Our summer game

For this last post in August, we propose you a game: you have to discover a country following our clues about its living standards. Take a world map and… good luck!

These are the four clues:

1.- At present (data of 1 January 2011) 1.7 million inhabitants of this country are immigrants in foreign countries. 

2.- 20.8% of its population (that is, 1 out of every 5 people) lives below the poverty threshold.

3.- There are one million illiterate people.

4.- Despite being banned by law since the 19th century, slavery is still present.

Any guess about the country? At least, can you say in which part of the planet it is located? If you want to check the solution, click here. 

Did you guess it right, or were you thinking of another country? Maybe your guess was towards the south? 

Sources: 

For clue 1: here

For clue 2: here

For clue 3: here

For clue 4: here

To tip or not to tip

Tipping (which is inaccurately claimed to be an acronym for a phrase such as “To Insure Promptness”, whereas its etymology comes from its earlier meaning of “giving, passing, handling”) is an old tradition consisting of leaving some extra money in appreciation of a good service. It seems a good idea, out of deference to a servant, to the point that it may not be polite to leave a restaurant without a tip. In some countries, tipping is expected and fixed (between 10 to 15%, depending on the place) and in some other cases it is a must. When you travel around, one of the first concerns is to check the tipping protocols in each country.
But this is not so simple: tipping has a dark side and it may be detrimental to the patron and to the serving staff. Let’s take a closer look.
First, tipping is usually a good excuse to pay lower salaries, as tips round up the wages. Therefore, employers save some money in salaries and the proportional part of taxes, which are eventually paid by the patron in the form of voluntary tips. In Spain, according to the latest Annual Labour Cost Survey drawn by the National Institute of Statistics, the hotel and catering business offers the lowest salaries, less than 1,000 €/month, and this is in part due to the promise (which is not always fulfilled) that tips round up this salary. In other words, the argument that tips benefit the serving staff is false. They just earn less money and they pay fewer contributions, so they have less social allowances when needed.
The second problem is the invisibility of tips: they are not registered, so they are not taxed. Tips are literally undeclared income, black economy, which is so damaging for people’s welfare. It is difficult to quantify the amount of money wasted in tips, precisely because tips are invisible, but it is a huge amount of money. If tips were declared and taxed, we could build up hospitals, hire more doctors and teachers or improve pension plans. There are no definitive figures, but according to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics it would amount to 3,500 millions euros. We only offer the figures in Spain, but figures are likely to be more or less similar worldwide.
If the owner of a bar or a restaurant considers that the price appearing in the ticket does not include service, the solution is clear: just include it. And then this service should be taxed, as it is the case of bookshops, stores or groceries, just to set some examples. This extra money can used to increase the salaries of the hotel and catering business, which should be at the same level as the rest of services. Next time we ask for the bill, just think about it.

Click here to download and print out some cards with the arguments against tipping to be left on bill trays in bars and restaurants so that you do not lose face as a meanie.

Sources:

1. Tipping protocol in Spain: http://www.protocolo.org/social/etiqueta_en_publico/la_propina_cuando_darla_cuanto_dar_a_quien_dar_la_propina_.html
2. Annual survey of the labour cost drawn by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics: http://www.ine.es/en/prensa/np671_en.pdf
3. Spanish national accounts by the National Institute of Statistics: http://www.ine.es/jaxi/menu.do?type=pcaxis&path=/t35/p008/&file=inebase&L=1
4. Some cards with the arguments against tipping to be left on bill trays in bars and restaurants: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10961745/propina%20eng.pdf

Food without borders

A cargo of just-caught prawns is off the Scotland shores to China, a country with low-pay labour market, to be hand-shelled. Then these same prawns are shipped again to be sold in… the UK! Some of these prawns are likely to be eaten in Scotland, just by the same shores where they were caught. Also, Canadian shrimps are sent to Iceland to be shelled and then traded somewhere else overseas. And this applies to many other products: most of our food and drinks are grown or manufactured thousands of miles from the final consumption site. This is just nonsense.
And this nonsense has obvious costs for our planet. Dave Reay authors the book Climate Change Begins at Home and he estimates that 10 to 20% of our environmental impact is due to food: producing, shipping and manufacturing.
To end up with this suicidal practice, several solutions have been tested, such as levying a new tax on less-efficient products, but the best solution is just making use of our common sense. As consumers, we have great power, much more than we think of, so choosing not to consume products involving high energy waste (and raising awareness among our friends and acquaintances) can really make a change.
As always, some people have been doing it for ages: the movement Slow Food, for instance, tries to change our relationship with food by including, among their many claims, eating and drinking locally-grown products, but they are not alone. The local food movement claiming to consume proximity products has many names: km0, 100-mile diet, Local Food, CO2 Diet or Locavore are the best-known groups, but there are many more.
Needless to say, you do not need to be a member of a group to eat locally, you just need to follow your common sense: change import beer for local brands you like, drink national wine, ask your grocer, butcher or fishmonger where the products come from and do not choose products from overseas… Internet is a good source for advice and new ideas to raise awareness about local products: you just have to google any of the above-mentioned group names.
A good start is just thinking about it: next time you go to the market or you prepare your lunch, just take a look at product labels to check the origins of each ingredient, and you’ll see that many of them can be replaced by local products with the same (or even better) quality. It’s just you never thought of that before.

Sources:

1. Scottish prawns shelled in China: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1813836.ece
2. The statement that 10 to 20% of our environmental impact is due to food is taken from the book Climate Change Begins at Home by Dave Reay: http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/climate_change_3012.jsp  
3. Slow Food web site: http://www.slowfood.com/

Looking for a decent job

Unemployment is one of the main problems for governments, be it in rich or poor countries. According to statistics, the highest unemployment rate is for Zimbabwe, with 90% of its active population with no job. At the bottom of this list we find Andorra and Monaco, with officially no unemployed citizen. Moreover, the current crisis has increased the unemployment rate in rich countries to the point that, in many cases, it is similar to the rates in poor countries. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), in 2010 there were 205 million people unemployed worldwide, which is a historic record. 
Besides having high unemployment rates, there is an even more serious problem: not all jobs are the same and not all jobs are fairly paid. Statistics reveal the number of people working, but there is no information about their work conditions or their salaries. In this same report by the ILO, there is an even more staggering figure: besides the 205 million unemployed people, there are 630 million people (one in five workers in the world) who earn less than 1.25 dollars a day, and 1,530 million people (every other worker) are in “vulnerable” employment, as described by the ILO. And this is a clearly increasing trend in the labour market.
After struggling for more than 150 years to get decent work conditions, since the 90s workers’ rights have worsened worldwide. This is the dark side of globalization and we all know about it because, to a greater or lesser extent, we all have suffered from it or seen someone suffering from it. Globalization affects workers in rich countries due to the relocation of production and services to a low-pay labour market, and it also affects workers in poor countries because their work conditions are inhuman and their salaries are miserable, without legal protection from their governments, which are in turn pressured by these same companies.
In this context, by the end of the 90s the ILO launched the concept of decent work, measuring work conditions and salaries to qualify for being considered a “job”. According to the ILO, work should be a source of personal dignity, family stability and community peace. Therefore, and just to set a well-known example, weaving shirts for 16 hours a day for just 1 €, without labour rights or health care, cannot be qualified as a job.
The main difference is not between employed and unemployed people, but between decent jobs and not decent jobs, regardless of unemployment rates. The rest is just sheer statistics.

Sources:
List of countries by unemployment rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate#cite_note-0
Unemployment in Zimbabwe: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/30/zimbabwe-crisis-china-idUSLU6431520090630
ILO report about unemployment: http://www.ilo.org/global/publications/ilo-bookstore/order-online/books/WCMS_150440/lang--en/index.htm
Decent work according to ILO:  http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/decent-work/lang--en/index.htm

AIDS in rich countries

Last June 5th marks the 30th anniversary of the first recognition of AIDS, although there were cases of patients affected by this virus, which originated in Africa, since the 1960s in the US. Since then, more than 60 million people have been infected by this virus and half of them are now dead. At present, there are about 37 million people infected with HIV.
The fight against AIDS is progressing thanks to antiretroviral drugs, but they are so expensive that this treatment is only applied in rich countries. In Third World countries, AIDS is still one of the main causes of mortality. According to an UN report, in some countries in the south of Africa, one out of every four people is affected by AIDS but drugs are far beyond their means. Therefore, making AIDS treatment universal is the main priority.
In rich countries, problems are different. Some surveys reveal that the quality of life of those people recently infected with HIV is quite similar to the quality of life of non-infected people, thanks to medical treatment. And when new drugs will be available, these people will carry out a normal life, as they used to. But having a normal life involves not only having a good medical treatment against HIV, but also attacking social prejudices which turn the life of HIV-positives much more difficult.
Let’s take a look at some data: a report by the Spanish HIV-AIDS State Coordinator (CESIDA)  reveals that 30% of those polled (all HIV-positive) feel excluded from social activities, 42.2% feel excluded from the labour market, 68% feel excluded from the health care and 20.4% have been denied some health services. In order to analyse in depth this discrimination, let’s take a look at one issue: the access to financial services.
Since the virus first appeared, some insurance companies use their contractual freedom to deny life insurances and other products to HIV-positive clients. Without such insurance, banks deny mortgages and other loans, so HIV-positive people are victims of this virus far beyond its physiology. As you can read in this report, this is quite common in many countries (including Spain) and, despite many claims from the affected community and associations advocating for their rights, there is always the same problem: the claim for non-discrimination, which is one of the main constitutional rights, is at odds with the contractual freedom of insurance companies, which do not have the obligation to offer their services universally. This may be an interesting topic for discussion in Law faculties, but back in the streets, it is obvious that this is a clear case of discrimination and it should be solved. Some countries are passing laws to prevent it. In the US, where this topic has been widely argued, they have a law stating that HIV-positive people are considered to be disabled, so they cannot be discriminated. We still have a long road ahead and, for the moment, there is discrimination as long as HIV-positive people cannot have the same life as the rest of citizens.
In general, we usually look at deprived people taking into account their main needs but we forget about the rest of needs: HIV-infected people look for a cure, immigrants look for legal papers, unemployed people look for a job, homeless people look for shelter… But this is too simple and it leaves other obvious issues aside. Emergency claims are just the first step, but people’s needs for a full life, integrated within our society, go far beyond. 

Sources:

1. First medical report about this disease mistook AIDS for some kind of pneumonia: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/june_5.htm
2. With the information contained in hundreds of surveys about HIV virus, we got these wonderful images about the virus itself: http://visualscience.ru/en/illustrations/modelling/hiv/
3. AIDS clock, updating the number of people with HIV: http://www.unfpa.org/aids_clock/
4. Antiretroviral drugs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiretroviral_drug
5. UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic: http://www.unaids.org/en/dataanalysis/epidemiology/2008reportontheglobalaidsepidemic/
6. A survey on the normal life expectancy of HIV-infected people: http://www.aidsmap.com/Many-patients-diagnosed-with-HIV-today-will-have-normal-life-expectancies-European-studies-find/page/1437877/
7. CESIDA report: http://www.cesida.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=736&Itemid=1
8. On Contractual Freedom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contractual_freedom
9. Report about the access to insurances and mortgages of HIV-infected people: http://www.cesida.org/images/stories/documentacion/informe%20CESIDA%20-%20Acceso%20servicios%20financieros.pdf
10. American with Disabilities Act of 1990: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990