Global Recession - What's That?

Recession, according to Webster's Dictionary is a word that has been around since 1652. It has three definitions listed, the last of which we hear so much about - "a period of reduced economic activity."

Globalization; this word hasn't had the longevity of recession (circa 1951), but is currently equally as trendy. As defined by the aforementioned bible for words, globalization is "the development of an increasingly integrated global economy, marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets."

When I typed global recession in Webster's online dictionary, no results were found. So I meshed, molded, and squeezed these two definitions together and came up with this: No longer can the backs of cheap laborers support the insatiable greed that is so palatable in developed nations.

The disgusting truth is that every one of us (producer or consumer) has played a role in the demise of our global economy. It's easier to find fault on the producer end of the spectrum (this is where I will cite the banking industry) however, the transparency is not as vivid when looking at our individual roles in the worlds largest reoccurring Black Monday.

Coffee, the worlds second most valuable traded commodity (oil is first), commands an industry exceeding $80billion annually (Black Gold) and is a prime example of an underlying cause of global recession (as I defined!).

Here's the abridged version of what's happening in the coffee industry; lots of people (like millions!) drink coffee and they buy it from unfairly traded coffee retailers (Starbucks, Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, etc.). The end results is consumers (drinkers of the coffee) pay over $2 for a grande coffee at Starbucks, netting a profit of $0.04 for the farmers, $0.07 for the middleman, and $1.89 to Starbucks. This ratio is not good, and an American farming corporation would never do business under these circumstances; but it gets worse. The $0.04 has to be divided among all the farmers who contributed to that particular yield! Try and divide $0.04 among 100's of people; doesn't work so well. As the documentary Black Gold illustrates, the unfair price of coffee has resulted in thousands of coffee farmers to abandon the crop to instead produce chad - an illegal drug that is much more profitable.

Coffee is one of many examples of cheap labor paying high dividends to multinational corporations. But it doesn't stop there, violations of labor laws (Wal-Mart), and environmental degradation/destruction (Agrobusiness -Cargill) progress the downward spiral of human rights violations and irreversible environmental destruction.

As I stated before, the world's richest and the it's poorest can no longer withstand the gaping canyon between one another - result: global recession. In order to emerge from this global cancer, the rich (which includes all citizens in developed countries) need to live with less, want less and realize that our place on Earth is intertwined with every inhabitant residing here. Therefore, our daily actions from the purchase of a cup of coffee to residing in a 4000sq. ft. home takes away from the livelihood of someone else on Earth. The economic pie cannot be re baked, it's a one size fits all kinda deal; the more you take the less someone else has, it's truly that simple!

P.S. The United Nations defines poor as earning less than $1.00/day - basically if you're reading this you're not poor.

references: http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/