Blog 12- The Misfit Colonies: Preparing for WWIII?

Meahgan Hayes

11/20/11

   For this week, it seemed that the majority of articles that I found having to do with global inequality, all had something to do with the Occupy Wallstreet movement. And frankly, I’m over the Occupy movement. So, I checked other news sources that I would usually push to the side, and this is what I found. This week, the President and his family took a trip to Australia to begin negotiations on entering a military alliance. To most people, this would seem like a legitimately advantageous move for all parties involved. Australia secures itself a sturdier position as a important global fixture, and the US is always looking for allies. However, the article I read this week is suggesting otherwise. The article says that while this transaction may have seemed legit, but really it was just a move on the Americans part to make sure that if World War 3 should break out, it would happen on Asian soil. The author then goes on to explain that China is Australia’s top trade partner, and this alliance with America could possibly lead to a drop in Australia’s economy. Basically, he is accusing America of throwing around it’s weight and pressuring weaker countries into agreements that could be potentially harmful and cause economic and civic catastrophes. He also brings up that America does currently hold an advantage as far as electing an IMF president compared to most other countries.

   I think this article was extremely interesting. I think the comparisons that the author made between America and Australia are hilarious. And it was enlightening to do an article that was very suspicious of America’s motives. I also think that America often does throw around its weight and takes advantage of weaker countries. I think that when we promote and take advantage of the fact that we are one of the more powerful countries, we are continuing to breed even more global inequalities.


http://thelinkpaper.ca/?p=11808

Global Income Inequality

Meahgan Hayes

11/11/11

Bog Post #11

   On Tuesday a report came out on CNNMoney that ranked countries all over the world depending on the income  inequality found in those countries. And for the past few weeks I have done several articles that discuss the Occupy movement, and how I personally feel that as Americans, we should count ourselves lucky no matter how bad we think our economic status is. However, the article for this week is causing me to take a step back and rethink how I feel about that sentiment. CNN took the Gini index, which is a scale that measures how much money a country would have to redistribute in order for all the citizens to have the same income. Using this index and data collected from 90 countries, compiled in 2008, this list was produced.  According to this list, of the 90 countries surveyed, the five countries with the littlest gap of income inequality were; Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and the Ukraine. And the five countries that showed the largest gaps of inequality were; Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, the Central African Republic, and Bolivia. Countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Korea fall somewhere in the middle of the list, while America sits below them in a position that isn’t horrible but still not very good. 

   I think that this list should be something that the Occupy movement should take a look it and promote. It helps me personally, to better understand what they are saying about the inequality gaps that we are facing. I think this has the potential to help people to understand that not all of the protestors world wide are just protesting to protest.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/08/news/economy/global_income_inequality/

Almost There: A Look At the Progress of Global Gender Equality

Meahgan Hayes

11/4/11

    It is a known fact that over the last century, the move to improve women’s rights throughout the world has been impressive and in most cases extremely successful. Especially over the past six years. According to the article that I have chosen for this week, the gender equality ratios have improved drastically in just about eighty five percent of countries world wide. And while this is a mile stone that is very important to the movement toward total gender equality, there are still inequalities that most women are globally facing. There is still a sizable gap of inequality between men and women when it comes to economic participation and political empowerment. The study that this article analyzes is called the Global Gender Gap and it illustrates gender-disparity gaps between men and women from 135 countries. The study showed that there is impressive progress when it comes to the gap as far as education and health are concerned, but economic participation only held 59 percent and political empowerment was an even lower percentage, at a disappointing estimation of 18. One of the issues that is being attributed to these gaps are the social customs that each of these countries might have and might have had since their beginning. 

  Personally, I think it is incredibly heartening to know that there are countries besides ours that are trying to level the playing field, so to speak, for their female citizens. I think that the ever growing spread of Globalization will eventually assist women in reaching a level where women can be considered equal in ever way. 

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105708

Light at the end of Inequality Tunnel?

Meahgan Hayes

10/28/2011

   

   The article that I chose for this week discusses the fact that while the current protestors of the Occupy Wallstreet campaign are the 99% here in America, they are actually better off, economically, than the majority of people throughout the world. The point that this article is trying to make is that yes, while the inequality found in certain countries around the globe is astounding, the overall global inequality is so much worse and has the capabilities to do more damage on an even bigger scale. When looking at the rates of inequality of the different countries and how they compare to the rest of the world, it is common to use a system that is known as the Gini coefficient. On this scale 0 represents a nation that has perfect equality, meaning that absolutely everyone earns the same amount; and 100 represents a nation the has perfect inequality, meaning that the only one person in that nation holds any income. And as of late, countries such as Sweden have scores that range around 25, while certain countries found in Africa and South America are given scores in the 50’s. However, there is some good news. Within the last five or six years, the global Gini score has dropped from a  solid 70 to a 67-68. And while it may seem to be a dip that isn’t substantial, if it continues it could possibly be the first decline in global inequality since the Industrial Revolution. 

   I personally applaud this article. It doesn’t happen very often that you come across a news article that gives you an impression that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I think that there could be a great possibility that the world will eventually reach a point in time were things are more equal. But, I also think that there are lots of factors that this outcome is balancing upon, and I think it will take a great number of years until we reach that goal. 

http://www.livemint.com/2011/10/25205304/Let8217s-talk-of-inequality.html?h=B

UN Addresses the Occupy Movement

October 21, 2011

11:13 pm
Meahgan Hayes

   In my article last week, I talked about the Occupy Wallstreet’s plan on having a worldwide day of protest, which came to be known as the Worldwide Day of Rage. As a whole, the day was pretty successful, and in most countries and cities, with the exception of New York City and Rome, the protest were peaceful and had minimum police interference. It was the hope of the organizers that the sheer magnitude of a world scale protest would gain the type of attention that they had yet to achieve. And according to the article that I found for this week, their prayers may have been answered. The article talks about the meeting of the UN Economic Commission for Europe that happened in Geneva on Tuesday. In the meeting, the Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, called upon the European countries to come together and begin to carve out common goals that can address the problems that the public is obviously seeing, if not for ourselves, then for the very least, the sake of our children. He was also discussed his concern over the fact that it would seem that a majority of the global population has come to distrust the overall idea of government, and there is the undoubted belief that the elite class of people will always have an advantage over the less elite class. 

   I think this is possibly the step towards actual action that the occupy movement is needing. I think that if this movement continues to be as big as it was last week-end, it may lead to leveling the inequality playing field amongst the classes, not just here in America, but globally. 

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40089&Cr=sustainable+development&Cr1=

The Movement to Occupy

   Recently the Occupy Wallstreet protests have been one of the most talked about news pieces around the entire country. If by some chance, you haven’t heard about it, here’s what is going on: Occupy Wallstreet is a peaceful movement taking place in New York City. The protestors are a wide and diverse group of people who are all brought together because they say that they are they 99th percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent. Basically, what it all boils down to is the fact that a majority of America’s population has become overwhelmingly aware that there is a huge gap between the classes economically. And while this is the first big protest that has been seen in the United States, there have been rumblings of other such protests throughout the rest of the world, for some time now. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the original organizers of the Occupy movement. The article that I chose for this week, is addressing the event that organizers are hoping will happen tomorrow, a global day of protest. There are many editors and economists saying that they are surprised that there hasn’t already been protests of this scale. However, those same people are telling the organizers to not get their hopes up too high, because while this protest is something new and refreshing to America, there are many other countries around the world that have already had their protests and are wary to start that once again. 

   Personally, I agree that there is a need for something to be done, but I’m not really sure how protesting is going to solve our problems. I think it would be best for those people who are putting so much effort into the protests, to put that effort into trying to figure out how to actively achieve those goals. 

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/global/454302-occupy-wall-street-goes-global.html

Asia's Inequitable Growth

   Over the past few weeks, I have read several articles dealing with the current economic status of Asia, all of which have said that while the economy is declining, it is not as bad as it could be. However, the article that I found today, is claiming otherwise. The article is alleging that with the substantial increase of economic growth that East Asia has seen over the last half-century the entire global economy has experienced a shift. At first, most economists were predicting that it was going to be characterized as a ‘growth with equity’ meaning that there would be an equal distribution of income throughout the population. But as things began to spiral out of control, a new theory emerged. The theory of growth with inequality. This theory explains what has currently been happening with the economy and the recession.  Along with the emergence of this theory, there is a notable gap in the equality of the social classes. This has been especially evident in China. China experienced the world’s fastest economic growth to date, when it went through it’s free-market transformation, but today it is one of the most spectacular examples of the growing income inequality.

   I think that the most important thing about this entire article was the fact that it stated that this type of inequality is going to create strain on the democratic institutions that are in place. I also think that this affects not just Asia, but the rest of the world, they play such a big part in the global economy that if they are facing that type of inequality, we will undoubtedly feel it too. 

Extractive Industries and Development

   Last week, President Obama announced that the United States will be signing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) which means that the US will now have to comply with the rules that regulate the global transparency for oil, gas, and mining. What that means, is that from now on the governments and industries that mine, drill, or otherwise extract natural resources from certain areas of land; will have to pay the taxpayers of that area justly. And while this may seem like a step in the right direction for the United States, there are other countries who would tell us that we must still be cautious. Another event that took place last week, was the Civil Society Policy Forum which was part of the World Bank and the IMF’s Annual meeting. During the meeting, several panels met and discussed the issues of extractive industries, resource management, and economic development. 

   The article that I found for this week ,concentrated mainly on the session lead by economist Paul Collier, Karin Lissakers, and Antoine Heuty. During the session they talked about the different ways that countries and their governments go about the extraction of their natural resources. And they found that while there are countries, like the United States who are signing the EITI, there are still countries that are taking advantage of the places that are supplying their natural resources. This often creates a gap of inequality between the richer countries that are often the one’s doing the exploiting, and the poorer countries which are usually the one’s being stripped of their natural resources at a much lower price than they should be getting. I think that this is a global issue because it greatly affects our globalized economy.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-harris/prosper-or-plunder-extrac_b_986293.html

Inda and China Helping to Level-out Global Inequality

Meahgan Hayes

9/23/2011 

  Over the past few years, the global economy has gotten weaker, meaning that there is a growing gap of inequality between the more established countries and the less established countries. This phenomena goes to prove the existing theories of the downfalls of a globalized economy. 

   With that in mind, the article that I chose for this week’s blog might seem extremely contradictory. The article discusses another recent article that was published in the IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) Finance and Development magazine that states that though the entire global economy is facing a recession, the countries of India and China have moved past their previous income levels. By doing so, they are helping to level out the global inequality rate. The IMF says that this interesting development is a result of an increase in income levels and an ever increasing standard of living that is becoming common in several other countries as well. The IMF has recently put together a list of the top twenty five countries for their systematic trading centers, saw that countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia and Turkey had moved up on the list, while countries like France, Canada, and Switzerland 

have actually moved down on the list. 

   The fact that these countries are now seeming to become important to the overall global economy is wonderful because there is a good chance that if they continue at the rate that they are currently going, they will also continue to help even out global inequality even more, which in turn could benefit us all. 

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-09-12/news/30145379_1_global-inequality-india-and-china-economies

Parents in the UK Shouldn't Lay Blame On Themselves

Meahgan Hayes

SOC 202-01

September 15, 2011  

   It’s no secret that over the past thirty years, the classic dynamic of the average family has changed.  There are more and more woman who are choosing to juggle both motherhood, and a career. The common consensus among most women who have chosen this path is that the women are proud and thankful that they are able to provide for their families just as much as their male counter parts. But, recently, polls taken in Britain are starting to show that parents, mothers in particular are experiencing tremendous guilt over their workload taking time away from their families. A recent study  by UNICEF has been released that continues the debate about parenting in the UK, that the riots from this summer had started. Are parents in the United Kingdom really bad parents, or is the recent global recession forcing parents to work longer hours in order to provide for their families? 

   This is a global issue because, not only does this situation apply to middle to lower working class families in Britain, it could easily be applied to many of the middle to lower working class families in other post industrialized countries as well. I’m sure that if you looked at our country, or other countries like Germany and Australia, that we would find a similar story. In today’s global economy it is no surprise that parents of working class families are struggling to stay afloat financially, but where does that leave the family time? It’s easy for people who aren’t struggling financially to point fingers and say that parents need to do better parenting, but the reality is that most families are just trying to do as best they can.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/14/guilt-ministers-working-mothers?INTCMP=SRCH

Blog Post #2 Proposed Chinese Law Causes Uneasiness Amongst Citizens

Meahgan Hayes

9/8/2011

Blog 2

Recently in China, the National People’s Congress has released a revision of their Criminal Procedure Law that would give the police the authority to detain suspects for up to six months in cases that involve state security, terrorism, or serious cases of corruption, with the possibility that they may not even have to contact the suspects family or lawyer if they think that it could possibly slow down the investigation. Essentially, this law could very well give the police force the authority to basically kidnap people until they can come up with something to legitimately pin on the suspect. 

Over the past 25 years, China has tried to mend to rampant injustices that happen throughout it’s legal system. The Chinese government has began to realize that reforms within their government are needed, and they have begun to make advances concerning their endemic corruption, their social injustices, their wealth inequality, and their environmental degradation.  

I think that this law, if it were to be passed, is extremely scary. The idea that any form of government would legally be able to take seemingly random citizens off the streets and possibly submit those citizens to torture, is incredibly terrifying. The fact that this law is even being talked about as a possibility just goes to show that the ‘steps’ that the Chinese government has supposedly taken to try and make it so their society is more of a modern society, was all for naught. The Chinese government is still treating their citizens unequally, and they won’t be able to move forward until they truly and completely make up their minds that their citizens deserve those rights. 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/09/03/china.law/index.html?iref=allsearch

Blog Post #1 Class Still Matters in England

Meahgan Hayes
September 1, 2011
11:20 pm

Whether it was because of the fact that Washington was having a very heated debate about the debt crisis, or because it could very easily happen here; the riots that spread throughout England during the first few weeks of August, weren’t really talked about much on the US news. When it came down to officials trying to figure out what exactly had catapulted the nation into a state of panic, the loudest response they received were comments about the ever growing gap of inequality between the social classes. 

Ever since the end of the riots, ‘class’ has become a social issue that is being more closely looked at and dissected. Polly Toynbee is a contributer for The Guardian and she has recently decided to take up this issue head on, by doing a series of columns and guest spots on Britain's radio station, Radio 4 . In her first column, Toynbee talks about recent studies that have suggested that the class you are in now, will probably be the class that your children, and their children, will be a part of. When you learn that, and then also look at some of the other facts that Toynbee brings up, for example, how the wealth gap in Britain has grown over just the past thirty years, it becomes awfully easy to understand the growing social unrest. 

It is clear that the wealth gap is going to become a large social problem for England, I think that the riots started an awareness over the issue that might lead to a movement throughout the government that could hopefully lead to a peaceful and beneficial outcome.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/31/polly-toynbee-class-q-and-a?INTCMP=SRCH