The Story of Stuff
“Planned obsolesce is how fast can you make something break that leaves consumers faithful enough to buy a replacement and perceived obsolesce is when the look of products are changes so that consumers feel the need to buy new to keep up with society.”
When this was mentioned in the video, I began to think about how true this statement was. I have never really thought about how often it becomes necessary to replace the things we have. I feel like the iPhone is the perfect example of a product with perceived obsolesce. A new iPhone is introduced roughly every 6 months to one year. While there are some advances in the technology of a phone, a previous model of an iPhone does not stop working; consumers simply feel the need to keep upgrading to keep up with the new advancements. As crazy as it sounds to buy something new when we currently own essentially the exact same product, many of us can agree that when you are sitting in the Fordham cafeteria with an iPhone 4, you feel a bit out of place. The list of example to prove these two ideas seems endless.
The Story of Broke
“Money from our taxes goes to oil companies and big bank bailouts but not to build a better future”
A majority of this video focused on the issues with our government and how taxes are spent. Like The Story of Stuff, I never thought about any of these issues until they were presented in the video. The government is able to pay for things like bailouts and offer subsidiaries to big corporations but there always seems to be concerns about paying for schools and having enough for social security and medicare. While I would like to think the government is always mindful of the best interests of its people, I think about my high school and wonder why there was such a struggle for resources in a public school. This really made me think, where are all the taxes we pay actually going?
Ethical Objections to Fair Trade
“Pre-announced visit by Fairtrade accountant every 5-6 years is not likely to pick up non-compliance”
“Fairtrade monitors the price paid to exporters. It doesn’t control what happens to the money nor does it monitor how much reaches the farmer.”
I thought this article brought up a point of view that should be considered when thinking about the goals and practices of Fair Trade. If there are people who still have the questions and doubts like the author of this article, how can we prove to them that Fair Trade is doing something good? How can we continue to make Fair Trade more transparent? I think that this article could be used to help improve Fair Trade and make changes to help expand the idea.
« The Story of Stuff & The Story of ChangeBlog #7 – 10/22/13 »
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