BusinessWeek musings, and excessive use of brackets
So, my Dad is cool and started to bring BusinessWeek from work to me so that I can read it after I mentioned that I'd like to read magazines like that but it'd be way too expensive to subscribe to them, myself.
Last Sunday I read the 11/27 issue, and it raised some thoughts in me (posting it only now because I just didn't have the time or energy before).
First of all, the greatest (and funniest) thing in BusinessWeek (after reading two issue - I got two more today but haven't had time to read them yet what with Grandparents' Visit) is that it's so thoroughly American. It's not so obvious that the cultural difference in economical subjects would be so great, but it really is - the way of looking at things is just so... weird, to me. (And before you Americans start arguing that I shouldn't be reading American magazine if I don't want American view on things, I say that it's great that it's different - why else would I want to read it? We are told to go to student transfer to learn a new point of view for familiar stuff, so giving a look on things differently is great for my studies.)
For example, there was an article "More Ammo For A Higher Minimum" (I'm not sure if the link works or if you'd have to be signed in to see it) which was about raising the minimum wage in America. Already the opening line made me gasp: "If you want to pick a fight with a free-market economist, say something nice about the minimum wage." Wtf? Why wouldn't they stand something nice being said about it? Here, no one would imagine questioning minimum wage - thanks to it we don't have working poor class (quite high unemployment rate, though, but hey - that's what unemployment benefit is for!). Then, they told why politicians might soon start supporting the raise of minimum wage: it would benefit 6.6 million people directly and 8.3 million indirectly. Here, we would be interested in how big monetary benefit it would be (as in... it'd mean 1 million euros more to 20,000 people (the numbers totally from my head)). I don't think we ever discuss how many people eg. the inheritance tax deletion would touch. We talk about how many euros less the government would get. At least most of the time. So... in America social benefits are considered only in "how many voters would benefit from this", here it's considered "what are the financial implications to the government and/or total demand" or "what is socially ethical". (Ehm, please remember that I say "in America" based on one article. So my observations are most definitely skewed)
Now I'm reading a bit of the conversation about the subject on the BusinessWeek website.
My favourite (as in, *gaspshock*) comment is this:
"...you know what's the real, unspoken opinion from immigrants of people living off of one minimum wage job? They think these people are serious slackers! If a person doesn't have the ambition and drive to find a better paying job or work at least two (or more) minimum wage jobs, then they neither deserve our help nor our sympathy. You succeed in this country by working hard and working smart. If someone's not willing to do that, then they should quit complaining or move to Europe and collect generous welfare benefits." (emphasis mine)
Here, people are saying stuff like "can you imagine, there're people working multiple minimum wage jobs and they hardly get by! How terrible!" It never occurred to me that somewhere that could be considered good. I don't think in Finland I've met anyone who works multiple jobs, at least not unless they're both just a few hours/week.
Another article that raised thoughts in me (and truth be told, these two were the only ones I read properly besides the one about car salesmen, just because I can't really read those about specific companies because I don't get them) was "Secrets, Lies, And Sweatshops" that was about Chinese sweatshops and how the management cheats on labor condition checks and such problems.
You're all probably going to think I'm a horrible, horrible person when I say: so what? Try to think what were the labour condition in factories in Europe at the beginning of industrialism! If they're the same in China now, well - we got past that phase, and I believe they'll too, in time. Why should we expect that because we now have what's needed for fair treatment of all (such as labour unions, laws...) they should have it too? Can't we give China (and other developing countries) time, like we had, to develop in peace? I think that having factories in China is good, because therefore money is flowing there, and that's a requirement for development and growth, and with those assets China can develop into being just as "civilized" as Western countries are. But demanding that they first apply our ethics and then grow their economy and make their people richer is just stupid, imo. No matter how bad working conditions factory workers in China have, I believe it's for the good - they probably have better living standard than those still working as common farmers, anyway.
Roman Schatz (a German who lives in Finland and is famous because of that, yes, we're silly like that) touched something similar like this in his book Rakasta minut, but it was about Muslim terrorism. He argued that because Islam is 600(?) years younger than Christanity, we should only expect Muslims to behave like Christians behaved 600 years ago - in 15th century. I think that's around the time of witch-hunts... And while I don't agree that a Finn who is a Muslim can kill his wife because she cheated on him, I think that for example African countries that are just developing can be allowed to make some of the mistakes we did, as well, even if we did them hundred years ago. That's what happens with humans all the time, isn't it? Parents look at their children and want to tell them how to live their lives, but instead allow them to make same mistakes because that's part of the growing process.
Your thoughts?
In other news, today was my last exam so I'm officially on Christmas holiday now. Yay!!
And, *is weirded by the new update page* The place of changing the icon sucks and the spell check look will take some getting used to...
Last Sunday I read the 11/27 issue, and it raised some thoughts in me (posting it only now because I just didn't have the time or energy before).
First of all, the greatest (and funniest) thing in BusinessWeek (after reading two issue - I got two more today but haven't had time to read them yet what with Grandparents' Visit) is that it's so thoroughly American. It's not so obvious that the cultural difference in economical subjects would be so great, but it really is - the way of looking at things is just so... weird, to me. (And before you Americans start arguing that I shouldn't be reading American magazine if I don't want American view on things, I say that it's great that it's different - why else would I want to read it? We are told to go to student transfer to learn a new point of view for familiar stuff, so giving a look on things differently is great for my studies.)
For example, there was an article "More Ammo For A Higher Minimum" (I'm not sure if the link works or if you'd have to be signed in to see it) which was about raising the minimum wage in America. Already the opening line made me gasp: "If you want to pick a fight with a free-market economist, say something nice about the minimum wage." Wtf? Why wouldn't they stand something nice being said about it? Here, no one would imagine questioning minimum wage - thanks to it we don't have working poor class (quite high unemployment rate, though, but hey - that's what unemployment benefit is for!). Then, they told why politicians might soon start supporting the raise of minimum wage: it would benefit 6.6 million people directly and 8.3 million indirectly. Here, we would be interested in how big monetary benefit it would be (as in... it'd mean 1 million euros more to 20,000 people (the numbers totally from my head)). I don't think we ever discuss how many people eg. the inheritance tax deletion would touch. We talk about how many euros less the government would get. At least most of the time. So... in America social benefits are considered only in "how many voters would benefit from this", here it's considered "what are the financial implications to the government and/or total demand" or "what is socially ethical". (Ehm, please remember that I say "in America" based on one article. So my observations are most definitely skewed)
Now I'm reading a bit of the conversation about the subject on the BusinessWeek website.
My favourite (as in, *gaspshock*) comment is this:
"...you know what's the real, unspoken opinion from immigrants of people living off of one minimum wage job? They think these people are serious slackers! If a person doesn't have the ambition and drive to find a better paying job or work at least two (or more) minimum wage jobs, then they neither deserve our help nor our sympathy. You succeed in this country by working hard and working smart. If someone's not willing to do that, then they should quit complaining or move to Europe and collect generous welfare benefits." (emphasis mine)
Here, people are saying stuff like "can you imagine, there're people working multiple minimum wage jobs and they hardly get by! How terrible!" It never occurred to me that somewhere that could be considered good. I don't think in Finland I've met anyone who works multiple jobs, at least not unless they're both just a few hours/week.
Another article that raised thoughts in me (and truth be told, these two were the only ones I read properly besides the one about car salesmen, just because I can't really read those about specific companies because I don't get them) was "Secrets, Lies, And Sweatshops" that was about Chinese sweatshops and how the management cheats on labor condition checks and such problems.
You're all probably going to think I'm a horrible, horrible person when I say: so what? Try to think what were the labour condition in factories in Europe at the beginning of industrialism! If they're the same in China now, well - we got past that phase, and I believe they'll too, in time. Why should we expect that because we now have what's needed for fair treatment of all (such as labour unions, laws...) they should have it too? Can't we give China (and other developing countries) time, like we had, to develop in peace? I think that having factories in China is good, because therefore money is flowing there, and that's a requirement for development and growth, and with those assets China can develop into being just as "civilized" as Western countries are. But demanding that they first apply our ethics and then grow their economy and make their people richer is just stupid, imo. No matter how bad working conditions factory workers in China have, I believe it's for the good - they probably have better living standard than those still working as common farmers, anyway.
Roman Schatz (a German who lives in Finland and is famous because of that, yes, we're silly like that) touched something similar like this in his book Rakasta minut, but it was about Muslim terrorism. He argued that because Islam is 600(?) years younger than Christanity, we should only expect Muslims to behave like Christians behaved 600 years ago - in 15th century. I think that's around the time of witch-hunts... And while I don't agree that a Finn who is a Muslim can kill his wife because she cheated on him, I think that for example African countries that are just developing can be allowed to make some of the mistakes we did, as well, even if we did them hundred years ago. That's what happens with humans all the time, isn't it? Parents look at their children and want to tell them how to live their lives, but instead allow them to make same mistakes because that's part of the growing process.
Your thoughts?
In other news, today was my last exam so I'm officially on Christmas holiday now. Yay!!
And, *is weirded by the new update page* The place of changing the icon sucks and the spell check look will take some getting used to...