and Mango jeans.

All the brands say they carefully monitor their supply chains and do not tolerate the exploitation of refugees or children.

The kids who have to sew to survive

Marks and Spencer says its inspections have not found a single Syrian refugee working in its supply chain in Turkey.

But Panorama found seven Syrians working in one of the British retailer's main factories. The refugees often earned little more than a pound an hour - well below the Turkish minimum wage. They were employed through a middleman who paid them in cash on the street.

'Unacceptable'

One of the refugees told Panorama they were poorly treated at the factory. He said: "If anything happens to a Syrian, they will throw him away like a piece of cloth."

The youngest worker was 15 years old and he was working more than 12 hours a day ironing clothes before they were shipped to the UK.

A spokesperson for Marks and Spencer said the programme's findings were "extremely serious" and "unacceptable to M&S". It is offering permanent legal employment to any Syrians who were employed in the factory.

"Ethical trading is fundamental to M&S. All of our suppliers are contractually required to comply with our Global Sourcing Principles, which cover what we expect and require of them and their treatment of workers.

"We do not tolerate such breaches of these principles and we will do all we can to ensure that this does not happen again."

But critics say the retailers are not doing enough to stop the problems highlighted by Panorama.

Danielle McMullan, from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, says the brands need to understand that they are responsible: "It's not enough to say we didn't know about this, it's not our fault.

"They have a responsibility to monitor and to understand where their clothes are being made and what conditions they are being made in."

'Pitiful wages'

Many clothes are now made in Turkey because it is close to Europe and used to dealing with last-minute orders. This allows retailers to get new designs into shops more quickly than if they are made elsewhere.

But Turkey is a challenging place to do business. Concerns are rising about the exploitation of workers after the arrival of almost three million Syrian refugees.

Most of the refugees do not have work permits and many of them are working illegally in the garment industry.

Panorama reporter Darragh MacIntyre spoke to dozens of Syrian workers who felt they were being exploited. He said: "They speak of pitiful wages and terrible working conditions. They know they are being exploited but they know they can do nothing about it."

In one back-street workshop in Istanbul, the programme team found several Syrian children hard at work. They also discovered an Asos sample in the office.

Asos accepts its clothes were made in the factory, but says it is not an approved factory. The company has since inspected and found 11 Syrian adults and three Syrian children under 16 at work.

Hazardous chemicals

Asos says the children will be financially supported so they can return to school and the adult refugees will be paid a wage until they have been found legal work. A spokesperson for the company said: "We have implemented these remediation programmes despite the fact that this factory has nothing to do with Asos."

The investigation also found Syrian refugees working 12-hour days in a factory that was distressing jeans for Mango and Zara.

The refugees were involved in spraying hazardous chemicals to bleach the jeans, but most of the workers did not even have a basic face mask.

Mango says that the factory was working as a sub-contractor without its knowledge. Its subsequent inspection did not find any Syrian workers and found "good conditions except for some personal safety measures".

Zara's parent company, Inditex, says its factory inspections are a "highly effective way of monitoring and improving conditions". It had already found significant non-compliance in an audit in June and had given the factory until December to make the necessary improvements.

In another Istanbul factory, Panorama found Syrian adults at work alongside Turkish children as young as 10.

The owner said he had been working for Next and showed the undercover team a set of Next pyjamas that he said the factory had helped produce.

Next says the pyjamas were actually made by another supplier and the pyjamas we saw may have been a sample. It says samples circulate widely and that the presence of a sample in a factory does not mean it was made there.

Panorama - Undercover: The Refugees Who Make Our Clothes is on BBC One at 20:30 BST on Monday 24 October and available on the BBC iPlayer afterwards.

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Syrian refugee children have been making clothes for British shoppers, an undercover BBC investigation has found. Panorama investigated factories in Turkey and found children had been working on clothes for Marks and Spencer and the online retailer Asos. Adult refugees were also found working illegally on Zara and Mango jeans.

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post #3 (nov 23rd) how rich are you really?

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post #3 (nov 23rd) how rich are you really?

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The Economist writes that if someone had $2,222 dollars including property holdings and investments, they would be wealthier than half of the world. If someone had 71,560 they would be wealthier than 10% of the world’s population. These statistics make me question what my idea of “wealth” really is and how I compare my wealth to that of others. Americans in particular are such enormous consumers; always concerned with wanting more stuff. It would be wise to instill in our youth just how lucky we truly are in the U.S compared to others.

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IF YOU had only $2,220 to your name (adding together your bank deposits, financial investments and property holdings, and subtracting your debts) you might not think yourself terribly fortunate. But you would be wealthier than half the world's population, according to this year's Global Wealth Report by the Crédit Suisse Research Institute. If you had $71,560 or more, you would be in the top tenth. If you were lucky enough to own over $744,400 you could count yourself a member of the global 1% that voters everywhere are rebelling against.

Unlike many studies of prosperity and inequality, this one counts household assets rather than income. The data are patchy, particularly at the bottom and apex of the pyramid. But with some assumptions, the institute calculates that the world's households owned property and net financial assets worth almost $256trn in mid-2016. That is about 3.4 times the world's annual GDP. If this wealth were divided equally it would come to $52,819 per adult. But in reality the top tenth own 89% of it.
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That lucky tenth now includes over 44m Chinese, about 4.4% of the country's adult population. A far greater number (almost half of China's adults) cluster in the next three deciles down. Closer to the bottom of the pyramid, there is a similar bulge of Indians in the second and third deciles (with wealth between $30 and $603). Below them, the bottom tenth is a peculiar mix. It is populated by poor countries, where many people have nothing, and rich ones, where people can own very much less than that. It includes a surprising number of Americans (over 21m), whose debts outweigh their assets. But most Americans are much better off. Over 40% belong to the top tenth of the global wealth distribution (and over 18m belong to the global 1%). Some of those railing against the global elite probably do not know they belong to it.

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You may be higher up the global wealth pyramid than you think

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IF YOU had only $2,220 to your name (adding together your bank deposits, financial investments and property holdings, and subtracting your debts) you might not think yourself terribly fortunate. But you would be wealthier than half the world's population, according to this year's Global Wealth Report by the Crédit Suisse Research Institute.

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post # 4 (nov 25th) Trade and the Drought in Zimbabwe

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post # 4 (nov 25th) Trade and the Drought in Zimbabwe

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The drought in Zimbabwe sparked a national state of emergency and the effects on families are so severe that they can turn into life or death situations. One 18 year old named Kamyombo searches for water every day all day. This makes me consider what Zimbabwe’s plan is to become more of a developed country. Taking another look at their status of trade would be wise, as trade has a positive effect on growth in the short term but in the long term inequality increases (Chase Dunn et al.).

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Zimbabwe water shortages: ‘I don’t remember taking a shower’

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Taps seize to flow as water shortage hits Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.