In Pursuit of Florida Parrot T-Shirts

Pietra Rivoli‘s Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is an excellent biography of an unexpected protagonist: her Florida Parrot T-Shirt. From analyzing the institution of slavery as a cotton subsidy to looking at the US used clothing market in East Africa, Rivoli takes a tastefully empirical look at what has led the cotton industry to thrive and exist as it does today.  NPR has even done a three-part audio series inspired by the book.

I think most commendable to her analysis is how she has mentioned that in all of her travels, and in all of her interviews, she did not meet a single bad person.  It suggests the solution to the many conflicts that arise out of all countries cotton subsidies must be much deeper than the everyday people making decisions about what and what not to purchase.

While the book does not offer any solutions to the many dilemmas faced in the global textile trade, it adds a remarkable amount of depth to an often two-dimensional debate.  Rivoli has mentioned one thing she sees as possibly hopeful for removing these engrained cotton handouts is an increase in non market distorting subsidies.  She defined these subsidies as when you pay people to go sit on the beach rather than pay them to produce an excess supply of something that will drive prices down.

While I would guess the idea of a non market distorting subsidy may be contested, it does raise an interesting question.  Ten years from now, might it be easier to push for the end to cotton subsidies if all of the cotton growers are working hard in their feilds, or if they are all off enjoying the beach?

On related issues, Russel Roberts writes on the peculiar relationship between Chinise textile quotas and the WTO.

Birds Eye Lesson in Land Reform

This is an impressive visual of the tragedy of the commons.  The interactive satellite photo compares  communal farmland to private farmland in Zimbabwe over the period of its land redistribution.  It’s significant to note is that this land reform only began around 2000, a few years ago.

And What is Even Worse

"Imagine an alternate world identical to ours save one techno-historical change: video games were invented and popularized before books."

In his book Everything Bad is Good for You, Steven Johnson raises many good questions about the way we perceive popular culture and emphasizes just how much more complex our passive existence would be today compared to just 50 years ago.  i.e. Pong never involved outsourcing to China.

For our next thought experiment, try to imagine an alternate world where the corporation was invented and popularized as an icon of tradition and nostalgia before the mom and pop shop.  What would your parents think!?

Car Service and Grammar

Without excessive qualifications, I would like to state that I am a big fan of open borders.  I am also a big fan of grammatical errors (if we would be so harsh to call them by such a derogatory label).

That said, I recently had a general maintenance check up done to my car.  I received this letter in the mail shortly after.

It starts in a very collegiate manner, "Dear Parizek,"  and resolves with my advisor looking forward to "better serve [me] vehicle in the future."  I am particularly fond of the northeastern slant to the entire work and the general disregard for any margins.

The service was excellent.

A Bundle of Instincts

"It was (and is) common to think that other animals are ruled by "instinct" whereas humans lost their instincts and are ruled by "reason", and that this is why we are so much more flexibly intelligent than other animals. William James took the opposite view. He argued that human behavior is more flexibly intelligent than that of other animals because we have more instincts than they do, not fewer."

Leda Cosmides & John Tooby offer more here: Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer.

Arlington Decency

Arlington County is not one for much decency.  For example, everyone in Arlington is required to have a safety inspection every year and place an ugly, half-crooked sticker in the middle of their front windshield to prove they have done so.  Apparently, they promptly come sneaking around the day that these stickers expire to issue tickets.

I have been here for a month.  I found a nice place and, ever since I moved in, I have been parking in a spot right in front of my house along the street.  This is why it surprised me when I woke up this past week with a parking ticket on my car.

Confused, I looked to confirm that there weren’t any “No Parking” signs that had gone unnoticed, but my memories of a sign-free street were untrue.  My parking spot sat cowering in the wake of a spotless, new “No Parking” sign.  Funny.  The base of the signpost even exhibited freshly turned dirt and city project markings.  The pictures may help you visualize the “funniness” of this moment.

My favorite part is that on the back of the sign, the date and time at which it was installed are sharpied on.  The day was the same day that I received my ticket, twelve hours prior.

And so, unsuspectingly, as I returned from a pleasant day at work and an enjoyable evening of swing dancing, and forgot to check for new parking regulations posted in the spot where I had been parking for over a month straight, I had signed up for trouble.

Ill let you know how my modest contention letter fares.  I admit my illegality and ask for the simple decency of information before unnecessary monetary punishment.  Even the San Jose State bicycle dictators have been courteous enough to place a warning on students bicycles before blindly ticketing them for laws that came into effect within the last 12 hours of the day. 

On a more subtle note of how SJSU bike laws are like the US foreign policy with Cuba, I can defer you to one of my many unpublished letters to the editor.

Cognitive Knowledge Networks & Local Know-How

"It’s not who you know, it’s what who you know knows."  Or so suggest cognitive knowledge networks.  Noshir Contractor can tell you all about it.  Rob Curley can tell you all about who knows who knows in Lawrence, Kansas.

This adds a lot of challenges to the veracity involved in traditional borders, both in space and mind.  Watch these networks appear at CommonCensus, who is letting you map where you think you live, or marumushi, who is mapping social networks in flickr.

A crash course on spontaneous order may be appropriate for those kindergarten classes soon.

House Plan: Folding Shirts

Throw this one in the blueprints.  I am definitely folding my shirts this way from this day forward.  (Slow-mo recommended.)

Hopping New Year

Good day and happy New Year!  I hope for you, at least; I missed it this year.

In fact, my whole trip went well besides that little glitch, of which I have now become quite proud.  Upon leaving California the Tuesday after Christmas, the rain stopped.  I had arranged Jack (my car, in the spirit of Kerouac) into the ultimate travel machine.  I laid the back seats flat dividing the hatchback into two parts: 1) a row of boxes, topped with the essentials and 2) two pieces of egg-crate style foam bedding decorated just as you would a bed, in a little less space.  Conveniently, my passenger seat also folds flat, so I could comfortably pull into any rest-area type space and snuggle under the warmest of comforters for a good night (or mid-day) sleep.

I enjoyed the sunrises of Flagstaff, Arizona; Santa Fe, New Mexico and the grasslands of western Oklahoma.  On the flipside I enjoyed the sunsets of Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee.  Georgia OKeeffe’s New Mexico is the autumn of landscapes.  While perhaps I like the grasslands for the same reason that Andy Warhol likes mechanized art: its very repetitive, but there are so many imperfections.  In Nashville, I caught the Grand Ol’ Opry, the staple of live radio shows for your bluegrass and country diet.  And, having had such a pleasant evening, I decided to wrap up my New Years celebration right there at 9:00pm.  I hit the road.  As I had been stopping at internet cafes and surfing Craigslist, scheduling house visits for potential places to rent upon my arrival in Virginia on New Years day, I still had a long road ahead of me.

Around 11:45pm is when it hit me.  I believe its called teleportation.  I was trying to decide on the best way to start violently honking my horn and flashing my headlights at the nearest car on the desolate highway without provoking that person into a road-rage-like response (to share the celebration of the New Year, of course).  But then I saw a sign.  Not just any sign, but a street sign.  It read: Crossing into the Eastern Standard Time Zone.  Poof.  12:45am.

By any means I arrived safely in Virginia.  Within a half-hour I had a room and after a few trips to IKEA (I finally understand), I am happily situated in Arlington.  Take a look. I live right near that little red arrow.  I work down at the green one.

And that gets you close to up to date.  I haven’t told you about how much I enjoy the details of work, or why.  Nor have I told you much about the place I live and my mysterious and pleasant roommates.  Those will be stories for another time.

How to Improve Fair Trade: #9

Summary of Concerns About Current ?Fair Trade?

The ?fair trade? movement is full of people that care about local communities and the global village.  It is also full of good intentions.  What concerns me is that intentions don?t always heed their desired result.

Currently, I am displeased with how much these principles of ?fair trade? favor special interests and hurt small businesses and low-income buyers.

These principles assume human nature is different if you are a producer or a buyer or a worker; yet often the workers, producers and buyers are the same people.  These current principles of ?fair trade? treat people like they change personalities throughout the day.  The public is considered accountable yet a worker is considered incompetent to look after herself.  If someone favors sustainable development and good working conditions they are assumed less likely to grant privileges to special interests.  If someone is a producer they are more likely to need assistance than a buyer.  And if someone is a worker (regardless of what they do because they should be provided a job) they have more rights than the person providing them work and all of the buyers who are just trying to make a living purchase.

After it is established that the same people behave differently and have different rights at different times of the day, all of the industries they work in, the products they create and trade relationships they form are considered to be homogenous.  It is then proposed that all of these relationships will function best if we are to constrict the diversity of their nature to a few chosen relationships.

It is very important that we revise the principles of the current ?fair trade? movement and make them more sound.  At the moment, they are a mess of contradictory claims that don?t even support the ends we are fighting for.

How to Improve Fair Trade: #8

8. All aspects of trade and production are open to public accountability

I am concerned that this requirement favors big business over small business.  In order to be prepared for public accountability a producer has to be very diligent and keep track of lots of different procedures and exchanges within their business.  If a producer is using resources to be accountable she is not using resources in other ways.  To divert resources to such tasks is a lot to ask of a small business and even more to ask of the large number of small informal businesses in the low-income countries.

When all aspects of trade are also subject to public accountability, the hardships on small businesses will be accentuated even more.  And as more resources are used on complying with accountability, the less resources are used in improving health and environmental conditions in personal lives and purchasing mobile phones or clothing.

How to Improve Fair Trade: #7

7. Equal employment opportunities are provided for all

This principle sounds good though I don?t understand how employment opportunities can just be provided.  A producer offers a job to someone when there is work to be done.  It would be silly if a small coffee farmer had to provide jobs to a bunch of CEOs when they are completely unnecessary to his workplace.  On top of this, many jobs are very specialized and require people with the requisite skill set, talent and information are spread amongst the diversity of all of the people in the global village. 

Does this mean that an NFL Football team should provide employment for Chinese and Polish to an equal extent that it provides employment for African Americans?  Should a feminist organization hire an equal number of men and women?  Should a small family business hire an equal number of people from outside of the family?  Should a business in San Francisco also provide opportunities for people who choose to live in New Mexico?  Should low-income producers provide work for high-income workers?  Should an organization like Global Exchange provide work for those who think the oil industry has been extremely beneficial to society to the same extent as those who think it has not?

It is important that people have an equal opportunity to try to get the available jobs, but one cannot just assume jobs will be provided to all.  It is unfair to ask producers to provide employment to people that don?t improve their business.

How to Improve Fair Trade: #6

6. Working conditions are healthy and safe

Once again, I agree with this principle, and I am concerned that it places more importance on the health and safety of the workplace than in people?s personal lives.  Not all of life is about work.

For example, if an employer is required to make an improvement to her factory, she has fewer resources to spend on her workers.  Her workers will now have fewer resources to improve the condition of where they live.  Often, in low-income areas there is very little access to clean water and the houses have dirt floors.  If the workers had more resources to use in their personal lives, they could improve the conditions around their house and also improve health and safety.

How to Improve Fair Trade: #5

5. Sustainable production techniques are encouraged

I am in agreement with this principle, and I am concerned that it limits the advancement toward a sustainable society.  By focusing on sustainable production one discounts the benefits that a higher standard of living can add to sustainability.  The benefits of a higher standard of living can be reached while only a limited number of sustainable production techniques are present.  And in general, people with a higher standard of living enjoy products that are produced in a more sustainable way.  Many sustainable technologies are still quite expensive to purchase, and buyers and producers have to make the decisions if these fit their personal budgets.

How to Improve Fair Trade: #4

4. Producers have access to financial and technical assistance

This principle also assumes that a producer?s rights are more important than a buyer?s rights.  This is not fair.  Many low-income buyers also find themselves in economically disadvantaged positions.

Furthermore, a person or a small group will have to receive a position of authority in order to decide who will receive financial and technical assistance.  Whoever is in this position will be the target of producers and special interests that wish to receive preferred status.  There is no reason to believe that these people will be any less targeted than the current politicians or that, over time, these interest groups wouldn?t find there way into these positions themselves to make what decisions served them best.

Also, I am having a hard time seeing the difference between this principle and the current subsidy system.  Subsidies are meant to help out producers in need and the current subsidy system has been overtaken by special interests, which has, in turn, raised the prices for local buyers and greatly disadvantaged low-income farmers abroad.