financial crisis

Rising from unemployment to entrepreneurship

Ségolène F24 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:38:21 +0200

A growing number of unemployed people are thinking about starting their own business. Some 25% of those out of work have this in mind – compared with 12.5% of French people generally. But starting your own business can be complicated - from finding finance, to the complicated red-tape involved, to running your own accounts.

Can the police contain the anti-NATO activists?

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:36:06 +0200

"Let's make the NATO summit a disaster!" An ad from anarchist group "Dissent'.

One of the activists who's preparing to cause havoc at NATO's 60^th birthday celebrations on April 3 and 4 tells us how her group, "Dissent", is going about it. For the sixty heads of state taking part in the summit, the opposition doesn't look pretty.

Three cities are hosting this year's NATO summit: Strasbourg in eastern France, neighbouring Kehl on the German side of the border, and Baden-Baden, just north of the two. The security operation is impressive: almost 9,000 officers and riot police on the French side, 21,000 from their German compatriots, and on top of that, French GIPN and GIGN forces (SWAT-style police) are on hand in case of emergencies. Fighting the other corner, however, is an immense and diverse circle of activists. Anarchists, libertarians, alter-globalists, unionists - they all want to cause havoc, whether it's in opposition to the enlargement of NATO or the occupation of Afghanistan.

America’s workers at breaking point

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:04:04 +0200

The scene shown in this video took place outside a car dealership where 30 people were laid off. The footage has already become popular on the Web - it's both sad, and yet rather amusing, depending on how you look at it. But it also reveals a widespread and mounting discontent that's pushing America's workforce to bursting point.

You hear the mammoth figures. Tens of billions of dollars in losses last year; hundreds of thousands of employees put out of work. There's no denying it; the American automobile industry's is in dire straits. But where you'll really feel it, is in the country's old industrial heartland, where entire communities have been left in disarray by the tumbling industry. One of those places is Michigan, where the following scene was shot.

The scene, filmed by local TV station News Channel 3, unfolded outside a Chevrolet car dealership in the small Michigan town of Wayland. The dealership had just announced to its employees that it would be closing, leaving the 30 members of staff jobless.

Among them was Jason Stanton (the man in red with a pink cap). After intoxicating himself, the worker took up the matter with one of his colleagues, who had also lost his job. It was one of three fights that followed the news. All of which, according to the local authorities, were fuelled by alcohol.

On a separate note, the information given by News Channel 3 was not entirely accurate. The man interviewed in the blue shirt appeared to be the same one attacked in the first shot. But when we called him to verify what happened, we were surprised to find out that he had nothing to do with the violence, and had simply been interviewed about the closure of the dealership as a concerned Wayland resident. Chemist Mike Shea, who's name was even mentioned in the online report, explained that he was stopped by the channel for his opinion before the violence broke out, and was surprised to see himself featured in the report as though he were one of those involved.

The girl who rescued the family business by raising money on Facebook

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:26:33 +0100

Posted on Fanny's Facebook group.

Fanny Gamelin has saved her father's family business by raising 200,000 euros on the net, mainly thanks to Facebook. She tells us about her fight and the initiative that helped win it, despite the financial crisis.

Fanny's father, Joël Gamelin, who founded the business 27 years ago, committed suicide in his office on Christmas Eve. His daughter launched the Facebook appeal in the hope of, at least provisionally, bailing out the shipyard company, which with two million euros of debt, had just been declared bankrupt.

'I’m in one hell of a mess'

Ségolène F24 — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:44:59 +0100

Michel Tudeng has been out of work since Dec. 19, 2008. He is one of some 80 temporary workers from the Arcelor-Mittal site in eastern France whose contracts have not been renewed.
Tudeng has been left with a bitter taste in his mouth in the wake of promises made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Feb. 4, 2008 to maintain all the activities of the steel works. Today, he feels like he has been fooled and accuses the head of state of lying.
He is finding it hard to get out of his financial difficulties. His wife is also out of work.

"From the moment you leave this room (...) you won't be returning to your office"

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:41:44 +0100

Crisis, layoffs, unemployment, bailout... words that are hard to ignore these days. To help better understand the impact of the crisis on daily life, The Observers turns to a panel of people of various nationalities and profiles who all have one thing in common - they're out of work.

Sophie, a Frenchwoman living in London, UK, was fired so abruptly that she wasn't even allowed to go back to her office to get her personal belongings.

In the US, Don Godfrey's contract at a Ford plant was terminated on the same day that his wife was put out of work. But he still feels privileged because the couple gets unemployment benefits.

And Emilio, who lives in Spain, has to rely on his wife's income of 500 euros a month until he's hired by a new construction site.

Each one of them has a personal story to tell: financial troubles, frustrated professional plans and the relentless hunt for a job. We'll be following them throughout 2009 and, hopefully, seeing them return to work.

British jobs for British workers – a racist movement?

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:20:52 +0100

The Conservative Party is vandalised for campaigning in favour of immigration caps. Image: Nic Walker on Flickr.

Unemployed British Labourers are now in their third week of staged protests against lower pay for their foreign counterparts. And rightly so - government statistics show that while over 200,000 immigrants were given jobs in the last quarter of 2008, nearly 300,000 UK-born workers lost theirs. However, the action is being marred by an unofficial movement of childish bullying at work and an overly keen interest from the British National Party, as our Polish Observer in the UK tells us.

In the most recent demonstration 400 people gathered at a power station in Nottinghamshire on Wednesday, demanding that British workers are given the same opportunities as foreign labourers and that pay is the same for both groups. The movement is largely caused by a growing discontent amongst British labourers of which increasing numbers have found themselves jobless in the economic crisis. But the rift has led to worries over racism and nationalism in Europe's most eurosceptic country, after the British Nationalist Party threw their support behind the protestors. While Union chiefs say the BNP has nothing to do with it and British workers insist that they're not being racist, some foreign labourers report being subjected to petty bullying at work, even to the point of losing their jobs.

Handing out cash in Times Square

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:49:14 +0100

A mystery man was handing out cash to anyone willing to tell him why they needed it on Wednesday. "Bailout Bill" installed himself in Times Square, New York, creating trailing queues of cash-strapped Americans.

If you're ready to queue up for a couple of hours and tell a stranger why you want him to give you money, then Bailout Bill will reward you with at least $50 (€40). The reason behind the mysterious initiative is a little disappointing - it's part of a publicity campaign for a new classified advertising website, BailoutBooth.com. Nonetheless, it's attracting a lot of attention. As America's economy reaches its most dire lows and increasing numbers of people find themselves jobless, giving away free money is probably the most popular stunt you can pull. And nobody seems averse to sharing their desperate pleas. The online appeals are already hundreds deep, and include a girl who "bumped my car into a wall and I need to pay for what is broke", somebody who is simply "broak [sic] need money", and another who is "eating samples [giveaways] from Costco daily". After New York, next stop Washington DC for Bailout Bill, who's planning to give away $500,000 in total. Not a bad price for an advertising campaign in the US, where 30 seconds airtime at the Superbowl can cost you $3 million...

Photos posted on Flickr by "Planet Money".

The queue in Times Square.

A man who received money is interviewed by the press.

He waited in line for an hour and a half to get $100.

"Kind of like in the Matrix: you wake up and realise everything was a lie"

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:40:51 +0100

Image: Oli Kristinn.

Now it's official: Iceland's floundering government, under fire from an enraged population, has become the world's first to fall victim to the global financial crisis.

On Monday Prime Minister Geir Haarde announced the immediate resignation of his cabinet after last-ditch talks with coalition partners broke down. The dramatic move came after a week in which Iceland exploded in uncharacteristic violence and took to the streets to voice its anger with an administration that has presided over a spectacular economic meltdown. The Icelandic people, burdened by huge job losses (unemployment, once 1%, is expected to rise to 10% in 2009), soaring mortgage rates and unprecedented rises in food costs, descended on the parliament building in their thousands last week to urge the government to stand down. But although their wish has now been granted, they know the worst is still to come...

'Made in China': "the worth of our work is so low, and the price of our materials so immaterial"

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:52:00 +0100

One of our Nepali Observers gives her perspective on Asia's dependence on its exports market and the effect this has on the economic crisis.

A butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, and the flutter causes a hurricane on the other side. This causality, so widely cited by everybody from weather experts to scientists to economists looking at causes for seemingly-random but connected phenomena, becomes more relevant in this day and age when a global financial crisis is occurring. The collapse of one mortgage company in America, it appears, could trigger the collapse of the entire house of cards which we call the global economy.

That's why I am fascinated to find that, despite the crisis, the streets of Granada, a city in Southern Spain, is full of shoppers who throng the classy areas, buying clothes and boots and bags, buying jewellery and scarves and other bric-a-brac, all clearly manufactured in Asia. Despite the 'Made in Spain' stamp (written in English), I can recognize a pair of boots-or an entire store of boots-made in China when I see one. So the question presents itself-how can Southern Spain, whose main economy seems to rest on manufacturing pork and cheese and wine and olive oil, command such a strong currency that it's able to buy up entire storehouses of Asia at discounted rates? Are our workers so cheap, and our materials so inconsequential, that a winter coat can cost only €6.99? How is it possible, I wonder, that this kind of frenetic shopping can take place all over Europe, while in parts of Southern Asia we struggle to buy a good pair of shoes? How can the Zacatin (Granada's market street) be full of goods from Nepal, cheaper in price than if I tried to buy them in Kathmandu? I always buy clothes when I have the chance to visit Europe-not just because of the quality, which is always better than consumer goods you can find in the supermarkets of Nepal, but also because of the price, which is always more competitive and affordable. How on earth, I asked myself, is this possible?

The answer may lie less in economics than in a rather complicated internalization of self-image which I call the 'Thamel Factor'. In Thamel, that storehouse of Oriental goods, I invariably come upon shop assistants who give me an insufferably condescending look when I ask them if I can buy an embroidered cushion cover, or a slightly funky jacket. 'Well, okay, we´ll show you, if you insist', they will say. 'But really this is not for Nepalis. Our main market is Europe. Nepalis can't afford to buy stuff like this'.

And here lies the gist of the matter. That sneer, which bothered me for years, comes into focus as I look at the piles of scarves and t-shirts and jewellery, all made in Nepal, all half price and discounted in the window fronts of Spain. Precious and semi-precious stones of Nepal make it out of the country, meant for consumers other than the ones who produce and manufacture these objects. But in its stead, we get no wine and cheese. And why is that? Is it because the Europeans make us believe our goods are worth so little that they can buy up the entire marketplace for a pittance? Or is it because we, in some way, also believe this?

Yes, of course. An old college saying comes back to me; the colonizer and the colonized are always complicit. This could never happen if employers and factory owners in Asia, and Central America, and Africa, didn't play along. China brutalizes its people and makes them work at slavery rates. And everywhere else from free trade zones to maquiladoras, from Mexico to Bangladesh, the people reinforce over and over: the worth of a poor human being must remain low.

Does the fault lie only with the First World? Despite all my education in colonialism, I say no. The fault also lies with us, the people of the East who believe the worth of our work is so low, and the price of our materials so immaterial, that we can-indeed, should-sell everything to Europe and that the locals who make these objects can never be worth enough to buy them.

Imagine, for instance, if Ray Kroc had said: 'Be gone you stupid Americans, these luscious hamburgers are meant only for the Australians, who know how to appreciate a good hamburger when they see one'. Or if the Spanish had said: 'Vamooosh Chulos, this ham and cheese is not meant for you, it's only for our special customers, the French.' Imagine what would have happened then? Imagine if the French made their wine only for their special customers, the Americans, and refused to sell it to the locals? Would they be the great civilization that they are now?

But such is the case in Asia. We imagine that our customers are always the 'Others'-white skinned, fair-faced, pockets loaded with euros. We don't know that they are just like us, that they can only afford a closetful of clothes and after that even the most acquisitive of human beings tire of buying, and it would make sense to make less clothes but pay your workers more. Then, perhaps, a Nepali could also have enough money to buy some European oil and cheese, and olive oil owners in Spain wouldn't have to worry about how the market was doing badly.

At the moment, the asymmetry of the world rests on a pure economic illusion that people of one part of the world deserve more than the other. The illusion is maintained not just by the First World that suffers under this glut of overproduction, but also by the people in Third World countries who persist in thinking they are too poor to afford to pay their workers, too poor to buy quality goods, and too poor to have a symmetrical exchange rate.

This is all very well and good, you may think. After all, it's working in favour of one side of the planet so why change it, right? Well, that's when we come back to the butterfly. Because when one side of the world groans from poverty, unable to afford even three meals a day, when their schoolhouses have no electricity and their hospitals lack medicine, when they work years of their lives, for more than eighty hours a week, in foreign countries but return home with less money than when they left, then it's not just the psychic burden that Europe and America have to bear. It is also the fact that the lives of each and every one in the planet becomes inextricably intertwined, and poverty in one part affects the other. Affluence in the Third World would bring a boom in human cultural and economic growth, whereas right now all it brings about are individuals who struggle to find work (on both sides of the planet)-one side determined to dump its cheap goods made by slave-like labour while the other part sinks under the weight of Asia.

How long could such a state of affairs last? Well, now we know. Until 2009, when a butterfly fluttered its wings, and a global financial crisis that nobody understands took over the world. But change is not always bad. This may be the time to renegotiate-not just trade relations, and prices, and financial equivalence, but also the way in which we imagine ourselves as people of the world. The poor have to understand that they are only poor as long as they imagine themselves to be so. In Nepal, that means seeing a human being as somebody worth much more than he or she is today."

Sushma sent us these photos to illustrate her post:

Clearance sale. Posted by "reblog".

Sales. Posted by "Ah! Bilbao".

Sales over sales. Amazing discounts this year. From the major Spanish department store, El Corte Ingels.