Author Archives: Editors

Coke Studio

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In a country like Pakistan, where extremism is tearing apart the cultural fabric of society, Coca-Cola is helping to foster the new breed of musicians, from classic to folk music. It is interesting merge of corporate interest and art in the form of Coke Studio. Coca cola is expanding this joint venture worldwide. Worth reading history of Coke Studio below. (f sheikh) 

In 2006, Coca-Cola approached Rohail Hyatt, a Pakistani musician and producer, with an offer he couldn’t refuse: we’ll pay for you to make a live-music show for television. Don’t worry about the money – just do whatever it takes to ensnare the ears and thus the hearts and minds of Pakistanis everywhere.

Hyatt didn’t disappoint. The first season of “Coke Studio”, which aired in 2008, was received with enthusiasm; subsequent seasons with adulation. The show takes viewers inside the recording studio to watch a diverse range of musicians – young and old, rich and poor, Punjabi and Pushtun – perform songs that put Pakistan’s different musical traditions in conversation with each other: devotional Sufi music with pop, traditional monsoon melodies with rock. When “Coke Studio” first aired, the country was in crisis. Benazir Bhutto had recently been assassinated and thousands of people were being killed every year in terrorist attacks and sectarian incidents. The country was tearing itself apart. But for an hour every week, “Coke Studio”, in its own small way, stitched the nation back together again.

“Coke Studio” continues to be a roaring success. According to Coca-Cola, each season since 2010 has been viewed, at least in part, by 90% of Pakistanis who own a TV. Coca-Cola is so confident about “Coke Studio” that it has adapted the format for 24 other countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa (including some of the biggest: India, Indonesia, Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria).

This isn’t beginner’s luck. For almost as long as the company has existed, Coca-Cola has used music to sell its products. In 1899 Hilda Clark, a dance-hall singer, serenaded the drink in an ad and, in the late 1960s, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and many other pop luminaries wrote radio jingles for the company. But over the last decade, Coca-Cola has deepened its commitment to music and is now a major player in the industry. A year after “Coke Studio” first aired, it launched Coca-Cola FM, a music-streaming website in Latin America. In 2012, the company announced a “global strategic partnership” with Spotify. YouTube, Spotify and other streaming services act as gatekeepers to music; now Coca-Cola does too.

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Basic Guaranteed Income For Every Cirizen

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With automation and moving of jobs to cheap labor countries, possibly we are entering a permanent era where significant potion of citizens may never find a job or jobs may not pay enough to survive. One of the solution put forward is a basic guaranteed income for every citizen by the government. Finland has started this experiment and some other countries, including Canada and Netherlands, are preparing to start similar experiments. Worth reading article below.( f sheikh  ) 

It looks like 2,000 citizens in Finland will welcome the new year with outstretched arms.

These Finns are the lucky recipients of a guaranteed income beginning this year, as the country’s government finally rolls out its universal basic income (UBI) trial run.

UBI is a potential source of income that could one day be available to all adult citizens, regardless of income, wealth, or employment status.

This pioneering UBI program was launched by the federal social security institution, Kela. It will give out €560 (US$587) a month, tax free, to 2,000 Finns that were randomly selected.

The only requirement was that they had to be already receiving unemployment benefits or an income subsidy.

The program allows unemployed Finns to not lose their benefits, even when they try out odd jobs.

“Incidental earnings do not reduce the basic income, so working and … self-employment are worthwhile no matter what,” says Marjukka Turunen, legal unit head at Kela. If successful, the program could be extended to include all adult Finns.

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Failure Of Democracy Or Liberalism

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Worth reading two interesting articles with different perspective but same conclusion. Kenan Malik argues that there is inherent tension between democracy and liberalism. The mob rule is part of the package of democracy and current crisis, rejection of liberal values, is crisis of liberalism and not democracy. While Nancy Fraser in her article in Dissent argues that it is the failure of progressive neocolonialism that undermined the economic interests of the their own constituents, working class, by adopting trade deals like NAFTA and TPP and promoting the interests of the wealthy.

Click links below for articles;

A crisis of Democracy or Liberalism by Kenan Malik  

End Of Progressive Neoliberalism by Nancy Fraser

posted by f.sheikh

“End Of Full Employment” By James Livingston

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Are we entering a permanent era where there’s not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won’t pay the bills?

Work means everything to us Americans. For centuries – since, say, 1650 – we’ve believed that it builds character (punctuality, initiative, honesty, self-discipline, and so forth). We’ve also believed that the market in labour, where we go to find work, has been relatively efficient in allocating opportunities and incomes. And we’ve believed that, even if it sucks, a job gives meaning, purpose and structure to our everyday lives – at any rate, we’re pretty sure that it gets us out of bed, pays the bills, makes us feel responsible, and keeps us away from daytime TV.

These beliefs are no longer plausible. In fact, they’ve become ridiculous, because there’s not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won’t pay the bills – unless of course you’ve landed a job as a drug dealer or a Wall Street banker, becoming a gangster either way.

These days, everybody from Left to Right – from the economist Dean Baker to the social scientist Arthur C Brooks, from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump – addresses this breakdown of the labour market by advocating ‘full employment’, as if having a job is self-evidently a good thing, no matter how dangerous, demanding or demeaning it is. But ‘full employment’ is not the way to restore our faith in hard work, or in playing by the rules, or in whatever else sounds good. The official unemployment rate in the United States is already below 6 per cent, which is pretty close to what economists used to call ‘full employment’, but income inequality hasn’t changed a bit. Shitty jobs for everyone won’t solve any social problems we now face.

Don’t take my word for it, look at the numbers. Already a fourth of the adults actually employed in the US are paid wages lowerthan would lift them above the official poverty line – and so a fifth of American children live in poverty. Almost half of employed adults in this country are eligible for food stamps (most of those who are eligible don’t apply). The market in labour has broken down, along with most others.

Those jobs that disappeared in the Great Recession just aren’t coming back, regardless of what the unemployment rate tells you – the net gain in jobs since 2000 still stands at zero – and if they do return from the dead, they’ll be zombies, those contingent, part-time or minimum-wage jobs where the bosses shuffle your shift from week to week: welcome to Wal-Mart, where food stamps are a benefit.

And don’t tell me that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour solves the problem. No one can doubt the moral significance of the movement. But at this rate of pay, you pass the official poverty line only after working 29 hours a week. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25. Working a 40-hour week, you would have to make $10 an hour to reach the official poverty line. What, exactly, is the point of earning a paycheck that isn’t a living wage, except to prove that you have a work ethic?

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posted by f. sheikh