Are we liberated by tech or does it enslave us?

I don't think anyone would disagree with the notion that all technology, be it digital, is bad. As we say, any thing in the world is not bad, if you use it right. Heck, as National Rifle Association (NRA) of America says, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Undoubtedly, they are correct to an extent. After all people were being killed before the invention of gun powder or guns.

Any technology, be it the phone in your hand, or that tablet in your lap, or that laptop on your desk, or those video game boxes attached to your giant TV, or the latest gadgets in your car, or even those kitchen & household machines, are not bad, in themselves, but ultimately their usage defines their "villainous" ability. Their "unintended consequences" are ultimately dependent on the user.

For instance, a common complaint from parents, & healthcare professionals, is that childhood diabetes is increasing all over the world, because children are not spending time outdoors, but are always engrossed in their smartphones & video game boxes. True. But the problem is not to ban that tech, but to take children out to park & spend time with them outside of the house. That's the responsibility of the parents. However, parents themselves are busy spending time on those tech marvels, like sticking their smartphones on their faces 20 hours a day. Due to spending so much time engrossed in their phones, they don't have any time left for their loved ones, to enjoy life (instead of watching & showing off how their lives are, to others), or to do healthy activities themselves, like sleeping 6-8 hours at night.

That's the problem at a micro level. Let's take an example at a macro level; digital technology creating (or will be creating) mass unemployment at a national, or even an international, level. People study & spend a significant portion of their lives in a specific profession or industry. Then, they get the shock of their lives when they are laid off because their skills are not in demand anymore, because digital tech is replacing their skills. In these kinds of situations, governments & industry need to step in & jointly take control.

It's true that nobody can control the march of technology but the damaging effects, or the "unintended consequences" can be controlled, or perhaps, mitigated to some extent. For example, all those people who are laid off should be retrained at the expense of the government, & those companies, which have disrupted the industry through their technology, should also financially contribute in the retraining of those people. Those people can also be hired by those same companies, after their retraining. Because, those people are a financial, economic, & social burden on the governments and society, but they can be tax-paying, productive part of the citizenry, who would pay back the cost of their retraining, to the government, in the form of taxes. Governments can also look ahead in the future & see what professions should be promoted through educational institutes & the educational pipeline (schools, colleges, & universities) & connect the educational side (the supply of labour) with the industry (the demand of labour), so the public has an idea as to what should be studied now to earn its fruits later on.

Technology, in itself, is never bad. As the author says in the opinion piece that its "unintended consequences" can also never be predicted beforehand. But technology's bad consequences are often the bad practices of users. Users need to keep in mind how to properly use that technology, & how that technology is affecting others; be it their loved ones, their social circle, their professional circle, or their community at large, or even themselves.

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/are-we-liberated-by-tech-or-does-it-enslave-us

Technology is unruly. New innovations bring with them a host of unintended consequences, ranging from the troubling to the downright depressing. Social media makes us lonely. Too much screen-time makes teenagers fall behind their peers. And at the more feeble end of the spectrum, many of us have walked into an obstacle while texting. Whatever glorious vision animates the moguls of Silicon Valley, it surely can’t be this.

We’re much better at designing complex systems than we are at predicting their behaviour, argues the writer Edward Tenner. Even though unintended consequences are inevitable, Tenner thinks they can be powerful catalysts for progress. But even the notion of an “intended consequence” is problematic when it comes to tech. Evgeny Morazov points out that we tend to confuse the positive consequences of information technology with intended ones, downplaying the significance of other natural, but rather less noble, upshots like pornography, surveillance and authoritarian control.

Free time is a case in point. Technology makes us more productive, but it’s also accused of unreasonably extending the domain of work. So does tech liberate us, or enslave us? And what does it really “intend” to do?

Tech and ‘free time’: a confusing picture

In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that the most pressing concern of the man of the future would be “how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him.” It hasn’t quite turned out that way - but Keynes wasn’t entirely off the mark. When we consider the lot of the average labourer of the past, our complaints about work-life balance start to sound pretty peevish. And the rise of technology really has, it seems, given us more free time than ever. So why do we still feel harried?

It’s worth noting that modern leisure is just as tech-saturated as work. Americans who subscribe to Netflix spend more time on the site than they do eating and having sex combined, TDG research found. The average Briton spends 1 hour 20 minutes every day monitoring four social media accounts, according to research from the Global Web Index. But all this screen-time makes us uneasy. To co-opt David Foster Wallace’s description of attitudes to television in the 1990s, there’s a “weird hate-need-fear-6-hrs-daily gestalt” about the whole thing.

But technology doesn’t just offer us escape. It promises to transfigure our bodies, our minds and our very souls by making us fitter, happier, and more productive - but it does it by insinuating that we’re, well, a bit suboptimal as we are. “There’s an app for that” comes with a whispered aside: “You know you’re doing it wrong, right?”

Everyone’s a bit of a Luddite

Criticisms of tech can sound shrill, but it’s not antediluvian to notice the impossible desires technology breeds. Our devices present us with simulacra of beautiful, fit, fulfilled people pursuing their dreams and falling in love, and none of them are browsing the web at 11pm on a Saturday night - unlike us. We click and swipe our woebegone way through a vibrant world where nobody who is anybody spends their free time in front of a glowing screen, painfully aware that our only access to that world is through that very glowing screen.

But we’re no fools. We know that nothing on the web as it seems. We long to detach ourselves from the whole circus for once and for all - and so we turn once again to the internet to research digital detoxes and vent our tech-related spleen. The web has a way of dancing around us, knowingly and self-referentially and maddeningly deflecting every attempt we make to express our unease.

Is ‘free time’ a misnomer?

But prying our free time from the clutches of technology isn’t necessarily the answer. The German philosopher Theodor Adorno argued that “free time” is an artificial concept – and it’s anything but free. For Adorno, free time is the very propogation of work: it is “nothing more than a shadowy continuation of labour”.

Today’s tech-saturated leisure trade – to say nothing of the trillion-dollar behemoth that is the “wellness industry” – is an integral part of a world in which we are treated as consumers first and citizens second. Talk of reclaiming free time is missing the point. What we need is control of the time we already have.

But in yet another twist, this is just what Paul Mason thinks information technology might allow us to do. For Mason, the “sharing economy” contains within it the glimmer of a genuine alternative – a post-capitalist society structured around liberty instead of economics. If Mason is right, tech might free us from the need for “free time” entirely. But how does this complex narrative fit into the storybook of “unintended consequences”?

The myth of ‘unintended consequences’

Well, it doesn’t. Unintended consequences are a myth, because anticipating the effects of even the simplest innovation is a fool’s errand. Forget about information technology, or calculus, or Linear B: even the toaster would be a challenge.

Tech innovators frequently profess aspirations to improve the lot of mankind. Such aspirations are admirable, but we shouldn’t forget that there’s one rather more concrete intention they share: to make money. They’re vendors, we’re consumers: it’s as simple as that. Still, it’s a huge leap from there to the claim that tech is, in Foster Wallace’s words, a “diabolical corrupter of personal agency and community gumption”.

But even if tech companies aren’t really trying to enslave us, or to make us feel inadequate, that doesn’t mean that the current situation is a case of good intentions gone awry. There’s no more reason to think that tech is intrinsically good, but occasionally getting it wrong, than there is to think that it’s a remarkably successful villain.

We love to praise tech, and we love to condemn it. We equate it with chaos, power, love, hate; with democracy, with tyranny, with progress and regress - we laud it as our salvation, while lamenting it as our scourge. Like any technology that has come before it, digital technology is all of these things. But it’s essentially none of them.

How Pakistani-Americans are entering interfaith & interracial marriages — & making them work

In this story, published in a Pakistani newspaper, there were 3 stories of Pakistanis marrying someone non-Pakistani or even non-Muslims. I am ok with Pakistanis marrying someone other than Pakistanis. Here, I will take up the issue with one of those 3 stories. I also have an issue with a Pakistani newspaper glorifying the married lives of a Muslim woman with a Jewish man.

Firstly, Islam prefers people of the same religion marrying within the same religion. It is emphasized so much so in the Quran that "even a female Muslim slave girl is better [to become a wife of a Muslim man] than a beautiful rich non-Muslim girl." The reason is that the off-springs of that marriage, their children, will grow up to be completely confused in their religious views & may end up following no religion at all or some kind of a neo-religion, which is a mix of their parents' religions & coming up with something completely new.

This we can see in the case in the story below that the daughter of Chaudhry and Kravitz think of herself as "a quarter Muslim, quarter Jewish, & half Christian." So, the Islam is already relegated to 25% & eventually, it will be very likely completely lost when she grows & ends up marrying someone for love from another religion. They are also raising their daughter by introducing her to their respective faith traditions and "observe all holidays" including "Passover, the Jewish High Holidays ... the Eid services." Top it all of, the family also "celebrate Christmas each year" & "there’s a tree & ... presents.” The young girl is learning that that's what a Muslim is all about; celebrate Eid, Passover, Christmas, Easter. Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him) said that Muslims who will follow other non-Muslims will end up being raised on the Judgement Day with those non-Muslims.

Secondly, Islam prohibits a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man. The reason for this is that, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or race, the woman / wife usually ends up acquiescing to man / husband's wishes in major decision related to the family & household matters. So, children born in that family will end up with either the father's religion or no religion at all, since they will never know what being a Muslim is really about.

Thirdly, I have an issue with a Pakistani newspaper glorifying this marriage union in a Pakistani newspaper. I don't have an issue people, regardless of their religion or race, marrying whoever they want. I don't have an issue when self-proclaimed Muslims marry whoever they want, however they want, but I do have an issue when that marriage union is being publicized, by a newspaper in an Islamic country, to give legitimacy to such unreligious unions. We Pakistanis have an obsession with anything non-Pakistani & a majority of the Pakistani youths (in Pakistan & abroad) are being influenced with the neo-liberal narrative of Islam that Islam is so backward & undeveloped religion that they are willing to marry anyone, but a Pakistani & a Muslim, & some specifically reject such marriage proposals from Muslim Pakistanis.

Since, the skin colour cannot be changed, young Pakistanis are willing to do anything in their power they can do to change the circumstances to not look like Pakistani or Muslim. This thought that as long as a person is a good human, he / she is a good Muslim is a wrong thought in itself. Nobody knows the definition of "a good human". Islam teaches that whoever follows its teachings is a good human. Christians think they are good humans. Jews, Hindus, Buddhist; they all believe that they are good humans & better than the other.

If young Muslims think that Islam is a backward religion & it should be more like Christianity or Judaism, then Islam is not going to change, but yes, those young Muslims are more than welcome to become an ex-Muslim. There is no compulsion in the religion. Believe in it or don't. But don't be a hypocrite. Don't cherry-pick things from the religion & believe in something & reject the other. If you are so ashamed being a Muslim, then better to get out of it. If you want to marry a non-Muslim & celebrate every holiday of every non-Muslim & Muslim, then so be it, but better to get out of Islam & follow whatever you want to believe in. As I quoted Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H.) earlier that people who will follow others, will be resurrected on the Judgement Day, with those people. So, those "Muslims" won't be resurrected with other Muslims, but with Christians & Jews. After all, Christians & Jews are not celebrating Eids like Muslims, or Hindus are not celebrating Eid to return the actions of Muslims celebrating Holi, Christmas, Easter, Passover etc. Remember, when we try to copy others, we forget ourselves in the process & usually end up neither here nor there.

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https://www.dawn.com/news/1334329/how-pakistani-americans-are-entering-interfaith-and-interracial-marriages-and-making-them-work

...
A Muslim-Jewish marriage

When Amara Chaudhry’s parents emigrated from Lahore over four decades ago, they settled in a small American town in Appalachian Virginia. This is where Chaudhry was born and brought up.

“There were very few South Asian immigrants in town; they mostly came later in the 80s,” she says. Being different she, “experienced and witnessed a lot of discrimination from childhood through adulthood”.

She believes these experiences have informed her career choice. “That’s why I became a civil rights lawyer, and even within that I focused on criminal justice for so long, because I think that’s how racism is perpetrated primarily in the United States,” the Philadelphia-based attorney says.

She met her husband, John Kravitz when she initially came to Pennsylvania to interview for a legal job. Like many cinematic meet cutes, Kravitz and Chaudhry’s first interaction was on an elevator.

“It’s funny because I’m actually claustrophobic,” she says. But to avoid getting lost in the maze-like office building she avoided taking the stairs and met her future husband on her way up.

This was back in 2003, the couple finally tied the knot in 2013.

We ask Chaudhry if the differences in their cultures and religions was ever a concern for her parents.

“It was not something that my family ever mentioned to me,” she says. She adds that, “I have always felt as though John's extended family had a harder time with it.”

Chaudhry says that some in Kravitz’s family still seems “somewhat uncomfortable” with her and with their daughter, Laila.

She also feels that the South Asian Muslim community has been more accepting of Kravitz than the Jewish community is of her.

“John has accompanied me to several social events in the Muslim community, and I have done the same with him. My perception is that the Muslim community is very open and engaging towards John in these settings, but when I'm at a Jewish event, I feel like a get strange looks and people generally try to keep their distance. Of course, that could just be my perception.”

Chaudhry believes that even though America today is more diverse than the America she grew up in, it is still far from “post-racial”.

She sees this in her daughter’s interactions with some classmates. “My child actually attends a school that is incredibly diverse. Yet, there are still issues… She still gets teased for being darker than other Americans,” she says. This is despite Laila being “extremely light-skinned”.

Chaudhry and Kravitz are raising their daughter by introducing her to their respective faith traditions and more. “We try to observe all holidays. We observe Passover, the Jewish High Holidays... and Laila also attends the Eid services in our local mosque. But then since Christianity sort of permeates culture in the United States… we celebrate Christmas each year at my parents house; we stay overnight, there’s a tree, in the morning Laila opens presents.”

By introducing Laila to different schools of thought, Chaudhry and Kravitz have given their daughter the liberty to actively choose how she identifies. “Laila has boldly declared each holiday season that she’s a quarter Muslim, quarter Jewish and half Christian. Now mathematically that doesn’t work... But I think that’s an interesting thing because she wants to have Christmas and she wants to have Easter, so that’s how she declared it.”
...

Criminal Minds, S1E19 Quote

Criminal Minds, S1E19 Quote

Illegal overfishing and the return of Somalia's pirates

As we, especially in the West, may have had heard or seen news stories about how Somali pirates were looting ships & abducting marine officials near Somali waters, we forgot to stop & think why Somalis were turning to piracy in the first place. Although, piracy has ended now, as the article suggest, it may rears its ugly head once again.

From news stories & popular media (for instance, Tom Hanks' 2013 movie, "Captain Phillips") never bothered to tell the public that Somali pirates are fishermen from whom their livelihoods had been taken away by other countries.

The truth is that be it in America or France or Somalia, people will turn to criminal ventures, if & when their livelihoods are taken away. A father will become a drug pusher or gang member or a pirate, when he watches his family struggle to feed themselves a proper meal or sleep under a roof or even cover themselves with proper clothes. All of us humans have an innate ability to tell the difference between what's right & what's wrong. People only get involved in crimes when they don't find the legal job opportunity to earn enough money to fulfill their & their family's needs.

Government officials, from their own governments, & international bodies readily blame the criminal for his/her actions but always forget to see the context & background of how & why a person becomes a criminal. Similar to a African-America "thug," a Somali fisherman might have become a pirate because he doesn't have any other way to make some money. And when government & law enforcement officials would find out the background, they would hopefully implement the right solutions to resolve the problem instead of just bombarding & killing the pirates, in the case.

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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/illegal-overfishing-return-somalia-pirates-151006111159994.html

A hundred years ago, it was a bustling port that served the vibrant fishing community living along Somalia's coastline, the longest on mainland Africa.

Now, Durduri is a sun-bleached, wind-swept, white-sand graveyard of stone structures. There is no harbour, no jetty. The drying & smoking house is just a tumble of bricks.

This is one of many historical coastal trading towns that have risen & fallen with empires. When the busy trade routes moved away, fishing was one of the few lifelines left.

Talk to locals now & you will find this too has dried up - they say there are no more fish in the sea. They blame not the pirates who brought the attention of international law enforcement to Somalia's waters, but the foreign fishing boats that have plundered sea-life stocks.

And if things don't change, they say, a return to piracy will be their only way of survival.

'They take everything'

Ahmed Mohamed Ali walks disconsolately along the beach at Durduri, 100 kilometres west of the port city of Bosaso, perched on the northeastern point of Puntland, Somalia's semi-autonomous northern state.

Ali said he was forced to quit fishing, the only job he has ever known, after a foreign fishing ship bore down on him & his colleagues one night at sea.

"It was a huge ship. We fled for our lives. Had we not it would have all been over and we'd have been dead," the 27-year-old told Al Jazeera.

Large foreign vessels "come at night and take everything", he said, gesturing angrily out to sea. "With their modern machinery, there is nothing left."

And the Somali fishermen can't match them. "We don't carry guns; we don't even have any weapons," he said.

Ali's accusations are backed up by two new pieces of research, conducted by separate Somali development agencies, which suggest that international fishing vessels - particularly Iranian & Yemeni, but also European ships including Spanish - are illegally exploiting the East African nation's fish stocks on a massive scale.

Legacy of piracy

In a country torn apart by civil war, without a federal government until as recently as 2012 following more than two decades of fighting, the population of 10.5 million largely suffers from a crippling paucity of economic opportunities.

Somalis say illegal, unlicensed, & unregulated fishing forced them to turn to piracy 10 years ago in order to recoup their losses. "We got fed up and took guns to the sea," said one Bosaso fisherman, Mohamed Adan Ahmed.

Piracy put a stop to illegal fishing, but these findings suggest it was merely a hiatus; now that international anti-piracy task forces have halted the hijackings, illegal fishing vessels have returned.

In 2014, 86% of Somali fishermen spotted foreign fishing vessels close to the shore, according to a report by international charity Adeso, which conducted interviews down the length of the coastline over a six-month period last year.

Sightings were more frequent in Puntland & have more than doubled in the last 5 years, according to the IUU Fishing in the Territorial Waters of Somalia report.

It first became a problem in the mid-1990s, according to Halimo Isman, who said at the time she was the only fisherwoman working in Durduri's waters.

In the new village that has sprung up close to the old port, she told Al Jazeera huge foreign fishing vessels dwarfed the Somalis' small, fibreglass skiffs. "It became impossible to share waters with them."

Her family were originally pastoralists, but, like many Somalis, they lost their livestock in a drought, so came to the coast in search of a new livelihood. Isman married a fisherman in 1987 & he taught her how to fish, repair nets, & dry the catch of the day.

"Fish, including sharks, were available everywhere," the 55-year-old recalls. But in 1996, she quit. The seas were out of fish, she said. Today, Isman keeps goats & sheep & grows vegetables & date palms on the brackish land.

Search for a better life

Foreign vessels take three times more fish than Somalis do - 132,000 metric tons each year compared to 40,000 by locals - another report released in September said.

From 12 months' research, the agency Secure Fisheries found the amount of fish being harvested is unsustainable. Illegal vessels are harvesting tuna stocks at the maximum capacity, leaving nothing for Somalis, it said.

"Piracy can come back because people have nothing," said elder Saed Jama Yusuf, speaking at the harbour in Bosaso, where his fellow fishermen bemoaned their feeble catches. "We will make preparations, gather our resources for funds."

The federal government's Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources was unavailable for comment, but Minister Mohamed Omar Aymow has previously denied there is a risk of piracy returning.

"There is not a big fear," he told Voice of America in September. "We don't have pirate men who are organised like the group we are fighting against now [Al-Shabab]."

However, in March two Iranian vessels suspected of fishing illegally were seized by Somali pirates, an incident described as the first successful hijacking in 3 years. The crew of one ship escaped after nearly 5 months, while the others remain in captivity.

"If the illegal fishing doesn't stop, people will look for alternatives - like piracy, joining al-Shabab, becoming criminals, or migrating," said former fisherman Ali.

Last month, residents of Durduri told Somali news agency Hiiraan Online that members of ISIL had arrived on a boat & taken as many as 40 young men.

With no work available, it is easy for such violent groups to recruit young men, Ali warned.

Will anyone help?

The challenges of policing Somalia's waters are enormous. The 200-nautical-mile economic exclusion zone, representing 830,390 square kilometres, is far larger than its land area.

The maritime police in Bosaso, where human smugglers shelter migrants trying to sail north across the Gulf of Arden - one of the world's busiest shipping lanes - operate on a shoestring budget of less than $10,000 per year, said Colonel Mohamed Ali Hashi.

Coastguards are volunteers, dressed in makeshift uniforms, cobbling money together for fuel, he told Al Jazeera.

Hashi, the commander of Bosaso's maritime police, said foreign vessels are employing Somalis on board as armed guards, but he has "no speedboats, no firearms".

"If the government doesn't authorise me to fight illegal fishing, I can't," he said. "Since NATO has been here, piracy is down but illegal fishing has increased. NATO and the EU never help us, never give us a hand."

Robert Mazurek, director of the Secure Fisheries agency, told Al Jazeera "the international community has done very little to combat [illegal] fishing in Somali waters".

Asked for a response to the accusation, NATO responded: "Actions to counter illegal fishing would breach the scope and capabilities of the mission."

So what is the way forward for Somalia's fishing industry and security in its waters?

Development organisations want new legislation, improved information sharing between international & regional bodies, increased use of satellite tracking to identify vessels operating there, & investment in local fisheries infrastructure.

"We need more concerted efforts, advocacy, a holistic approach to address both illegal fishing and to support local communities affected by illegal fishing practices," Adeso programme director Abdi Mohamed Dahir told Al Jazeera via email.

Locals such as Ali believe Somalia's rulers must take responsibility.

"We have a government but it's fragile," he said. "A strong government that could protect our seas would be a solution. There is no other way."

"Mother's Day Messages" by Dave Granlund

"Mother's Day Messages" - Dave Granlund, US

"Testing Stress" by Nate Beeler

"Testing Stress" - Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, OH, US

Criminal Minds, S1E15 (quote 2)

Majority of UK children in poverty from working families – report

The article is pretty much self-explanatory. Most poor families are / have become poor in the developed world due to rising unemployment levels & stagnant or less-than-living wages.

Governments, on top of widespread unemployment & low wages, are cutting social programs in the name of austerity. However, incomes of ministers & taxes are not decreasing. Heck, in some cases, they are actually increasing.

Rich, on the other hand, are becoming richer, by the minute. Governments, which by the way, are controlled by these industrialist elites, are afraid of increasing taxes on the rich. Companies also try to find the best way to lower their tax burden through some legal loop holes. So, the only part of the whole country, who is left propping up the country's finances, are the poor people, who diligently pay taxes, while their incomes don't even go up. Their living expenses, on the other hand, keep going up.

So, of course, what else to expect when these families are bringing up children in poverty-ridden conditions. Of course then, as I blogged previously, most of these children will have a hard time in securing good jobs, housing, & perhaps, even good quality education. Then, they will end up either on the welfare list or the criminal list of the government, since they will still want to provide a good lifestyle to their own descendants.

The primary sources of this problem of increasing poverty across the developed world is the government being controlled by the business & political elites, & they all want to see their bank balances increase, even if it spreads misery all across their own countries & regions. Governments are trying to increase taxes or fines or services fees on the poor, decrease taxes or creating loopholes for the rich to avoid taxes altogether, not creating jobs at all ("governments can't meddle in free markets"), fighting unions (which were the reason that baby boomers enjoyed such high incomes & good lifestyle), & becoming parts of secretive trade pacts which will further destroy the labour conditions for the poor.

But, hey, we have democracy & freedoms, right !!! (sarcasm) If Westerners love freedom & democracy so much, then why are they so enthusiastically moving to Middle East (UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia), Asian & South East Asian countries, where, there are no such things as democracy & freedom of speech, but good enough living wage (for a Western-educated graduate) & a good lifestyle.
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https://www.rt.com/uk/310026-children-in-poverty/

The majority of children living in poverty in the UK come from working families, a leading think tank’s report reveals.

The report, titled ‘Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2015’, was published ... by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS). It was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust.

The study examined key factors driving changes in incomes & poverty across the UK.

Figures from the report show that the number of children living in absolute poverty remained unchanged between 2009-10 & 2013-14. However, the proportion of kids living in poverty whose parents work rose by 9% over this period.

The IFS says this dramatic rise in what has been described as Britain’s working poor is a result of increased unemployment levels & a steady decline in workers’ real wages.

Despite the promise of a new living wage, benefit cuts made by the new Conservative government are likely to put pressure on poor families, the report said. It argued the effects of further government cuts make a greater impact than this marginal pay rise for those who are struggling financially.

"Material deprivation" was one of the main issues for those living in rented properties, single parents & disabled people.

The report noted many such families are unable to afford more luxurious goods & are more exposed to deprivation than home owners.

“Among families with children, social renters with incomes (after housing costs) around the median are at least as likely to be materially deprived as the lowest-income owner-occupiers," the report said.

"This illustrates the importance of looking at more than just current income to understand low living standards.”

Research Economist at the IFS Chris Belfield, who co-authored the report, said absolute poverty levels among children obscure “important and offsetting trends.”

“Since 2009–10, a fall in the number of workless families has acted to reduce poverty, but this has been offset by a substantial rise in in-work poverty," he said.

"This largely reflects the wider nature of the labour market since the recession: robust employment and weak earnings.”

Senior Research Economist at the IFS Robert Joyce, who also authored the report, added that the government needs to do more to combat the root causes of poverty.

“The government has recently emphasized worklessness as a cause of poverty," he said.

"This makes sense, but tackling low living standards will be difficult without improvements for working families too.”

Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Julia Unwin said in-work poverty is a growing concern.

“A strong economy and rising employment have masked the growing problem of in-work poverty, as years of below-inflation wage rises have taken their toll on people’s incomes,” she said.

“The upcoming minimum wage rise will help, but many low-income working families will still find themselves worse off due to tax credit changes. Boosting productivity and creating more jobs which offer progression at work is vital to make work a reliable route out of poverty.”

Nearly 40% of African-American children living in poverty – study

This article is linked to my previous blog post. As the article mentions that the poverty rate of African-American & Latino children is so high partly because of employment status & income levels of their parents, I will expand on it in this blog.

One of the major problems causing this stark differences in poverty & why African-American & Latino kids are poor is because of high levels of discrimination. This discrimination, or racism, not only exists in employment but also perpetuates in society through criminal legal system.

As my previous blog explained that prisoners, who are mostly African-Americans & Latinos, not only are incarcerated at a much higher rate than their Caucasian counterparts, but those incarcerations adversely affect their lives. One mistake, however small it is, stays with them all their lives.

Now, we can say that why those people have to commit crimes in the first place. Right on!! But, the question also arises then that what a parent is supposed to do when he/she is unable to find enough income to feed his/her children properly, save enough to send them to school, & provide them enough to help them live a proper life (housing, clothing etc.) Many commit crimes to help them earn enough income to help them properly raise their kids. So, it's sort of becomes a case of catch-22.

As I explained in my previous blog, governments & other institutions (profit & non-profit alike) are supposed to work together to decrease the exorbitantly high costs of housing & education for the people to thrive. If these two essential things are cheaper, then even poor people will be able to live & educate themselves & their kids. These two things should also be without any gentrification or division based on discrimination that poor people are pushed into dirty, polluted, unhealthy, unsafe living areas & the schools in their areas also suffer in the same way; incompetent teachers with the education system not in favour of poor people. Costs of post-secondary education also needs to be reduced a lot, just so children of poor people are not afraid of going to school because then they will have to take on high levels of debts, which in itself, is a major problem, since non-payment of student debt can land one in prison, which goes back to the incarceration problem I explained above.

Every parent wants the best for their children & will do anything he/she can to see their kids thrive in life. But the laws of the country can heavily affect what that parent can or cannot do, which in turn, could (& usually does) adversely affect their whole generation. That's why, governments have to take proper action to resolve this problem, but the rising poverty rates of children only shows how governments of the Western developed world have forgotten their essential responsibilities.
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https://www.rt.com/usa/273970-african-american-children-poverty/

A new study found the percentage of American children living in poverty has declined slightly since 2010 as the economy has improved, but the rate for African-American children remains extremely high, at nearly 40%.

More than 45.3 million people are considered to be living in poverty in the US, given a poverty line of $24,000 for a family of four. Some 14.7 million of these, or 20%, are children.

While that figure has declined from 16.3 million in 2010, it still comprises one-fifth of the total number of American children under 18, & one-third of Americans living in poverty, according to Pew Research Center analysis of Census data.

Pew said that for the first time since the US Census starting collecting data in 1974, the number of African-American children living in poverty outnumbers the number of white children. Poverty rates declined for white children from 4.9 million in 2010 to 4.1 million in 2013, but for African-American children it only decreased from 4.4 million in 2010 to 4.2 million in 2013.

While Pew said the difference is not statistically significant, it is still notable since white children outnumber African-American children by three to one, with two out of five African-American children living in families with total income below the poverty line.

There are also stark differences for Latinos. In 2013, one out of three Latino children, or 30.4% of the 18 million Hispanic children in the country, was living in poverty, compared to 1 out of 10 white & Asian children, according to Pew.

The poverty rate for African-American children can be explained, in part, by the employment status & level of income of their parents, according to Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center. Blacks are more likely to be unemployed & earn less than people of other races.
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Last month, the Department of Labor said the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 9.5%, compared to 6.6% for Hispanics, 4.6% for whites & 3.8% for Asians.
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World entering era of global food insecurity with malnutrition & obesity side by side within countries

A good article but it left a big reason why a majority of the poorer households in UK, & around the world, won't have access to healthy & nutritious food. One of the big reasons is social inequality, which in turn, is caused by, in major part, by huge disparity in income & wealth.

There are political & business elites -- the 1-percenters -- who live in their own little world. But the other 99% of the world populations are trying to survive on low income. They don't earn enough to buy healthy & nutritious food in the stores. That majority will always buy the cheap food, which is usually not grown organically & full of calories. Those people know that what they are buying is not healthy for their families but they don't have a choice.

At the same time, the government pays millions in grants & subsidies to companies in military-industrial complex to make new & advanced weaponry, but don't make effective agricultural policies to incentivize scientists & farmers to come up with new & efficient means to grow healthy & nutritious food, all the while limiting the use of fertilizers & harmful chemicals.

At the end of the day, majority of the families know which food is healthy & which one isn't. They would love to buy healthy & nutritious food but are constrained by their income level. If the government wants their public to become healthy, then one major change would be to increase minimum wages & taxes on wealthy individuals. Poor families would readily buy healthy & nutritious food with their increase in income.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-entering-era-of-global-food-insecurity-with-malnutrition-and-obesity-side-by-side-within-10382877.html

The world is entering an era of global food insecurity which is already leading to the “double burden” of both obesity & malnutrition occurring side by side within countries & even within the same families, a leading food expert has warned.

It will become increasingly common to see obese parents in some developing countries raising underweight & stunted children because high-calorie food is cheaper & more readily available than the nutritious food needed for healthy growth, said Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

“We are certainly looking at a period of increased instability in the supply of food, and also the diversity and types of food that are available are going to change,” said Dr Dangour, who is to lead a major study into global food insecurity & its impact on health.

“A result of this is called the ‘double burden’ of malnutrition,” he added. “Under-nutrition causes starvation and stunting in children, whereas obesity and over-weight in adults is another form of malnutrition, caused by eating the wrong type of food.

“The double burden exists in countries, or indeed in households, where you get a stunted child and an overweight mother. And that happens in many countries around the world as a result of the wrong diets being eaten [by adults] and the wrong diets being given to children,” he said.

“It’s not the fault of the mother, it’s the fault of the food system where the mother cannot afford to buy nutritious food such as dairy, eggs and fruit and is predominantly feeding her child a diet that is rich in calories, such as oil and cereal-based carbohydrates,” Dr Dangour said. “That diet will not be sufficient for the child to grow. It will stop the child from being hungry but it will also stop the child from growing properly,” he said.
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“We know that at the end of this century it’s going to be very difficult to grow crops in certain parts of the world because of increasing temperatures,” Dr Dangour said. “In other parts of the world there is going to be increasing productivity because warmer temperatures will mean longer growing seasons.”

He said no single prediction on food insecurity could tell the whole story because climate change will affect different crops differently in different parts of the world: “For the UK, we could imagine a scenario in which changing food availability globally leads to changes in the availability of and the access to that food in the UK.

“For example, cereals may not be affected but fruit and vegetables, critical to a healthy diet, may become much more expensive. As people are responsive to food prices, it may lead to a reduction in consumption of those foods in the poorer population, which may lead to increased health inequality in the UK.”

In the past, policy-makers & planners have concentrated on producing enough food based on calorie content, often to the detriment of more nutritious food, such as pulses & fruit, that are required for healthy growth. This has helped to fuel an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, Dr Dangour explained.

“It’s happened over the past 10 years or so & it’s hugely important. It means policy-making is an enormous challenge, because you think: ‘It’s about just increasing the amount of food we produce.’ Well, no: you need to think about the types of food you are producing and about the access to those foods.

“As food availability globally changes, we could see both of those things happening. We could see under-nutrition and we are already seeing enormous increases in chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes,” he added.