bigWOWO » Politics

Activism is as activism does

bigWOWO — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:29:13 +0000

Camila Vallejo Dowling

This is (was?) an activist blog, and I saw these two interesting activism articles in the Times this week:

1. Just Don’t Call Her Che: an article about Camila Vallejo Dowling, who is leading hundreds of people for education reform in Chile. According to the article, she beats senators in debates on prime time TV and leads protests with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. According to the article, she’s the world’s most famous student leader and has the governmment going crazy over how to deal with the issues. Chile, according to the article, is economically successful, and she has still managed to pull people away from their daily lives and get an audience.

I can say honestly that I wish I knew more about how other countries operate. It’s one thing to say, for example, that we like the way Sweden mandates maternity and paternity leave, or how we love Canadian healthcare. It would be better to understand the system from a closer perspective. Is the Chilean educational system really so unfair that people follow Camila Vallejo? Or is this an example of exceptional leadership? I will say that I can’t imagine an American 23 year old going head-to-head with a U.S. Senator in a debate without getting himself/herself whooped, so major props to her!

Too bad I don’t understand the Spanish. Nottyboy, what’s she saying?

2. The Mixtape of the Revolution talks about how hip hop is one of the most potent forces in politics in other countries. The article opens:

DEF JAM will probably never sign them, but Cheikh Oumar Cyrille Touré, from a small town about 100 miles southeast of Dakar, Senegal, and Hamada Ben Amor, a 22-year-old man from a port city 170 miles southeast of Tunis, may be two of the most influential rappers in the history of hip-hop.

Pretty heady stuff.

Someone once asked me: What is activism? I said something along the lines of “creating change that influences a lot of people.” Whether we’re trying to create art outside of The Typical, or whether we’re trying to get people to think differently or whether we’re trying to invest money responsibly, I think that’s the nature of activism.

I do have to say–life looks a lot more dramatic in other places of the world. 200,000 people marching? A hip hop artist whose words are actually getting government to take notice? American students don’t march much these days. And the last time an American politician paid attention to a hip hop artist was when Kanye said that George W. Bush doesn’t care about black people! Whatever happened to this kind of activism in America?

What Cultures Value

bigWOWO — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:04:43 +0000

Thanks to Eurasian Sensation, who posted this article: The One-Shot Society. The article is about the educational system in Korea, where students cram like mad for one college entrance test, a test which determines the career that they will have for the rest of their lives. In Korea, as the article mentions, people rarely change jobs, so it’s imperative that students get into the best university and then into the best company. We’ve spoken about this trend in Korea and how it limits their opportunities to make decisions later in life, which is why many Koreans try to become doctors.

I think this system is reflective of what Koreans value: intelligence, diligence, preparation, and consistency. This system will greatly help Korea in many ways, but of course, there are side effects as well. I like how the article mentions the tech entrepreneur who can’t find employees because he’s not Samsung. In the U.S., that guy would have no problems recruiting (especially with our high level of employment).

I can’t really say whether their system is better or worse than ours–they don’t seem to have the stagnation or unemployment that we do. What I would like to say is that America has an ambiguity problem. I think we like to think that we value education, but we really don’t. Whereas Koreans value intelligence, diligence, preparation, and consistency, Americans value selling and entrepreneurship. I remember one of Robert Kiyosaki’s books where he tells a novelist that if she wants to be a well-known writer, she should learn to sell, so that she can sell her book. Even our most powerful citizens, the politicians who run this country, spend much if not most of their time selling themselves to voters.

I think that’s ultimately our problem these days. We’ve got great salespeople and a great culture of entrepreneurship and sales communication. Outside of the low-cost computing innovations, we just haven’t invested in creating great new technologies to sell. Whereas in the past we were going to the moon, taking on nuclear technology, or miniaturizing transistors, we no longer invest as much in the new technologies that we need: green technologies, alternative energy, etc. We need to shift more of our resources into research, so that we have great new technologies to sell to the world.

Related to this topic, Shark Tank is back. Today, there was a great episode in which a manufacturing entrepreneur told the sharks he wanted to keep jobs in the U.S. and refused to outsource to Asia. The sharks told him he was being stubborn and short-sighted. One shark told him that he should follow Apple’s example. Another said that even though it was not cost-effective to manufacture in America, it would still create jobs here since they would eventually need sales and marketing people! So you can where our nation’s focus is.

“Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class

bigWOWO — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:27:32 +0000

The NY Times had a great article on Apple and why Apple employs so few people in the U.S.: Apple, America, and the Squeezed Middle Class. We’ve talked about Tyler Cowan’s Great Stagnation and how Google, Twitter, and Facebook don’t need lots of bodies to make their products, but Apple, a company that manufactures electronic components, does need lots of people. They just don’t hire them here. Apple made $400,000 per employee last year, in large part because they outsource their work overseas. Apple says that the labor costs aren’t the major reason for outsourcing, that there are other logistical reasons for centralizing their work in Asia. But when Foxconn, the company that assembles iPhones, pays many of its workers $17 a day, it’s a bit hard to believe that labor costs don’t play a role.

Check this out:

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.

And that’s the hard part about all this. If we assume that labor costs aren’t that big of a deal (I don’t believe this, but let’s accept it for the sake of argument), it’s still hard to expect Americans to leave their families and occupy dorms where they work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, and are on call if anything needs immediate attention. I’ve heard some Chinese calling Americans “lazy” for not wanting to do this, but is that really fair? Does it make sense for people used to living in the middle class to sacrifice everything for their company, living apart from their families and lives outside of work?

Akrypti from 8Asians posted this excellent piece a while ago on Chinese factories, and I agree that these megacompanies are making life better in China. These jobs are better than many others in the region, so it’s hard to accuse Apple of exploiting Chinese if the Chinese want these jobs. Instead, I think these companies are exploiting Americans. Their intellectual property and physical resources are protected by the American government and military, which is funded by American taxpayers, many of whom are denied employment by these companies which either subcontract out their work to countries with lower standards of living or only hire H1B visa holders. One might even well argue that their robust sales come from the fact that they are American companies.

As for Americans, I’m sure some people will read this and point to a defect in American culture, a kind of middle class entitlement that Americans seem to have. I agree with these people that many Americans do feel entitled (see AM/AF Couple’s excellent comment here), but I also think it’s perfectly fair to ask American companies to hire Americans who pay taxes into a system that makes their work possible.

I think the best response I’ve seen to this whole “lazy American” complaint is here, where a blogger responds to the marine in the picture below:

The blogger Max Udargo writes:

Do you really want the bar set this high? Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week? Is that your idea of the American Dream?

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week? Do you think you can? Because, let me tell you, kid, that’s not going to be as easy when you’re 50 as it was when you were 20.

And what happens if you get sick? You say you don’t have health insurance, but since you’re a veteran I assume you have some government-provided health care through the VA system. I know my father, a Vietnam-era veteran of the Air Force, still gets most of his medical needs met through the VA, but I don’t know what your situation is. But even if you have access to health care, it doesn’t mean disease or injury might not interfere with your ability to put in those 60- to 70-hour work weeks.

And that’s the issue with American “entitlement.” One feels spoiled by asking for decent working conditions, but do we really want to live in a world where a person is forced to give his entire life for pure survival? And is it really fair for companies to rely on the protection of the American government paid for by American workers who can no longer get jobs because American companies won’t hire them? As Ha Joon Chang mentions in 23 Things, capital has a nationality. These companies won’t relocate–they know that their livelihood is dependent on being in America. While the rich are buying off the government with their lobbyists, it should be still possible to form a voting block that can deliver justice to the American people.

Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh

bigWOWO — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:28:22 +0000

For those of you who like historical movies, or for those of you who are hungry for yet another AF/WM movie, check out The Lady with Michelle Yeoh. I read about it on 8A. Check out the blogger’s thoughts, and also check out the opinion of the commenters.

I agree with the commenter xxxtine, who writes: “It is through the help of her husband Michael Aris, on the outside in England, that got her the recognition and ultimately the Nobel Peace Prize. No one would’ve known about her otherwise, or cared to hear if he wasn’t trying to get his wife freed.” What is true of Amy Chua is true of Aung Sung Suu Kyi and is true of Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan–if there isn’t a White man involved with the subject matter, the Western world often doesn’t give a shit. It’s sad but true.

As for Aung Sung Suu Kyi, I like what she stands for, and there’s no doubt that she has some powerful tenacity and personal strength, but I wonder if she’d really make Burma a better place or whether she’d burn the place to the ground and mess it up worse than the military government ever could. Historically speaking, the U.S. government doesn’t always do the best job of picking leaders of other countries.

Anyway, the movie looks well done. And Michelle Yeoh really looks like ASSK.

Edit 5:30: Awww, fuck. I didn’t read the full DailyMail article before posting. You too, Michelle Yeoh?

Michelle Yeoh with her fiance

Michelle gradually fell in love with her subject with whom she had so many similarities. Like Suu, Michelle went to school in the UK; her Hong Kong based parents moved here when she was 15 and she attended the Royal Academy of Dance. She is also in love with a Westerner. The actress was briefly married to Harvey Nichols billionaire Dickson Poon but has been engaged to French Formula 1 boss Jean Todt for five years.

Her huge engagement ring sparkles as she describes how, like Michael Aris, Jean gives her the freedom to do as she chooses.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2084268/The-Lady-Michelle-Yeoh-brings-story-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-big-screen.html#ixzz1jll8wdpk

That’s another thing the Western world does. Equates Whiteness with freedom.

American Jobs and India

bigWOWO — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:30:34 +0000

Thanks, Notty, for sending the video above. This makes me mad. Everyone needs to watch it.

I’ve spoken with some people in tech, and at the high end, these H1B visas do benefit the U.S. as American companies can hire people from the India Institute of Technology and get the cream of the crop. We do get some top workers who help with our innovation.

On the other hand, companies are also trimming their payroll by getting H1B visas on the cheap, and sometimes (as evident from the American Express case in the video) they’re just trying to cut their costs and taking advantage of “free trade” laws in order to do so. I was surprised when Dan Rather revealed that the law says that American companies don’t need to prove that they have tried to fill a position in the U.S (around 7:50). That’s the problem with politics–the politicians are saying we need more Americans in STEM subjects, but meanwhile the same politicians have created laws designed to benefit corporations at the expense of the American worker. American companies don’t hire many of the STEM people that we already have. I’ve spoken with a few tech managers recently, and they all tell me the same thing–it’s rare for American companies these days to hire American tech people. In every batch of new recruits, the vast majority of hires are H1B visa holders from India.

I feel bad for these unemployed people. You can tell in the video that they’re trying hard not to sound prejudiced, but when the law discriminates against American workers who have paid taxes into creating and supporting this system, it’s hard not to be angry. The government-industrial complex has waged war against the American worker, and the American worker is losing. Mitt Romney believes that corporations are people, which could presage an even greater future power discrepancy between the ruling class and the middle class.

By the way–has anyone here been to India? Is it good living? What I’m thinking is that perhaps there’s a way to create an idea around this–retirement centers for Americans in India. If it’s possible to live like a king or queen on $10k a year in India, perhaps it’s possible to live like a normal person forever with a $50k 401(k) account. India is a democratic country where English is the official language, and the weather is warm. The temples are beautiful, and there are yoga teachers all around, so there would be no shortage of recreational activities. Plus the healthcare facilities are excellent and more affordable (American-trained doctors). Maybe that could be an option for some people. Kinda sucks to have to move because of bad and prejudicial “free trade” laws, but it’s always good to have a backup plan. Maybe the government could pay for these retirement centers as a kind of severance package for the older Americans they use and dispose of.

Mitt Romney and the Problem of Wealth

bigWOWO — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:45:10 +0000

Watch Romney Suggests Politics is Best Left to the Wealthy in People & Blogs | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

The Republican primaries are under way, and as is normal with any American election cycle, the craziness has once again begun. The latest craziness surrounds Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunner. In the video above, Romney says of his father: “He had good advice to me. He said, ‘Mitt, never get involved in politics if you have to win an election to pay a mortgage. If you find yourself in a position when you can serve, why you ought to have a responsibility to do so if you think you can make a difference, you oughta have a responsibility to do so.’” See a ThinkProgress blog post here.

In other Romney news, he says, “I like being able to fire people.” See it here:

Romney’s opponents have been spinning this as proof that Romney is an elitist who is out of touch with the American people. In the first case, they are saying that Romney believes that only the wealthy should run for office. In the second, they’re spinning the story as proof that he identifies with rich business owners who fire people rather than the near 10% of the working population that is unemployed.

Neither of these attacks is a correct portrayal of what Romney said. In the first case, Romney is right–if you’re dependent on winning an election in order to pay your bills, you shouldn’t be running. It’s the same issue that we face with Asian American artists–if you have to play a demeaning Long Duk Dongish character or write some degrading “literature” to pay your bills, you need a second career. Politics should pay money, but people who run should not be in desperation mode.

In the second, he was talking about healthcare. Healthcare should not only be tied to employment because as he says, it creates disincentives for a healthcare company to keep you healthy. I don’t know what Romney would do with healthcare if elected, but I like Romneycare in Massachusetts, which is similar to Obamacare. Again, I agree with what Romney said–although I have no idea what he’d actually implement as President.

It’s just unfortunate that this part of the election is going to come down to who can better misrepresent their opponents’ viewpoints in front of the media. We need these guys to be talking about real ideas, rather than using sneaky media tactics.

When Your Fan Base is Full of Crazy People

bigWOWO — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:43:50 +0000

Thanks, American Girl, for sending the video above. It’s a pro-Ron Paul video that attacks Jon Huntsman’s supposed pro-China tendencies, and it takes a swipe at Huntsman in part by taking aim at his adopted Chinese daughter. But it’s not made by Ron Paul. Instead, it’s (probably) made by a Ron Paul supporter. Ron Paul’s campaign says that it is “disgusted” by whoever created the video. I love this quote:

“Whoever did it should take it down immediately,” the campaign’s spokesman Gary Howard says. “Unfortunately, every candidate has supporters who do stupid things.”

That’s…true. However, Ron Paul has a greater number of “supporters who do stupid things” than any other candidate in U.S. history. Have you ever spoken to Ron Paul supporters? There were a team of them hanging out on the street when Obama came to Portland. Most of those people are cray-cray. I’ve heard Ron Paul say some outlandish things, but even if he turned normal at this point, it’s too late: his followers have already taken over. It’s kinda like Fight Club: “Who’s Tyler Durden? Who’s Ron Paul?”

Philipp Rosler, Vice-Chancellor of Germany

bigWOWO — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 07:06:47 +0000

Philipp Rossler

Thanks to Ben Efsaneyim, who wrote this story: One of Europe’s Most Powerful Men is Vietnamese. Philipp Rösler, according to Ben’s article and Wikipedia, is the Vice-Chancellor of Germany, and is originally from Vietnam. The Wikipedia entry says that he was adopted by German parents at nine months, joined the German army as a medic, and completed a medical degree. He’s every Asian parent’s dream! And now he’s in politics, where he’s moved up and up. Vice-Chancellor of Germany, the most economically powerful country in all of Europe. Wow. And not only is he a doctor, but he married a doctor too:

I don’t speak German, but this sounds pretty eloquent to me:

Anyway, I had two reactions to this:

1. My first reaction was to question: How is it possible for an Asian dude to get so high in the government of (what used to be) a highly racist regime? Hitler was less than 70 years ago. I think the answer is that parliamentary government is more likely to allow women and minorities to get ahead faster than a presidential system.

2. My second reaction was: It’s awesome that he was able to do this! I have no idea what German politics or culture is like, but this has to have a great effect on minority representation.

Occupy Wall Street

bigWOWO — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:38:33 +0000

I wasn’t sure if anyone wanted to comment on Occupy Wall Street, seeing that it’s all over the news. Or maybe people thought it was time for yet another IR, PUA, or HBD post?

My view is that Occupy Wall Street seems like it’s getting attention. People are taking notice. There are more than a few actors and actresses who have given their support. Senator Bernie Sanders supports the protestors. And that’s where Occupy Wall Street will hopefully have an impact: Washington. Washington needs to pass some laws/tarriffs to discourage outsourcing, to encourage local hiring, and to bring back manufacturing, among other things. It won’t happen though unless people let lawmakers know and then vote as a block.

Too Many People Trying to Become Doctors in Korea

bigWOWO — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 07:04:08 +0000

I just finished 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. It’s a fascinating book about the perils of free market capitalism. Chang is pro-capitalism but anti-free-market. He makes a compelling case for government intervention in markets.

He writes about his country, South Korea, where the government put a damper on government economic intervention in 1997 and left their workers to the dictates of the market. Like the U.S., Korea has a weak welfare state, so if a Korean company goes under or sends a Korean employee packing while the economy is bad, that employee’s life will change in a big, big way.

The end result is that “nearly four out of five ‘top-scoring university applicants’…in the science stream wanted to study medicine.” (p.222) Koreans know that if they lose their engineering or business jobs in their forties, they’re dead. So many try to play it safe by getting a medical degree. Even if they get downsized by a hospital, they can always set up their own clinics. In a state where there is no safety, people have to create their own safety. A medical degree–in Korea, as in most places in the world–is the best way to create safety.

But as Chang points out, that’s not a great allocation of talent. He writes that there is no way 80% of the smartest science kids in Korea are cut out to be doctors; they have diverse interests in many areas but flee to medicine because of fear. Contrast this with a culture that exists in a country with a good welfare state–Norway, Sweden, Canada–and there will most likely be more people taking risks to excel in other areas.

Chang admits that there are some people who will milk the system. Overall, however, most people want to succeed. With a safety net along with a culture that encourages success, a country can have a greater diversity of competencies, as well as a better overall economy due to better efficiency in the allocation of talent.

Some say that we don’t have enough money to support a welfare system. I say look at what the CEOs of Countrywide, Merrill, and Citi made from 2002-2006 while driving their companies–and our country–into the ground. They made $460 million. Even if they were good at their jobs–which they clearly weren’t, as proven by the financial disaster they created–those numbers are excessive. Not only did their companies pay them what they did, but our government extended welfare to these big companies when they needed a helping hand. If there were something in place to curb executive pay and use it to make a safety net, we’d be better off. Then we could help individuals as well as companies.

Think about it. If these three guys made half of what they made in those four years: $230 million dollars, divided by three guys, over four years, they’d be making $19 million a year each, which is more than enough to live on, especially for a job not well done. The country could take $57 million a year to provide a safety net. Let’s say welfare pays $15k a year for an individual to live on while finding a job. That’s 3,800 people a year who could be helped. And this comes only by cutting the excessive salaries of three people!

We’ve got too much income inequality in this country, and not a large enough safety net. Kids starve in our country. People die because they have no medical insurance. There is no reason why this should happen in a country like ours that has the means to prevent it.