Have you ever talked with people about fair trade, the idea of branding certain commodities that have passed muster as delivering a fair and decent price to its third-world producers? I have, and they are usually boisterously supportive of it, or at least passively not opposed to it on the grounds of why not? I remember being a part of a discussion at a class at my church where a woman was espousing her belief in fair trade and what it does… and when I proposed some critiques of it, was looked at as if the Holy Spirit had just left my soul or something. But I am more and more convinced of the bad economics of fair trade, and see its support as more to assuage peoples consciences more than assuage third-world poverty. Cardus, a Christian think tank in Canada (yikes! – just kidding), has an article by Robert Joustra that briefly discusses some of the implications of the “Hollywood campaigns” that raise awareness of fair trade, but not enlightenment on fair trade.
Fair trade offers farmers (coffee and tea are the most traded) a higher price than the true market rate. This defacto subsidy causes problems when it encourages farmers to stay in business, when perhaps they shouldn’t. The article quotes Paul Collier:
The price premium in fair trade products is a form of charitable transfer… the problem with it, as compared to just giving people the aid in other ways, is that it encourages recipients to stay doing what they are doing. The fair trade brand exists because the global market somehow masks the true cost of production—which is to say the people who do the actual production do not receive the appropriate dividends. This is, in short, unprofitable work, and subsidizing unprofitable and undiversified economies is the surest recipe for ensuring that those economies remain dependent on that subsidy.
Collier is hard on fair trade, but is a huge proponent of third-world aid in general, which is a topic that the article addresses as well. There is a great Munk Debate that the article links to (Be It Resolved: Foreign Aid Does More Harm Than Good) that I highly recommend you check out. It features Collier and Hernando de Soto (whom I am very fond of) alongside two other colleagues as they debate the above resolution. It is heady stuff and it serves as a reminder of a view of mine – that our emotions and feelings many times cause us to pursue policies that are destructive. If you are a continued reader you may have seen me write many times before about the unintended consequences of certain policies. That is why I continue to try and support as free a market as possible, with as few distortions, subsidies, tariffs, etc. as possible.
Well I believe fair trade is an unnecessary distortion. We want to feel good about buying a product that may pay a farmer in South America more money for his work, but don’t consider that maybe that forces another farmer out of work, or keeps that farmer sowing a particular crop when maybe he or she shouldn’t. We must always try and look at the big picture of our actions. As Joustra says:
There is a danger in religious circles that as our consciences are reawakened, our intellects are not always so equally roused. These practices of fair trade and foreign aid have come under considerable attack in the last few years, mitigating the enthusiasm of fair trade and foreign aid advocates but also—importantly—pointing to a principle of social and cultural change that is much in need of recovery. Foreign affairs do not need Band-aids hastily slapped on by fringe grassroots populists, but long-term substantive critiques of the global social and political architecture.
I look forward to hearing any thoughts. Like I said, I am more and more convinced that fair trade is not a valid solution, but I may be wrong.
It was one year ago today that Barack Obama won the election for the office of the President of the United States. When he took office in January of this year, President Obama held a nearly 70% approval rating according to the Gallup poll. As we can observe from the chart below, that approval has drastically shifted:
Presidential Approval Poll (Gallup)
So why the shift? Esquire writer John Richardson explains what he considers to be the “Problem With America Today.”
Here’s the conventional wisdom in a single paragraph: Three hundred and sixty-four days after he was elected president, Obama is still stuck in Iraq, hasn’t closed Guantánamo, is getting deeper into Afghanistan, hasn’t accomplished health-care reform or slowed the rise in unemployment. His promises of bipartisanship are a punch line (see above). And there’s still no peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. What a failure! What a splash of cold water in the face of all our bold hopes!
He’s being facetious and he follows it up with declaring that the conventional wisdom is “insane.” Why? Check Richardson’s record on Obama’s first ten months in office for yourself here.
What good is an “international correspondent” (as I have once been dubbed by Mark) if that correspondent doesn’t comment on regional happenings? No good. So instead of writing about seeing Grizzly Bear, a Brooklyn-based band (whose album Veckatimest is currently my number one pick this year), in America I will briefly comment about their show that I attended last night in Glasgow, Scotland (and share some photographs).
Grinnly Bear
St Vincent opened, consisting of Annie Clark with a sampler replacing her band for this tour. She’s incredibly talented, her album this year, Actor, was decent, but her set was somewhat forgettable (not to mention she stopped in the middle of a song and decided to do something else).
She moved and looked like Edward Scissorhands (or Robert Smith)…
St Vincent
Then Grizzly Bear went on (featuring colour)…
Aurora "Bear"ealis
Grizzly Bear, despite some technical difficulties, did not disappoint. Chris Taylor brought out his assortment of instruments – bass guitar, flute, clarinet, saxophone. The four-part harmonies were impeccable (OK, if I’m honest, the introduction and first verse of “Two Weeks” were a little rusty…). The mix was incredible – huge and transcendent. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wish you could’ve been there, all of you.
Here’s the setlist for any who are interested:
1. “Southern Point”
2. “Cheerleader”
3. “Lullaby”
4. “Knife”
5. “Fine for Now”
6. “Two Weeks”
7. “Colorado”
8. “Deep Blue Sea”
9. “Ready, Able”
10. “I Live with You”
11. ‘The Foreground”
12. “While You Wait for the Others“
13. “On a Neck, On a Spit” Encore
14. “He Hit Me”
UPDATE: Parts two and three of the series. Treads similar ground but definitely worth a listen, just about 5 minutes each.
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While the title may lead you to believe this is a baseball post, it is not. I will leave those inane ramblings about “the nations pastime” to Elijah.
Instead. this post is to direct your attention to a 3-part series that just begun last night on NPR by Ina Jaffe about California’s three-strike law. It’s a thought-provoking, and I think, an even-handed approach to the topic. Three Strikes (if you don’t know, or don’t want to follow the earlier link) is a law that basically states that if you’ve been previously convicted of two crimes, then if you are convicted of a third act your minimum sentence will be 25-years to life. It is a law that was designed to keep repeat offenders off the streets… and it certainly does that. The critique is that there are many cases where the three crimes are petty and certainly not violent. The NPR segment documents an instance where a mother, intent on giving “tough love” to her son, pressed charges against him for stealing some of her jewelry which became his first two strikes, only to see him get a third strike and go off to jail for 25 years.
I personally find this a tricky situation. I definitely want to see criminals go to jail, but I also think it should apply more towards violent crimes then smaller ones. But I also see logic in what Mike Reynolds, the citizen behind the original initiative for the law, who says:
All they have to do is stop doing crime. That’s all we ask. And they’ll never be charged under three strikes. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
It does make sense. It’s not really an oppressive law, we all have the ability to avoid it. And the fact of the matter is that we all have the choice to be criminals or not and three opportunites to decide if that is what you want to do with your life seems enough. Do some people have tougher lives or situations that make that choice seemingly harder than others? Yes. Does that mean the law is unfair? No. The question I think is compelling is whether it is just or not.
The Department of Justice estimated that the average sentence for a convicted rapist is 11.8 years, and actual time served amounts to around 5.4 years. Does it seem just that a person who stole items from a retailer on three occasions could get 25 years, whereas someone who only once had been convicted of rape serves just over 5? It doesn’t seem just to me, but I think that is a reflection of our poor sentencing on rape crimes rather than injustice in the three strikes law. Three strikes is a merciless statute in the midst of a system that is riddled with arbitrary guidelines and favorable sentences for celebrities and such… so maybe we need more merciless statutes. The NPR segment pointed out that prosecutors have the ability to decide on some cases whether a crime should be classified as eligible for a third strike. But that just leaves it up to the whim of the individual prosecutor, which again shows the subjective nature of our system. Perhaps if we had less ability to be flexible it would make for more just sentencing, but at the expense of mercy.
But what about mercy, and forgiveness and things of that spiritual realm? Is there room in our legal system for that? How can our faiths play out in that way? My short short answer would be that I don’t think mercy and forgiveness are implicitly tied to lack of punishment or consequences. Christ forgave the sinner on the cross next to him… the man still ended up crucified and dead though. And in this world my view would be that we have a compassionate-less legal system where punishment is measured out despite whether the victims or others desire mercy to be given. The task then would be to make sure our laws are just, and not leave that up to the sentencing process.
I look forward to the rest of the series, and invite you to check it out and chime in with your thoughts.
In my lifetime I have been blessed with the opportunity to know or at least to be exposed to various people that have a magic in them that necessitate a portion of my devotion – my heroes. Among them are people like my father, who taught me the meaning of selflessness, hard work, and patience, my grandfather, who taught me what it truly means to be a servant of God, Sgt Grumbles, who has impacted the way I relate to God, myself, others and to art more than any other single person, and people that I don’t know personally – people like Bob Dylan, John Gardner and Elliott Smith. Among those people at the top of my list of heroes, Daniel Smith stands out as the most inspiring and influential.
Daniel Smith is truly a unique character. It’s difficult to be indifferent toward him, that is to say he is a polarizing person. There’s a quality to his personality and the way he expresses himself that will either turn you on or turn you off, but will never leave you indifferent. The process and product of his imagination are not something I can easily express in one post. In 2006 a documentary was released, “Danielson, a Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here)” documenting the progress of Daniel Smith’s artistic expression since the founding of the “Danielson Famile,” a band literally consisting of Daniel and his siblings. Daniel was an art student at Rutgers and his professors insisted that the visual and performing arts were to be kept in their respective galleries and conservatories. Daniel wouldn’t have it, and since 1994 he hasn’t had it. He’s continued to press forward even after fifteen years of mediocre (at best) success. The sincerity and devotion with which he creates is what captures me most.
I could go on and on about Daniel and the opportunities I’ve had to meet him/see him perform, but I’d rather introduce you to the man. And if you’ve already been introduced you ought to watch anyway. This video, which was posted on the Danielson siteyesterday, is a great summation of much of what Daniel Smith stands for. Take a look:
Andre T. Johnson (born August 25, 1973 in Southampton, New York) is a former American football offensive tackle in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins (1996), the Miami Dolphins (1997), and the Detroit Lions (1997-1998).
He played college football at Penn State University and was drafted in the first round of the 1996 NFL Draft. In his NFL career he only played three games, each for the Lions and is usually considered to be one of the worst first round picks of all time.
Hey there sports fans. As you may know I am a football fan (both of the em!). And in American football my team is the Houston Texans, currently 3-3 and in 3rd place in the AFC South. If not for near misses at Arizona and against the Jags we could be sitting pretty just behind Peyton and Indy. Our passing game has really started to fire since RB Steve Slaton is struggling. QB Matt Schaub has passed for a league leading 14 touchdowns, 4 of which have gone to #80, Andre Johnson. The guy is a stud and will be an elite receiver the rest of his career… and it’s in his honor that I post this video so you can see what a stud he is. Enjoy.
I’ve hinted at this in an earlier post, but I’ve never made the explicit jump into economics. Whether a particular American likes it or not, America is primarily possesses a maket-based economy. The consumer plays a vital role in the market-based economy. For example, in such a way as to keep a business “ethical,” the consumer has the option of not purchasing via boycott. This will either put the “unethical” party out of business or pressure them to change their practice. I mention these extremely basic principles to eventually point to one of my favorite topics: Major League Baseball.
Now, where I would criticize capitalism is that it is very common that once the public is aware of “unethical” behavior, say, on a corporate level, the damage has been done. If Walmart moves into town and is doing something unethical, it is very likely that the public will not be informed of this until the small businesses have already been obliterated – if the public finds out at all. And even if the public found out before the “damage was done,” so to speak, they may not desire to fork over the extra cash to pay for something domestic and/or from a small business when cheap imported goods are so readily available. The same will go for the agricultural industry. Thanks to shoving innumerable cows into inhumane stalls that are far too small for their bodies and injecting cows with hormones while feeding them God-knows-what, the impoverished family is much closer to affording beef. There are more humane/ethical options with regard to purchasing/eating beef (though some might thing there are no grounds for consuming meat at all), but those aren’t exactly options when the steroid beef is but a small fraction of the price. I believe there is a solution to this problem, but I’m not going to get into that now. Instead, I will let my mention of “steroid” two sentences ago segue into my main point regarding baseball.
After the 2000 season, Alex Rodriguez, a free agent, signed to the Texas Rangers for a record $252 million 10 year contract. Eventually he was traded to the New York Yankees and was eventually signed to the Yanks for $275 million (2008-2018). I did the math just now, and accounting for leap years (2008, 2012, 2016) A-Rod makes $.79 a second. Every second, awake or asleep, playing baseball or cheating on his wife (now ex-wife), etc., the man makes $.79. “That’s despicable!” some might cry out. But this is where my love affair with capitalism actually takes place.
You see, the consumer may find out the salaries of these athletes before they even set foot on the field. Whatever is unethical about the salaries of athletes is already quite visible to the consumer. The consumer can choose to boycott baseball. I may consider it the best sport in the world, but I’m not talking about food, shelter, or clothing. I’m talking about recreation. Though I would consider recreation essential to living, baseball itself is not. Who’s to say they shouldn’t be making so much? WE pay their paychecks! As I’ve said before, we can choose to turn off the television. We can choose not to buy their products. It’s not as if taxes are being distributed from the federal government to these players. We, in our greed, are in fact jealous at A-Rod makes more in a day than the average American will make in a year (in under three hours he makes more than the average person will make in a year, globally). In this way capitalism shows, at least in baseball, that the sickness is not in the system itself, but the people in the system – even and maybe even especially the consumer – are responsible for this sickness.
As Elijah has chided reminded me… he is doing much more posting on CAI these days than your humble author. I wholeheartedly apologize, and blame my work schedule, grad school, and my beautiful, adorable, precious, amazing, stunning and perfect little daughter.
Apology done, now may I direct you to some brilliant pictures by Chinese artist, Liu Bolin, who is making a statement against the suppression of art in China. The time and effort to produce these would seem to be quite extensive, and the resulting images are very unique and interesting. Take a look.
Mark
Sgt. Grumbles
Elijah
Pete