The title question is probably the quickest way to become the most unpopular person at a party. People avoid the conversation about their income almost as much as they avoid sitting in the front seat of a South African taxi (If you know, you know). Maybe it’s because socially, we decide how much respect to give to each other according to status. Your earnings are a key component of status. Maybe we do not discuss earnings openly because if I told you how much I made, you’d laugh in my face.
It’s taboo to discuss wages… partly. It’s also deliberately discouraged by employers. Companies do not want employees sharing with each other how they are compensated. We’re not all remunerated the same for just and, sometimes, unjust reasons. If you were to find out that the new colleague that you were training last week earns 20% more than you do, after you have served in your position for an eternity, you might not respond all that well. If I were younger, I would use the words, you might wanna throw hands. That’s bad for business. So, employers make it appear wrong to discuss salaries openly. They whisper in your ear, “keep your pay between the two of us, okay?”
New York City is challenging the status quo. It looks like employers over there will have to disclose salary ranges for all open positions. This comes after a law was passed early this year that takes effect around mid-May. Employers are prohibited from advertising a position, promotion or transfer without disclosing minimum and maximum salary information. This move perhaps lends some transparency to the conversation on earnings.
The New York Wage Transparency Law builds on another law that was passed in 2017 that prohibits employers from pressing job seekers to reveal their salary history. It is unfair that an interviewer may ask you how much you make without ever having to disclose the kind of budget they have for the role. If you will not tell me what you are paying, then don’t ask me about my money. This just gives too much power to the employer who can adjust remuneration to the bare minimum. They do this with full knowledge that the actual job is worth more to the business than they are paying.
Now that employers have to be up front about what they will be offering, it will be easier for job seekers to know if the application is worth the effort. This is a bit of a power shift to job seekers because it puts employers in a position where they are essentially bidding for candidates to take their interviews, which is awesome right? It can only lead to more fair remuneration structures. Also, when an employer advertises a vacancy with a salary range, everyone at the company gets an opportunity to assess where they stand and if they should be confronting their supervisors about a raise.
I am a proponent of transparency in general. Any system that abounds in red tape usually has something to hide. I believe things being discussed in the open has more pros than cons. When matters are discussed openly, they usually evolve towards a more inclusive outcome. There’s only one winner when remuneration is treated as confidentially as an appointment into the secret service. It’s mind boggling why wage transparency is not an international standard already.
South Africa’s Lab-grown meat
There are at least 2 companies in South Africa that are working on growing meat in a laboratory. That sentence reads wrong to me too. But it’s true. These companies can isolate protein cells that are subsequently cultivated in bioreactors to produce meat. Or a meat-like substance. I don’t know 🤷🏾♂️. The claims are that this meat should be indistinguishable from old fashion meat that comes from animals.
The advancement of knowledge and technology is both impressive and terrifying. I mean, if we can sit in a room and click a button to print meat (I’m going with print) then what else is happening in the world? Naval Ravikant, the most clear headed human walking this earth, says the best Sci-fi is non-fiction. The best written science fiction remains true to actual science so as to be predictive rather than imaginative. If you want to know what is going to happen in the future, there are clues hidden in science fiction. Clues that lead me to believe that if we’re printing meat in Africa, super soldiers in the mould of comic book characters must already exist somewhere. I've already identified some of them.
If these companies are successful and indeed print meat that qualifies as food according health regulators and human tastebuds, then we can expect to pay lower for meat in the future. We will no longer be constrained by animal reproductivity. I’m also seeing an expansion of possibilities for certain communities.
Vegans by choice or otherwise can surely enjoy meat from a printer, right? It’s no longer an animal product if it comes from a machine? Am I right? We can all partake. I’m not forgetting people that don’t eat pork because of the reputation of the pig in religious texts. Can I interest you in freshly printed faux pork? I am so excited. Nobody should have to go through life without knowing what bacon tastes like.
There’s a War Outside
Unless you live in a pineapple under the sea, you are aware of the conflict in Eastern Europe. It’s perhaps the most significant current event since the dynamic duo of the World Health Organisation and Covid-19 left the stage.
This week, NATO met to deliberate on next steps to pacify the conflict before it escalates into a global war. A third world war would claim many more lives than Covid ever could. What’s more, the weapons of war of the prevailing age could quite realistically inflict damage on the planet that would never be reversed.
The Russian instigators do not seem to be much deterred by the barrage of sanctions that have been hurled in their direction thus far. This should be worrying and it is. NATO called an extraordinary summit to put the big brains of the 30 NATO allies in one room to devise a plan that finally restores global security. So, what did the leaders of the free world come up with after hours of intellectual consideration backed by billion dollar budgets? What’s Plan B? You’ll be underwhelmed. More sanctions 😒. Plan B looks a lot like the Plan A that did not work.
While all this was going on, interestingly, Russian Ambassador to Indonesia confirmed that President Putin will be at Bali later this year to attend the Group of Twenty (G20) summit. Too bad the G20 meeting is only coming in November. A lot would have happened by then. Potentially, Russia would have already been removed from the G20. I’m a little sad about that. The drama fiend in me would have loved for the G20 to proceed in the current climate. I think the back-and-forth between Russia and western allies would have made for incredible reality TV.
More News
It seems firing people on zoom is catching on. P&O dismissed 800 employees over zoom. I had a few thoughts about this approach when better.com made it cool to announce redundancies over a video call back in December. Is this also part of what we are terming the “new normal”? I think it’s also interesting to note that P&O, in lieu of having a real-time call, sent a recorded zoom video. That means you were let go and nobody opened the floor for you to ask questions. The video was played for the relevant staff and that was it. It’s insult to injury. The redundant staff responded by occupying one of the company’s ferrying ships. I’ve seen this movie before, it did not end well.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris grew 6 metres taller this week after an antennae was installed to improve digital radio cover. I don’t know if this is genuinely interesting or I only noticed it because I’m reading a French novel.
Britain has put birds on lockdown after an outbreak of avian flu.
South African authorities hiked interest rates by 25 basis points on Thursday. The very next day, Eswatini authorities made an announcement of their own. To everybody’s surprise, they announced interest rates would remain the same in Eswatini. And here you were thinking that we’re just a copy and paste economy. Shame on you! We make our own independent decisions based on facts and advanced analytics 😂😂. I’m just joking. Honestly, I have no clue how we make decisions. For the moment, money is cheaper in Eswatini than in SA. Yay, us!
What I’m Reading
I’m reading The Count of Monte Cristo. This is the slowest read of my life. Anyway, Dantes has been mingling with Parisian high society. He has basically identified everyone who contributed to his wrongful arrest. One was Danglars, a fellow crew member on the Le Pharoan. Another was Fernand who was consumed by passion for Dantes’ fiancé. These 2 actually hatched the plan if you will recall.
Yet another figure is Villefort. Villefort is the prosecutor who fully appreciated Dantes’ innocence but decided, in the interest of his own hide, to have him arrested anyway. The treason of which Dantes was accused implicated Villefort’s father and he did not wish for that sort of news to see the light of day. So he had the only person who knew about it arrested. But to be absolutely fair, Dantes never opened that letter and had absolutely no idea why he was being treated like a political traitor.
I mention Villefort because of an interesting dialogue that occurs between him and Dantes in chapter… 🤔. I have no idea what chapter I’m reading. Maybe it’s chapter 5000. The part that intrigued me begins with Villefort saying to Dantes that he seems to not have anything to do because he is always reading. Dantes does not respond directly. Instead, he asks, “Do you think what you do deserves to be regarded as ‘something’?” Villefort is taken aback by the question because, as a big time judge, nobody really confronts or challenges him for fear of his status. He also adds to this image by hiding himself behind the walls of an impregnable castle. This guy even sends his wife to attend his meetings.
The universe is connected because as the conversation proceeds between them, Dantes says something along the lines of advancement means moving from complexity to simplicity. He says perfection is always in simplicity. I had a conversation with someone that I look up to about this very idea just the other day. He is an accomplished individual with every academic honour you can imagine and career accolades that are lauded from Australia to America. He said, verbatim, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” I’m claiming that the universe is connected because this conversation preceded my reading of Dantes’ and Villefort’s interaction. It was not prompted by that at all. It just fell from the sky. I feel like someone is trying to tell me that I should keep it simple. People who can’t explain simply do not know that which they speak of.
Another thought provoking nugget came from Villefort this time. Further along the discussion between the two men, Villefort says, “it is not customary for those who enjoy the privilege of wealth to waste time in social speculation and philosophical dreams.” That’s not the startling part for me, he goes on to say, “such [dreams] are to console those that fate has deprived the goods of the earth.” This sentence slapped me across the face. The idea that it’s not only by wherewithal that the rich differ from the poor, but it’s also in conduct. I don’t know anything about being rich, I’m just taking Villefort’s assertions prima facie. It’s almost like I’m asking you again, how much money do you make?
If anything else happened this week, I missed it. Till next Sunday 👋🏾.
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