Yes,it definitely was like that in the very beginning. Some couples were choosing to fly to Hong Kong and have their second child there but if your second child does not have PRC citizenship, you then have to pay more for education, healthcare and so on. So to a certain extent it is a higher cost of living for a second child. But now the policies have changed, I don't know if this is what's holding couples back anymore.
>it takes a long time to undo the damage such profound discrimination causes
yes and for many, the damage is irreversible. Denied access to education is also a big factor Blacks face. If you are unable to study and get a good education, you can't work a decent job. It's then harder for you to let your children study to tertiary level as you might need them to step out to work earlier to contribute to the house, and they are then stuck in lower paying jobs. The cycle then continues when they have kids and when their kids have kids and it goes on for many generations.
This is precisely why Education should not be treated as a business. If Education was free for every citizen, it does a lot to bring equality of opportunity (it does not fix all of the damages from discrimination, but aids significantly in recovery). So is healthcare.
Having experienced education and healthcare in USA and Denmark, I cannot believe such extremes exist in the same world. It blows my mind that the wealthiest country on Earth by such a huge margin could not give its citizens unified and free healthcare and free access to Education. Just imagine what would happen to American economy in the long run if people were free to educate themselves(better workforce) and didn't need to go bankrupt because they got an unfortunate health condition?
I am sad that there are no politicians that think about these in long term. Everyone seems to only care about the next election cycle.
Even if education is free, having time to study is also a luxury we take for granted. Going to university means a few more years of them not being able to work full-time and contribute to the household income. But for sure, if education was free it would improve access to education and restore some balance.
>Going to university means a few more years of them not being able to work full-time and contribute to the household income. But for sure, if education was free it would improve access to education and restore some balance.
In Poland you can attend higher edu institutions on weekends and work meanwhile.
It often costs you like 1.x * minimal wage per semester, thus in total like 17K PLN for bachelor/engineering degree (3.5 years).
I did it, those a few years will be hard for you when it comes to free time, but I think it's decent trade off, especially if your job is already related to what you're studying, so this way you can have both: degree and work experience.
> In Poland you can attend higher edu institutions on weekends and work meanwhile.
> It often costs you like 1.x * minimal wage per semester, thus in total like 17K PLN for bachelor/engineering degree (3.5 years).
It is indeed something, but why poorer people need 2-3x effort to reach the same level of education? Why are many people against things like public income and free public schools which would fix issues like this? Why do we focus on the ones exploiting the system to get "easy money" instead of focusing on people already exploited by the system which would benefit from this?
This sounds like a great system and more countries should implement this. In Singapore (where I'm born), there's night classes/part-time degrees for people who need to work. It would be wonderful if more countries recognized the need for flexible studying options like Poland.
The US public school system is "no additional charge" - you have to pay taxes to help fund it regardless of whether you use it, but you do not have to pay anything beyond those taxes for your children to attend.
It may not be much good, but that's a different question.
This is the fantasy of public education. It is the time of year where we experience the reality of public education. Many parents in the U.S. just spent thousands of dollars in "additional charges" to enroll their children in public schools.
True, there is a public school system in the US. I missed to recognise it. As you say, whether or not it is sufficient is another debate.
When I wrote my comment, my thoughts were around higher education though - not primary, middle and high schools. The ones like college education and higher education where people pay through the roof and rack up debts that stay with them for decades.
There are state schools, I got my bachelors and masters from university of alabama and funded it by working at a gas station. In state tuition was ~1200/semester back in 2005. I graduated with ~5k student loan that i paid off in 2 yrs post graduation.
FWIW I looked at University of Alabama tuition now and for an academic year was 10k in-state, or 5k/semester assuming 2 semesters a year. (With fees, room, and board, the total comes over 25k/year.)
So you most certainly can't fund your education at the same institution working at a gas station now with only 5k student loans.
> With fees, room, and board, the total comes over 25k/year
We lived off campus 4 ppl in a 2 bed ( ~100/head). My total living expense was ~350/month. My parents had recently immigrated, so i was totally ok with not having a "college experience" or actually knew what exactly it was.
I was able to find another job on campus as an attendent at computer lab which game plenty of time to relax and do coursework.
I agree that now it might not be possible. But its doable if you get grants( which most of my classmates did) and are ok slumming it out though college.
there are tons of exceptions to this. In my case I had almost 3 years gap between high-school and freshman year. My roomates were able to easily prove financial hardship that comes with on campus living.
Many communities in the US actively cripple their public schools via poor funding (and then send their kids to private schools, leaving only the poor behind).
"Segregation Academies", still highly prevalent across the south.
But most of these schools remain overwhelmingly white institutions, both because of their founding ethos and because tuition fees are a barrier to entry. In communities where many or most white students are sent to these private schools, the percentages of African-American students in tuition-free public schools are correspondingly elevated. For example, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, as of 2010, 92% of the students at Lee Academy were white, while 92% of the students at Clarksdale High School were black.[4] The effects of this de facto racial segregation are compounded by the unequal quality of education produced in communities where whites served by former segregation academies seek to minimize tax levies for public schools.
We spend more than almost every country. It's not low in poor areas either; for example, Detroit Public Schools has much higher funding than the state average in Michigan.
It’s complicated by the fact that if you do give the public schools money, they spend it on $10 million football facilities for 15 year olds, this is what happened in our community.
No idea about the specific situation in the US, but in my experience these kinds of distortions are almost always because said public school can only get the 10M for sports facilities because there is a specific fund for exactly this but not general school funding. The school then applies for it anyway because that means they can divert 100k or some other paltry share of said funds to be used for general school equipment etc.
This is true for core instruction but not sports and other extracurricular, which are Pay-fors in many parts of the US. Robert Putnam's "Our Kids" (great book!) is eloquent on the costs and consequences.
I knew the immigration policies in DK were bad. But, not this bad. While I lived there, myself, and my Danish friends were embarrassed by the obviously discriminatory policies targeted at differently looking people. Particularly, the idiotic law about a handshake with he mayor to confirm naturalisation in Denmark. Under the assumption that Islamic women will hesitate to go through it. The rhetoric from the Folkeparty was always a cause of embarrassment in the Danish society. I did not live near the Copenhagen area where I imagine most immigrant neighbourhoods tend to be around. I realise that I may have been living 4 years a bubble and thinking everyone is so nice and liberal, and always care for the greater good.
It saddens me to know about such discrimination in a country that gets so many things right.
It breaks my heart to just read the following quote from the article linked above.
"I talk with children who are living in this area, and they believe they are Danish because they are born Danish, they have Danish passports, they speak Danish, they go to schools here — but people always tell them: 'You're not Danish because you're Muslim.'"
- This is not a hallmark of an open society. All the Danish people I know (in my apparent bubble) don't care about religion. Just let people be who they are, practice whatever religion they want. I wholeheartedly agree with not allowing anybody to impose their religion on others (this applies to the politicians imposing their beliefs on immigrants too).
I sincerely hope that things turn around for the better, and the reasonable voices of the Danish society votes the discriminatory people out.
By any chance are you Shrikant Narasimhan from Chennai, India that went to the jail that was Sairam Engineering College back in 2006? If so, I sat on a few quiz rounds with you and Vinod.....
Would integration into Danish society be worse if immigrant communities formed insular enclaves? I can see a rational reason to encourage cultural intermixing, so that different cultural groups have to be aware of and support each other.
I lived in DK, and as shocking as it sounds, it's true. Just a nitpick: the law is not exactly against "non-white" people, but about "non-Western". African-Americans would count as Western, Russians would not. But in effect, the policy affects mainly Muslims: it was probably designed with that in mind.
Whether it's not hiring because now they need to be vaccinated, or firing because they refuse to be vaccinated, I think this is all understandable in the face of a global pandemic. Situations change and we too, must adapt.
My mum was able to find a job many decades back with no knowledge of how to use Microsoft. With time, and as the company grew with it, of course staff need to be more proficient with IT and tech. They then offered upgrading skills/courses for current employees, and made this a requirement for their new hires. Supposing the employees didn't want to take the upgrading courses, can they really complain if they are then fired for not having the right skills to do their job? I should think no.
It's understandable and acceptable in certain industries. If you are working in a care home full of vulnerable old/sick people and have decided that you will not take the vaccine for your own reasons, you can't really blame your superiors for firing you because there's a lot more at stake/to consider.
On the topic of bulk grocery shops, it would be really great if more people shop there (I’m in Vienna and we have a few but they’re struggling) but realistically, i don’t think the general crowd is ready to make such a drastic lifestyle change.I would be happy enough if supermarkets at least try and encourage people to go for the packaging free option, or provide incentives in this regard. It’s ridiculous and nonsensical that they charge more for you to buy your groceries loose aka without packaging. It’s like they’re punishing you for not going for the packet of 6 Granny Smith apples all wrapped in plastic and cardboard.
The packaging has a barcode so it can be scanned faster at a checkout. Faster scanning means less checkouts and staff which means lower capital and operating costs.
Same! Or if I have to use one of their bags I put all the fruit and veg in the same bag and all the tags on it. Realistically it’s even less work for the cashier to scan everything all at once on one bag rather than pick up multiple packages and scanning them individually, so they have no excuse, really!
Hahaha I'm sure somewhere out there, someone's opened a packaging and turned the apple around to find it all brown and disgusting on the other concealed side!
At least for fruits an vegetables most things at Billa and Spar are individual items you have to pick yourself and they strongly discourage those plastic bags.
That's, unfortunately, not the case for literally every other item in their stores tho
I could care less about bulk supermarkets, and I don’t really think they’re a great answer. If anything, they may be worse in some ways.
For me, it’s the packaging. Japan is a great example of this.
Think of a banana, or an orange. Perfect package right? Now wrap them in plastic. Then when you buy them, they’re placed in a plastic bag. Sometimes each individual banana is wrapped individually... with plastic.
That’s Japan. That’s a lot of Asian countries, in fact.
Yeah but it’s annoying because I know there are people who would literally buy the package of 6 apples just cos it’s on a special promo. If it’s almost equivalent to the price of 2/3 apples, why not, right? And then they end up binning the rest that they can’t eat. So much food waste it’s crazy. They need to be more conscious in their decisions.
Humans are the cause, and unless more governments and policies are in place to prevent excessive plastic and waste consumption, there isn’t a hope for wildlife.
I do freelance work for a reusable takeaway container company where restaurants stock our boxes and customers need only to download an app to get their food in reusable boxes (they can return anywhere). The app is super easy to download but still people are refusing to do it. I tried convincing a pregnant acquaintance to do it, telling her to think of the planet she’s leaving behind for her unborn child, and still she refused. Why? Convenience. So much easier to throw the damn plastic box away and tell yourself “oh it’s made of recycled plastic anyway.”
The fact is, whether it’s recycled plastic or not, plastic is plastic. Driving the demand for recycled plastic boxes isn’t going to fix our planet. Until the government steps in to say every food related shop needs to provide a reusable alternative and customers have to pay more for disposable waste (like how it is now with carrier bags in most supermarkets in Europe), I don’t see much change happening in terms of wildlife. It’s sad but it is what it is.
If plastic is as recyclable as plastic manufacturers would have us believe, we could impose a ban on the production of new plastic after a short transitional period. Try suggesting that to anyone with an interest in the plastic production or consumption complex and see how they respond.
Even if one wanted to recycle all the plastics they use, it's damn near impossible. Firstly, what is and isn't "currently" recycled is not particularly transparent to the end-user. Your local authority (or privatised collection company in the case of businesses) might have a confusing set of rules and guidelines on how to dispose of different types of plastic (which to most regular folk are just "plastic"). Whoever's collected the waste probably doesn't deal with it themselves but sells it on, and then it's a gamble as to whether that 3rd party recycles it, ships it off to a poorer territory, or just burns it.
Exactly. I'm very skeptical about the percentage of plastic that is supposedly recycled. Furthermore, even if the plastic is actually recycled, most plastics e.g. polypropylene can only be recycled once.
I think its certainly worth to download an app to save waste, however, I wouldn't pin peoples reluctance only on convenience. Nowadays it seems you have to download an app for literally everything, and I think many people don't understand why.
I've been in the exact situation as this woman with a place just around the corner: I just didn't get why I had to download an app in order to get the reusable box for my food from them.
In our case we have to make people download the app, as we can then track how long they've had it and this also ensures the return the box. However, we've also realized that not many people are as tech-savvy as we are, especially the older generation, so we need to think about other alternatives soon if we want this to be feasible. Did you end up downloading your app in the end then?
I didn't, I don't need another app to track me. A deposit is and should be enough to ensure the return of the item.
I think for many people the proposition "you need to download this app to do something for which the app is not needed" is a non-starter, also for tech-savvy people.
Another thing to consider is that I (and I guess many other people) are only willing to download an app while having wifi, since my data volumne in LTE is limited.
Yeah, totally feel you about the data and downloading the app, that's actually a really good point that I didn't think about! Unfortunately as the boxes are made from food-grade stainless steel, they are worth more than the 2 euros, maximum 5 euros that we would charge as deposit. The risk of people keeping them and losing the 2 euros is fairly high. On the other hand, making it more than 5 euros would deter people from paying, so it's a dilemma at the moment.
