My Subway Meal: $5.71
.. or $5.72, I don’t have the receipt on me to double-check, but it really doesn’t matter… the question is, what did you spend on your lunch today? did you work for that lunch? how hard exactly did you work for it? would you be willing to search for pieces of copper or cobalt by scraping through mountains of mining waste, and then washing your findings in cholera-infested waters, all for your lunch? would you be willing to kill for it? all this to earn some food… all this to earn $3.00 (on a good day)… even less than the $5.71 or $5.72.. whatever.
You think ppl in the last commodities bubble got it bad, when they lost their investments, think again. Some Congolese and Zambian men, women, and children, are working til they drop, sacrificing safe working conditions, so that they could take the few ounces of metal and sell them to their local Chinaman (We all know how hungry China is… see my posts below). What’s worse is the fact that these poor victims were somehow convinced by their overseers to block roads to their mining camps and stop any journalists that would report on their dire conditions, at all costs, even death. Because whoever convinced them, told them that if the world finds out about their plight for survival under such dire conditions, then the mining operations will be closed, and they would not get their $3.00 (and that’s on a good day).
It hurt me deep inside when I thought about my Subway lunch today… shameless exploitation for $3.00/day so that the Congolese and Zambian government officials (among others) can keep their political and economic commitments in this abusive relationship with China… cuz if they don’t there will be no cash for their countries (or their fat pockets).
Across the pond, we can print billions of dollars to bailout the greedy that bit a little more than they could chew, but we cannot improve on our aid commitments (the US ranks in the bottom 3 out of 21 countries). We easily turn our backs at such exploitations, because Africa has nothing to offer for us. Where is the human conscience and its dignity? I think it also needs a bailout.
These are scenarios which we pray for some intervention – wishfully the United States; however this is a call UN should answer because there aren’t much incentives for the U.S government to step in heavily besides any charity organization.
Or are any of these countries spelled by foreign policies between communication lines or direct sanctions that hinders any support?
Aid money is a farce. I don’t really have enough time to go into specifics, but here’s the basic idea… Aid money = blood money, keeping corrupt despotic govts in power and busy fighting eachother while the African people live/die in perpetual poverty. Africa is a rich continent, with lots of natural resources that account for billions (maybe even trillions) of dollars of profit for the western nations- a very small proportion of that $ is returned as ‘aid money’. The way I see it, it’s the same deal with Nike shoes, and illegal immigrant workers- a lot of people want to complain about aid money, but aint nobody gonna pay $4 for a chocolate bar, $6 for a cup of coffee/tea, or $15/lb for sugar… people want their shyt plentiful and cheap and, as always, in order to satisfy that demand producers and labourers get short changed.
If western ppl here really wanted to help Africa imo the best thing they could do is to scrap this aid plan crap, stop winking at these corrupt leaders, and hold the companies who do business in Africa to the same business and ethical standards they expect at home… but that will never happen, b/c the exploitation of developing nations has always been big business, and no one is about to let that revenue go. But, for what it’s worth, I think if Westerners gave Africans an opportunity for fair trade there would be no need for aid money at all.
~H
yes, that’s one of the key issues: FAIR TRADE. Just like you put it, we all want our things for a cheap/affordable price… and unfortunately, the current way of keeping prices down is through the use of things like tariffs and subsidies…
A developed nation’s government wants its farmers (mostly multi-million $$$ corporations and NOT families with a farm tryin to make ends meet… that’s what they want to sell it to the public as, but let’s not get into that) to stay in business and produce, so they give them incentives in the forms of tax breaks etc. to produce certain crops, thus making it easier for them to stay in business. That’s what subsidies do. On top of that the same governments set HIGH tariffs on imports of these same crops from other nations (mostly nations on the scale of Brazil, but still including smaller shares of African ones), thus making it extremely expensive for these outer nations to export their produce to the developed nation… So now you have 2 things (tariffs and subsidies) working in favor of the developed-nation farmer (aka multi-million $ corporation). Then the farmer generates a huge surplus of this crop (mind you, the same crop can be produced at 1.5-2.5 times cheaper by the outer nations, but since the developed-nation’s government is paying for its farmer’s losses through subsidies, what do they care right?)… and once the crop is used up in the internal markets, the remaining surplus is dumped on the global market… and since now u have huge amounts of supply, the prices for that crop literally drop even faster.. and the poor African farmer now has NO incentives of selling his crop cuz he barely makes a profit (if any) at the current low price. And that’s how these agriculture-oriented African governments continue to remain in poverty and debt. This shyt is so frustrating… but some nations are removing the tariffs for African crops, trying to help out, but the messed up thing there is the fact that they include this simple change in regulation as part of their aid package, which is just wrong.. The countries STILL need aid…. there is so much more I can go into here, but I wouldn’t be doing it any justice, there’s a great book on aid and Africa and what needs to be done, I highly recommend it if you’re interested in this stuff.