June 2009 Archives
06/28/09 1:13 AM
Outsourcing Death
Years ago, I wrote about lead poisoning for The Atlantic--reporting that blood lead levels in the United States had declined dramatically since the ban of lead in gasoline, and that when it cames to lead, most middle class American families had little to fear. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of families in La Oroya, Peru--thanks to Doe Run Peru, a lead smelting operation owned by American billionaire industrialist Ira Rennert. According to the Times, in addition to his metals empire Rennert is proud owner of, among many other things, a 66,000 square foot Italianate mansion in the Hamptons. Let's hope for his sake he spends a bit more time tucked away in that villa than in La Oroya, which is listed as one of the 10 most polluted places on earth. Rennert claims he would clean up his smelter, were it not for the low price of metal these days. And who are we to disagree? You don't become a billionaire by sweating the small stuff--like permanent brain damage in someone else's children. But the locals find this puzzling. "It's like we're pawns in a game," one La Oroyan told the Times. "What I still fail to understand is why we are exposed to the risks of an American investment but not to the environmental protections enjoyed by the citizens of the United States."
Outsourcing pollution--and the illness and death linked to it--has long been the norm for many multi-national corporations, as anyone who has spent much time in China knows. A Carnegie Mellon study concluded that the United States may be reducing its own carbon emissions by importing goods from countries that are creating even more emissions. The impact of this is most deeply felt by the poor, few of whom have anything to say about it. But we do. We can think twice before purchasing products that endanger the communities they are made in, even if it means paying a few pennies more. And we can demand that multi-national companies that represent American interests insist on pollution controls and worker protections. In an increasingly "flat" world, can we really afford to do any less?
06/24/09 9:36 AM
Skip College and Get a Job
Today's Times features a front page piece by labor reporter Louis Uchitelle (author of the estimable The Disposable American on the shortage of experienced blue collar workers--like welders. While MBA's, lawyers, and other knowlege workers struggle to hold their footing in this slippery economy, welders, it seems, are in high demand. To illustrate this point, the Times relates the story of Keelan Prados--a welder with more than a decade of experience who nabbed a job at an oil refinery paying $22 an hour.
As the economy tanks, blue collar romanticism blooms. A new book: "Shop Class as Soulcraft," penned by political philosopher Matthew Crawford, condemns "cubicle culture" and extolls the virtue of working with one's hands--to build something real. Dilbert could not agree more...
But taking a closer look leads to questions. Let's begin with Mr. Prados--who got his new job after finding himself unable to make a decent living running his own machine shop and welding business. Controlling for inflation, that $22 an hour is far less than Prados' father might have made welding car parts for GM--and when demand for his sort of welding dries up, so will Prado's future--welders don't have a career track.
Mr. Crawford (who runs a modest motor cycle repair shop but whose day job is as a Fellow at the University of Virginia Institute for Advanced Studies ) extoll the virtures of hand work from the priviledged position of hobbiest. His argument is profound, but it should be taken in context. With union protections all but vanished, the life of real blue collar workers today has never been tougher--or more uncertain.
06/13/09 6:03 PM
High Fashion in Low Times
"The 5,500-square-foot thrift outlet is a laboratory of sorts for Goodwill and its 2,200 stores around the country. Intent on sprucing up an image that conjures low-end castoffs and no-frills ambience, many Goodwill stores are courting the shoppers who scour high-end resale shops and department store sales racks for bargains."
The especially good news here is that the recycling of high quality merchandize--in this case thoughtfully crafted clothing--has suddenly become not only acceptable but cool. What a wonderful alternative to the trend toward "disposable" clothing--the cheaply made "shabby chic" we've endured for too long at H&M and its ilk. What cartoon superstar Homer Simpson calls "fallapart" is precisely what American consumers have come to expect from too many of our purchases. How wonderful that today's "recessionistas" are fighting back by flocking to low cost, high quality "kindly used" garments--that they may even pass down to their kids!
06/12/09 12:53 PM
Have It Your Way
"The country ham industry shot itself in the foot," ham maker Sam Edwards told the Times. "We decided that the cheapest price wins, so we took a great product and reduced the quality and turned it into a commodity."
The insatiable demand for ever lower prices has turned many luxuries into commodities. Sushi, once a special treat, is now so ubiquitous that it's helped push once abundant species like bluefin tuna, monkfish and freshwater eel onto the endangered species list. Shrimp , once a delicacy, is today farmed in crowded, mud bottom ponds dosed with antibiotics and served up "all you can eat" style at chain restaurants. And it's not only edible delicacies that have gone cheap. Cashmere, once so valuable it was called the "diamond fiber" has since the 1990s become an explosive growth industry in China, where the skyrocketing number of grass chomping cashmere goats has led to desertification and dust storms so powerful they carry pollutants to the United States. Human rights advocates warn us that cheap silk comes thanks to cheap hands, and that those hands are sometimes attached to "bonded" children laborers.
Turning something into a commodity does not always make it cheap. In the case of sex, for example, it transformed something that is mostly freely given into a fee for service. Generally, though, to turn something into a commodity is to lower its price, and make it more widely available. To Americans, this generally sounds great--we want every citizen to have access to the "good things" in life. But real luxuries turned into commodities hardly qualify as the "good things." On the contrary, they are often terribly disappointing things. The "county" ham tastes like Spam. The $19.99 "all silk" blouse droops into shapelessness at the first cleaning. The $39.00 "cashmere sweater" is too flimsy and thin to keep out the chill. Those "all you can eat" shrimp are as mushy as the muck they were farmed in.
In today's New York Times, David Brooks wrote that the first priority of what he called the "political class" is "to persuade a country to postpone gratification for the sake of rebuilding the country." The cheapening of consumer goods--especially luxuries-- gives us the false hope that we can have whatever we want whenever we want it at a price anyone can afford. Generally, though, what we get is a pale imitation, masquerading as the real deal. This essential lie has led to a world of pain--and disappointment. Does every 10 year old kid deserve "sushi" in his lunchbox every day, regardless of the real cost? Is a teenager's life made better, more interesting or more fun by a collection of cheap cashmere sweaters? Probably not...after all, delaying gratification, while anathema to marketers, is a life skill well worth developing. As my grandmother used to say, "If we get it all now, what in the world will we have to look forward to--or work toward?"
06/10/09 8:48 AM
fat stuff
As the author of a book on obesity (The Hungry Gene) I cannot resist responding to Ed's observation that restaurant goers tend to order unhealthy items when said items are coupled with healthy items--like side salads. I do not agree with Dan, that no one goes to restaurants for "healthy food"---anyone who has lived in New York City for any length of time knows that many people stay slim and healthy while almost never cooking for themselves. Some of us do seek out healthy alternatives in restaurants--which is one reason why sushi's popularity threatens the future of certain fish species. People eat sushi--and pay a high price for it--because they enjoy it, AND because it is relatively low in calories.
Science has shown us that biology explains why some of us are more inclined to overeat in a given environment than are others. It's not the "unhealthy" offering that's the problem, it's our response to it. Some of us eat the WHOLE THING, and some of us call for a doggie bag. Some of us "save up" calories for the Big Restaurant meal, and some of us do not. Depending on our inborn tendency to overeat or not, some of us are better off avoiding restaurants--but many of us can enjoy them with relative impunity.
One thing to keep in mind--starch and fat are cheap. This explains why a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's costs so little--it has pancakes and corn syrup topping and bacon and eggs and toast slathered with margerine--but no juice or fruit or slices of tomato. Healthy, low calorie foods TEND to cost a bit more... So when mulling over a restaurant menu, try to balance cost with health concerns.
06/09/09 1:05 PM
Cheap Thrills
It's wonderful to be here with you, blogging on the Atlantic site. I've got a new book coming out next month: Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture--the themes of which will sometimes be reflected here--but my entries will be far ranging and, I hope, provocative. Here, for example, is a bit of travelogue...
Thanks to the recommendation of (among others) my wise and worldly Atlantic colleague Corby Kummer, I just spent two weeks in Puglia, Italy, a marveously uncrowded and strangely unspoiled coastal region notable for its architecture (from garish Romanesque to tiny conical roofed "trulli,") its ancient Greek monuments, and--here's where Corby comes in--it's unsurpassed cuisine. But after spending a week or so in lush Puglia, I thirsted for a starker, less opulent place--and dipped into Bassilicatta.
Basilicata is a mountainous, arid landscape lodged deep in the arch of Italy's boot. The region has two tiny coastlines, one in the center of the Gulf of Taranto in the Ionian Sea, and the other on the Tyrrhenian Sea, but mostly it is dry, hot, and largely overlooked. In "Christ Stopped at Eboli," a memoir of his exile there before World War II, painter and physician Carlo Levi's portrayed Basilicata as a place untouched by modernity, or, for that matter, civilization, a desolate forgotten land where extended families huddled with their sheep, cows, and chickens in festering cave dwellings. Survival required enormous stamina, self discipline, cunning and luck--the infant mortality rate hovered at fifty percent, and few people lived past middle age. It was a place steeped in misery, certainly, but also history and majesty, and eventually Levi came to revere its stoic beauty, and the stubborn honor of its people. In 1943, the provincial capital city Matera mustered a militia against the German occupation, the first Italian region to do so.
Half a century later, in 1993, Matera was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Today, people live in its caves by choice, not out of desperation, and most have electricity, indoor plumbing and television. Few if any share their space with livestock, and more than a few have attended university. They are artists, craftspeople, architects, businesses owners. While the region remains one of the poorest in Italy, a place where unemployment is so common as to be expected, Matera today shows no signs of depression or hardship. I was struck by its other-worldly archeological wonders, its mystical churches carved directly into the rock, bedecked with ancient frescos, its grottos opening into enormous cave dwellings that once housed entire clans, its miles of twisted byways leading back to prehistory. Seeing these it was clear why Mel Gibson chose to film his controversial "Passion of the Christ" here--and easy to imagine that Matera today appeared much as Jerusalem must have 2000 years ago.
When the late afternoons are warm--as they usually are this time of year-- what seems like the entire population of Matera empties into a central plaza for the passageta, the daily promenade. The passageta is popular all over Italy and in other countries in southern Europe, but in Matera it seems to take on a special significance. Great grandparents and newborns throng the square deep into the night--well past what most of us would consider a reasonable bedtime. Teen agers--nerds, hipsters, great looking popular kids dressed for a big night out, loop endlessly, their faces expectant and open. On one side of the plaza, a young man keeps watch over his older sister as she observes the procession from the safety of her wheelchair. Over the course of an hour or so, he never leaves her side, and never loosens his smile, or his guard. On the other side of the plaza, a gaggle of older men sit gossiping, raising their head as one to nod in approval at young couples pushing baby carriages, middle aged couples leading aged parents by the arm. Some of the strollers have cell phones, but most don't. There is little money for such luxuries. Still, the children look particularly healthy, happy and well cared for. As I watch a pair of small boys kick a soccer ball against a church wall, while three small girls dressed in their Sunday best chase each other in gleeful circles. There is no graffiti, no litter in the streets, not even a cigarette butt. At midnight, the old people drift homeward, and teenagers pair off or gather in clumps of three or four, as their parents hang around, keeping a tactful eye. Toddlers and babies sleep in their carriages, or their father's arms. Lovers walk to a balcony to look down at the old city ablaze in moonlight.
In Matera, people consume, of course. The region is famous for its marvelously dense bread, its pasta with turnip tops. On Sunday, a motor cycle club comes to town, and gathers just outside one of the city's largest cave churches to show off their classic rides. A small group of locals stop to admire the machines before heading into mass. But most pass right by, oblivious. They will never have the money to buy one of these things, and even if they did there is no need. When it matters, in the passageta, everyone walks.
Ellen Ruppel Shell
