The here and now... and what and why

Complacency is a trap. At least that’s what I was thinking when I up and left the comfort of a Yankee prep school gig, where I taught music, amongst other things, for 28 years. There was also that life long career as a composer, musician and artist.

First, it was a year in St. Thomas, USVI, working as a reporter and shooting photography and then, a year in San Agustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Time passed.
More time passed and a year back in the Athens of America followed by a hasty return to Oaxaca where it is all happening.
A couple of years in San Sebastian Etla and now, just down the road in San Pablo Etla. Life is good.

Click on an image to see it larger.
For additional photography please visit my flickr page.
You can find my music on Jango (World & latin - Worldbeat) and at iTunes and most online stores.
¡Soy consciente de todas las tradiciones del Internet!
If you are coming to Oaxaca, please contact me for tours or advice.

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo
The view from Corazon del Pueblo

The hereafter re me

My photo
Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
Musician, photographer, videographer, reporter, ex-officio teacher, now attempting to be a world traveler

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Connections

Sometimes the juxtaposition of news stories can allow us to think about our interconnections in this global economy in simpler terms. 

So on the one hand  we have the Belgium Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world largest beverage company, buying Mexico’s Grupo Modelo, which "sells beer under 13 different brands, including Corona Extra, which has the biggest market share in the world, exporting its products to 180 countries."  Big companies, big money, staggering when you really think about it.  AB InBev is the world's largest brewer with nearly 25 percent global market share.  Grupo Modelo has over 60 percent of the the Mexican market share.

On the other hand, this story from Noticiasnet 
Oaxaca and Guerrero share the dishonor of having the highest rates of informal labor, 80.8% of the economically active population, in the case of Oaxaca, informality is even more serious, because it is the highest rate in the country since more than one of each 3 members of the labor force in the State, 36.3%, works in the streets, according to the Informal employment in Mexico study, released late on Tuesday by the National Institute of statistics and geography.

In the country, 6 of every 10 Mexicans operate in labor informality, in Oaxaca, the rate rises to slightly more than 4 of every 5 Oaxacans. There are 29.3 million Mexicans in all modalities of informal employment, of them, more than 14 million 200 thousand have to resort to the streets as a "workplace".

Inegi explained in the document that it has integrated in its statistics on occupation and employment schemes of the International Labour Organization (ILO) under the extended concept of informality (street trade, food preparation and services offered in public, homemade and handcrafted, industries among others), widening labor informality to work not registered with social security, whether or not operating in economic units typical of the Informal Sector.
That's the situation in a nutshell.  Super-mega-corporations (corporations are people, my friends) and ambulantes, people who set up business in the streets in order to make a living.

Eat, drink, live wisely, mis amig@s.

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