Stop drinking tea on moral grounds?

It's a flawed argument from the start, relevant to value here or Syria is meaningless. It's about local buying power. Lots of india has no sewerage or even running water.
You can't just up peoples pay and conditions, pressure from the west has done that before. And the locals lose professional people, as it pays more to be a labourer.

Guy in india or what ever it was called, was a good insight into Mumbais biggest slum.
And actually wasn't as bad as you would think.
 
a former colleague got a contract with a European bank to work in their Indian office on a rolling 6 month basis... on London contract rates...

he lived like a king out there - rented a house complete with a cleaner/cook etc.. even hired a driver

In London he's have been renting a 1 or 2 bedroom flat or jumping through lots of hoops to get a mortgage as a contractor (only after a couple of years of accounts etc..)
 
dowie said:
a former colleague got a contract with a European bank to work in their Indian office on a rolling 6 month basis... on London contract rates...

he lived like a king out there - rented a house complete with a cleaner/cook etc.. even hired a driver

In London he's have been renting a 1 or 2 bedroom flat or jumping through lots of hoops to get a mortgage as a contractor (only after a couple of years of accounts etc..)
Click to expand...

Not unusual when you realise how chaotic it is there.
 
dowie said:
a former colleague got a contract with a European bank to work in their Indian office on a rolling 6 month basis... on London contract rates...

he lived like a king out there - rented a house complete with a cleaner/cook etc.. even hired a driver

In London he's have been renting a 1 or 2 bedroom flat or jumping through lots of hoops to get a mortgage as a contractor (only after a couple of years of accounts etc..)
Click to expand...

This is I guess why a lot of people do it. Watched a program about pilots, dude was 30 used to work in bristol lives in Papua new guinea, said he misses friends sometimes but he lives in a king and didn't think he could go back to a bleak life in the UK.
 
I drink Canadian coffee so my morning fix is both ethical and tasty.

On a more serious note, as a first world country we have a responsibility for the people of this world who can't defend, feed or help them self. Fair trade, war, aid, it should all be to the benefit of the people who need it most.
Unfortunately in the world we live in, one that puts profit and wealth above and beyond the welfare of even the people they are put in place to govern or serve we are destined to a future where by the only way we progress as a race is at the expense and great cost of people lower than us in the food chain of wealth.

It's a sad fact that can't be changed until the majority of us are on the side that want to change it, I can't see that changing any time soon.
 
Kanifee said:
I drink Canadian coffee so my morning fix is both ethical and tasty.

On a more serious note, as a first world country we have a responsibility for the people of this world who can't defend, feed or help them self. Fair trade, war, aid, it should all be to the benefit of the people who need it most.
Unfortunately in the world we live in, one that puts profit and wealth above and beyond the welfare of even the people they are put in place to govern or serve we are destined to a future where by the only way we progress as a race is at the expense and great cost of people lower than us in the food chain of wealth.

It's a sad fact that can't be changed until the majority of us are on the side that want to change it, I can't see that changing any time soon.
Click to expand...

To much scaremongering media. This isn't the case at all. the figures show otherwise. We live in a very peaceful time, the poorest are far more wealthy than a few decades ago, life expectancy has gone up for everyone, optuntitys globally have gone up etc.
The media like fear, but you look at the facts and figures it's a very different outlook.
Should read Abundance - Peter Diamandis or subscribe to tedtalks on youtube, although you can't subscribe by Category so everything comes up.
The future is looking good for us as a species.
 
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Glaucus said:
To much scaremongering media. This isn't the case at all. the figures show otherwise. We live in a very peaceful time, the poorest are far more wealthy than a few decades ago, life expectancy has gone up for everyone, optuntitys globally have gone up etc.
The media like fear, but you look at the facts and figures it's a very different outlook.
Should read Abundance - Peter Diamandis or subscribe to tedtalks on youtube, although you can't subscribe by Category so everything comes up.
The future is looking good for us as a species.
Click to expand...


Ill take a look.
 
It's worth a read for a different take on things, even if you don't agree on everything, as there's a lot of speculation albeit it educated speculation on things which are being researched etc
.
The problem is news is short time frames, yes bad things happen. But short time frames don't tell the story. If you look at multiple decades then everything is improving.

And as I said earlier in the thread, the you can't just up the wage, economies don't work like that, we've made that mistake. And it wrecks the local population, as policeman, teachers, doctors go and do these factory jobs as they get paid more than these essential jobs.
Huge amount if India doesn't have running water or sewage, they're having massive TV campaigns about the dangers of poo. It's shock value by the article but hardly surprising when you realise that's how most of India works.
Progress takes time, you can't just up standards of living overnight.

It's estimated that employment law in the uk costs the economy 5k per person, average wage in India is less than 2k, just giving them the same rights as us would bankrupt them. Which is why rights slowly and gradually come in, relative to economic strength per capita.
 
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Kanifee said:
On a more serious note, as a first world country we have a responsibility for the people of this world who can't defend, feed or help them self. Fair trade, war, aid, it should all be to the benefit of the people who need it most.

Unfortunately in the world we live in, one that puts profit and wealth above and beyond the welfare of even the people they are put in place to govern or serve we are destined to a future where by the only way we progress as a race is at the expense and great cost of people lower than us in the food chain of wealth.
Click to expand...

The notion that first world countries are somehow benevolent and keep an eye on the 3rd world is as miss-placed today as it's ever been. The British Empire was built on the back of exploiting resources from every nook and cranny of the planet. Cotton, tea, spices, silk, fur, you name it, we've been up for it and we won't even mention slavery. It doesn't come close to as bad as it's been in the past by quite some margin; still doesn't make it right. If we all stopped drinking tea it wouldn't make their lives any better, they would just look planting another produce and making money from that, or moving elsewhere leaving nothing. It's not joe public doing the trading and keeping the profits high. It's how it works, the multi-nationals don't give a stuff. It's not made made in China/India/Taiwan because it's better quality it because it's cheap as chips. Look at the likes M&S English stalwart of "Britishness" and quality. Just look at the labels and see where they are made.
 
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shadow_boxer said:
Are any particular tea companies better than others out of interest? (Not UK based ones)
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/If/ that ethicalconsumer site posted earlier is to be believed, then CafeDirect isn't such a bad choice, scoring 15/20 (best was 17/20). I like the taste of their tea, and it's sold in Tescos, etc.

Twinings comes out bottom of the pile (2/20), and was named in the BBC programme as one of the companies buying from the big plantations.

Apparently, CafeDirect don't buy from the plantations but from small growers.

I've not verified any of this. But I will be making some small contribution, I hope, by not buying Twinings when it's discounted, and sticking to CafeDirect in future.

Before I just got whatever was on offer, and wasn't Tetley (yuck).
 
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