Pandemic speeds labour shift from humans to robots, WEF survey finds

FILE PHOTO: A robot delivers a birthday cake at Robotazia restaurant as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continues in Milton Keynes, Britain, October 2, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Boyers/File Photo

ZURICH (Reuters) - Robots will destroy 85 million jobs at mid-sized to large businesses over the next five years as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates changes in the workplace likely to exaggerate inequalities, a World Economic Forum (WEF) study has found.

Surveys of nearly 300 global companies found four out of five business executives were accelerating plans to digitise work and deploy new technologies, undoing employment gains made since the financial crisis of 2007-8.

“COVID-19 has accelerated the arrival of the future of work,” WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi said.


For workers set to remain in their roles in the next five years, nearly half would need to learn new skills, and by 2025, employers will divide work between humans and machines equally, the study found.

Overall, job creation is slowing and job destruction is accelerating as companies around the world use technology rather than people for data entry, accounting and administration duties.

The good news is that more than 97 million jobs will emerge across the care economy, in tech industries like artificial intelligence (AI), and in content creation, the Geneva-based WEF said.


“The tasks where humans are set to retain their comparative advantage include managing, advising, decision-making, reasoning, communicating and interacting,” it said.

Demand would rise for workers who can fill green economy jobs, cutting-edge data and AI functions, and new roles in engineering, cloud computing and product development.

Around 43% of businesses surveyed were set to reduce their workforce due to technology integration, 41% planned to expand their use of contractors, and 34% envisioned expanding their workforce due to technology integration, the survey found.


Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by Barbara Lewis

In Chile, One Word Defines the Political Revolution
The Chilean term “facho” evokes the image of Chile’s fascist past—but also of present-day tenacity that thumbs its nose at institutional power.

BY KELLY KIMBALL, AUGUSTA SARAIVA | OCTOBER 24, 2020, 2:02 PM
MAURO ANDRÉS FOR FOREIGN POLICY


It was the image that would define a movement: protesters clinging atop the graffiti-ridden statue of a Chilean general in the heart of Santiago, proudly waving the Chilean and Mapuche flags as a plume of burgundy-colored smoke rose around them. They looked over more than 1 million protesters filling the capital’s main artery as far as the eye could see, like a Eugène Delacroix painting come to life.

The scene in question took place in Plaza Italia (since renamed Plaza Dignidad, or Dignity Plaza, by demonstrators) in October 2019, at the height of what would later be known as the estallido social, or social explosion. A hike in metro fares sparked a revolt, with youth hopping turnstiles and boycotting public transit, and then blew up into much more: a nationwide eruption among Chileans of all walks of life denouncing issues including school privatization, income inequality, and political corruption. Demonstrators chanted, “It’s not 30 pesos—it’s 30 years,” to underscore that the metro fare increase was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back amid injustices that had bedeviled the country since the end of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s reign in 1990.

The largest and most effective protest in the country’s modern history, the estallido social prompted Chilean President Sebastián Piñera to launch a state of emergency, a curfew, and a fleet of military personnel in the capital’s streets—and to call a referendum on a new constitution. This weekend, Chileans will vote on whether—and how—to ditch the Pinochet-era constitution that has ruled them ever since.

But nothing has fully explained the nuance of last year’s social upheaval more than one uniquely Chilean word: facho.

“#PlazaDignidad es del pueblo, no del facho,” as one Facebook page implored in the local slang: “Plaza Dignidad is for the people, not for fascists.”

Despite literally translating as “fascist,” the term “facho” conjures up a kaleidoscopic “rage against the system” disposition. It implies a multitude of images—the same way Americans use “redneck” or “aristotrash” to land a critique of far-right social beliefs or of establishment politics that offer power to some over others. At its core, the term is meant to evoke the 1973 coup that resulted in the death of Socialist President Salvador Allende and made way for the controversial rule of Pinochet and his military junta. It also evokes the memory of the country’s 1988 national plebiscite, which resulted in a two-year transition to democracy. In reflecting these events, the term underscores a spate of simmering political grievances, the legacy of human rights abuses by the dictatorship, and resistance to accept that things have to be the way they are because that’s the way things have always been.

During a Twitter feud last year, prominent Sen. José Miguel Insulza, who served as foreign minister in the 1990s and led the Organization of American States for a decade, wrote to a former presidential candidate that in addition to being a facho, he was a liar. The Chilean broadcast journalist Matías del Río, who was criticized for his tepid interview with Piñera in March, confessed in an interview on the prominent YouTube show Domingos Dominicales that he had been harangued by critics as a “facho” ever since. And as inequality and class struggle have persisted in the country, Chileans have witnessed the emergence of the expression “facho pobre” (poor fascist), a reference to middle- and working-class people who support the Chilean right.

Francisco Javier Díaz, the co-author of Dictionary of Chilean Politics, recalls that the word “facho” was even banned on television during the dictatorship. That itself has contributed to making it so powerful among those who resisted Pinochet—and those who are leading the charge during protests today.

“Words are also political instruments,” Díaz said. Lately, facho and related terms have made a comeback to shed light on the government and Pinochet sympathizers’ use of language to deny Chile’s legacy of political and social injustice. “[They] don’t call the 1973 coup a coup. They call it a pronunciamiento,” or military uprising, he said.

Three decades after democracy came back to Chile, the scars left by the Pinochet regime remain palpable. Nearly 40,000 people suffered human rights abuses during the dictatorship, and 3,000 died or disappeared. Another 200,000 Chileans escaped the horrors in their home country by going into exile. Yet those who benefited from the regime’s orthodox economic policies and the controversial rule of law imposed by the military inherited a fond nostalgia for those years. When Pinochet died in 2006, more than 60,000 Chileans paid tribute at his funeral. And as of 2015, 1 in 5 Chileans still supported the military regime.

If the darker aspects of the Pinochet years struggle to break through into historical memory, it’s partly by design. Much of the world was simply unaware of the extent of the regime’s human rights violations until the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship, contends Loreto Urqueta, a legal advisor at Amnesty International Chile. (Although Pinochet was later arrested in London and endured a 16-month legal battle in the House of Lords, he ultimately dodged a slew of charges and died without having been convicted of any crimes.)


READ MORE


Chile’s Protesters Have Won a Path to a New Constitution
Here’s why they want to replace the dictatorship-era document.
DISPATCH | JOHN BARTLETT

Pinochet Still Looms Large in Chilean Politics
And the ongoing protests prove it.
ARGUMENT | MICHAEL ALBERTUS, MARK DEMING

“After the dictatorship, Chile still sold—internally and externally—this image of a successful, prosperous country,” Urqueta said.

But an intense political bitterness was brewing beneath the surface. Chileans on both ends of the political spectrum still struggle to reconcile with their homeland’s facho past. Around 75 percent say the country is yet to achieve reconciliation, and 85 percent believe the military has pacts of silence to protect those involved in human rights violations. That was abundantly clear during the estallido social last fall.

An Amnesty International report published this month called on the Chilean Attorney General’s Office to open criminal investigations against commanders of the police force for their role in human rights violations during last year’s protests, citing that militarized officers injured 1,938 people with tear gas bombs and metal bullets encased in rubber. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights cited sexual violence, torture, and degrading treatment of arrested protesters, in addition to condemning the excessive use of force as a violation of international protocol.

“This is a consequence of the dictatorship. The police have remained the same, and their approach towards demonstrations has remained the same,” said Urqueta, who contributed to the Amnesty report.

As in two-thirds of the 50-odd countries that have undergone a democratic transition since World War II, Chile’s current constitution was a going-away present from the outgoing authoritarian government. Its lack of social protections has continued to push minorities to the periphery and has pushed inequality to levels similar to those during the dictatorship. This weekend’s vote will determine if a new constitution will be drafted and whether it will be done by a constitutional convention of elected officials or a combination of civilians and politicians.

In a moment when the world is watching a rise in populism and authoritarianism, the Chilean plebiscite—whichever way it ultimately breaks—is just the latest and loudest demand for citizen democracy, something that might allow Chile to finally shed its facho past.


Kelly Kimball is the social media editor at Foreign Policy. 

Augusta Saraiva is an intern at Foreign Policy. 

Nigeria’s Years of Protest
The country has been heading for a reckoning for a while—here’s why anger is boiling over now.
BY KATHRYN SALAM | OCTOBER 23, 2020,

People walk with their hands over their heads as they pass through security checkpoints in Lagos, Nigeria, on Oct. 23. SOPHIE BOUILLON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

On Thursday night, after days of protest in Nigeria over police abuse, President Muhammadu Buhari finally addressed the nation. Tensions had been running high since a high-level military unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), shot and killed at least 12 demonstrators earlier in the week. But Buhari failed to mention those deaths in his remarks, instead warning government critics against “undermining national security.”

As observers wait to see whether anger will bubble over into a new wave of protests this weekend, Foreign Policy has gathered together its best reads on Nigeria from the past few years.
Trending Article

Buhari, who was a military dictator in the 1980s, was elected president in 2015. In his first term, according to Matt Mossman, a political risk analyst, he continued to rule more like a dictator than “the head of a modern democracy.” But Buhari did at least prove his ability to go after corrupt elites, recovering billions of dollars for the state. By the time of the 2019 presidential election, voters rewarded him “with a victory that looks decisive by the numbers but feels far less so. A smaller number of people than in previous rounds opted to vote, and the new mandate sounds more like ‘OK, but do better this time’ than it does ‘thanks and keep at it.’”

Since that vote, the news out of Nigeria has been a mix of good and bad. In mid-2019, the country—one of the last three in the world with endemic polio—declared itself polio-free, reported FP’s Jefcoate O’Donnell. The success came, O’Donnell reported, thanks to “the concerted efforts of an array of vaccine advocates, including northern Nigeria’s traditional and religious leaders, a network of 20,000 women who have stepped up to take the oral form of the vaccine door to door, and polio survivors themselves.”

The same year, Buhari declared the defeat of the insurgent Islamist group Boko Haram, although its attacks have continued. Nigeria would never move past the conflict, wrote Audu Bulama Bukarti, an analyst with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, until it came up with better plans for assisting the children—mostly boys—drafted into the conflict on both sides. “Regardless of whether boys have been forced to take up arms for Boko Haram or against it by vigilante groups, Nigeria needs to offer the space and resources for them, and others, to heal.”

Meanwhile, explained the journalist Patrick Egwu, “Nigeria is still deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines. … Marginalization, unequal political appointments, and ethnic and religious tensions are still brewing division.” The south, Egwu noted, has criticized Buhari for favoring the north, and a movement for an independent Biafra, the breakaway state with which Nigeria fought a civil war between 1967 and 1970, is once again gaining momentum.

“Insecurity still remains one of Nigeria’s biggest challenges,” affirmed Egwu in another article. And across the country, “millions of Christians are living in fear because of the growing attacks by armed men or cattle herders from the Fulani ethnic group.” The “herders are Muslims who make regular journeys with their cattle to pastures down south—an area mostly dominated by Christians,” he continued. The raids, Egwu warned, were increasing the chances of major conflict on yet another dimension: religion.

Especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, rising violence against women has also reached a crisis point, leading to the declaration of a state of emergency on the issue by the Nigerian governors’ forum, which also promised to set up a sex offenders registry, according to Egwu. The move came after days of marches in which protesters “defied the lockdown restrictions to voice their anger over the recent wave of rape and murder of women and girls in the country.”

Those marches may have been a sign of what was to come this month: further protests, this time over police brutality. “During the first two weeks after lockdown began on March 30, 18 people were killed extrajudicially by the police, according to the National Human Rights Commission,” Egwu reported. “This is not a new phenomenon. Nigerian police have a notorious record of human rights abuses, brutality, and even extrajudicial killings for the slightest of offenses, such as refusing to give bribes, holding an expensive phone, or driving a fancy car.” In fact, he went on, “[r]eports of police brutality are so common across Africa that they’re not meaningfully tracked.”

Until that point, police killings were typically followed by “fancy hashtag activism for justice” that “trends for some days. A moment later, everything returns to normal, and life continues. There are no street protests demanding justice or the prosecution of the killers. The police and other security actors such as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit carry on as before. Hashtag activism is no answer.”

In late October, though, hashtags turned to marches—and how far they will go toward reforming the country remains an open question.


READ MORE

Isolated in Rural Nigeria—and Waiting for America to Vote
Across much of the world—including one remote Nigerian village—the availability of family planning will largely depend on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

THE FULL STORY | SHOLA LAWAL, SOPHIA JONES

Trump’s Nigerian Ban Is About Race, Not Security
Nigerian entrepreneurship and creativity have always found a home in the United States—until now.
ARGUMENT | KỌ́LÁ TÚBỌ̀SÚN

Kathryn Salam is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy.

Trump Moves Closer to Renewing Nuclear Treaty With Russia
But Russian negotiators still haven’t agreed to stepped-up verification of its nuclear warheads, a major sticking point.

BY JACK DETSCH, ROBBIE GRAMER | OCTOBER 20, 2020
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive for a group photo at the G-20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The United States and Russia appear to be closer to clinching a deal to extend the Barack Obama-era New START arms control treaty, after Russian negotiators publicly conceded to a freeze on the number of nuclear warheads in exchange for a one-year extension of the agreement, according to new statements from U.S. and Russian officials.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the Trump administration was near a deal with Russian negotiators, something that U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for ahead of the November election despite calls within the administration for a more expansive agreement that would include China, another rising nuclear power.

If a last-minute agreement is reached, it could avert the collapse of one of the most important nuclear arms agreements in the post-Cold War era and give the Trump administration an opening to tout a foreign-policy achievement ahead of the contentious 2020 elections.

“We appreciate the Russian Federation’s willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement on Tuesday. “The United States is prepared to meet immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We expect Russia to empower its diplomats to do the same.”

But hurdles remain, and there appears to be daylight between U.S. and Russian statements on key remaining issues. While the Russian statement on Tuesday ceded ground to U.S. negotiators on warheads, it did not offer stepped-up verification protocols to ensure that it would abide by the freeze.

“Russia wants an unverified warhead freeze. It would be very difficult to monitor through intelligence collection,” tweeted James Acton, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Both Russia and the United States would presumably … continue to produce new warheads, while dismantling old ones.”

Trump’s top arms control negotiator, Marshall Billingslea, is expected to brief NATO allies on the developments this week. Senior European and NATO officials have voiced concerns about the status of the talks in recent months. After the United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia in 2019, they urged the United States to not abandon New START before its scheduled expiration in February, lest it risk the collapse of the entire arms control architecture in the post-Cold War era.

In recent reports to Congress, the Trump administration has repeatedly acknowledged that Russia has remained in compliance with New START—unlike other Cold War-era arms control treaties—but it has raised questions about whether the deal remains in U.S. interests.

The statements on Tuesday marked a major shift from the administration. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week called for an unconditional renewal of the deal, causing Trump’s National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien to urge Moscow to rethink its position “before a costly arms race ensues.” Among the remaining issues that U.S. and Russian negotiators would need to hash out before such a deal is secured are the definitions of a warhead and how each side would verify compliance with the warhead freeze. Billingslea, the top negotiator, has called for a more rigorous inspection regime under a fresh New START agreement than in the original 2010 deal signed under the Obama administration.

Still, it’s a major step forward after New START negotiations sputtered and stalled in recent months, as the Trump administration initially tried to extend the nuclear treaty to include China. Officials in Beijing refused to entertain such an offer. The rift led to a minor and clumsy diplomatic spat over social media that reflected the sharp disagreements between the United States and China.

Trump appeared to shift gears and abandon his proposal on trilateral talks the following month, when he called for a deal with Russia first before engaging with China.


READ MORE


U.S. Allies Worry Trump Administration Might Let Key Nuclear Treaty With Russia Die
Internal documents acknowledge concern among allies about the expiration of the Obama-era New START accord, but U.S. negotiators are still playing hardball.
REPORT | JACK DETSCH, ROBBIE GRAMER

Jack Detsch is Foreign Policy’s Pentagon and national security reporter. 

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. 

SLEAZY CAPITALI$M

MARKET REPORT: Boohoo bosses scoop up shares on the cheap as the scandal-hit online retailer falls out of fashion

By FRANCESCA WASHTELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
20 October 2020
Bosses at Boohoo have scooped up shares in the scandal-hit online retailer after another slump in the price.

The fast fashion company’s stock nosedived by more than a fifth this week after its auditor PwC quit and four other beancounters ruled out working for it. 

Since July Boohoo has been rocked by claims that some of its clothes were being made in sweatshops, with staff paid as little as £3.50 ($5.99 CAD) an hour.

M&A MONOPOLY CAPITALISM

G4S seeks new chairman as Canadian suitor gears up for bidding war with US rival

By TOM WITHEROW FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED:  20 October 2020

Takeover target G4S has kicked off the search for a new chairman.

The British security firm is looking for someone to succeed John Connolly, who has been chairman for eight years.

The hunt comes as G4S fends off Canadian predator Garda World, which last month tabled a 190p a share takeover bid worth £2.9billion.

Embattled British security firm G4S is looking for someone to succeed John Connolly (pictured), who has been chairman for eight years

US rival Allied Universal Security Services has also approached G4S, raising the prospect of a bidding war. 

As chairman, Connolly will play a key role in determining the future of G4S. And with his tenure drawing to a close, either selling G4S or securing it as an independent company could be his final act.

G4S chief executive Ashley Almanza said: 'We do have a succession plan. We've started well in time, and we are confident there will be a good successor.' 

Connolly, 70, took over as chairman of G4S in 2012 having risen to the top of Big Four auditor Deloitte, as Britain's best-paid accountant.

He has overseen a string of scandals, from its failure to supply enough security guards to the London Olympics to charging taxpayers for tagging offenders who were dead or back in prison.

But he has held on to his £382,000 a year job, adding to the fortune he made while at Deloitte, where one of his underlings was disgraced banker Fred Goodwin.

Shortly after Goodwin became chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland in 2001, the lender awarded the multi-million audit contract to Deloitte.

While Deloitte raked in more than £200million from the plum job, it failed to raise the alarm on the mountain of toxic debt on the balance sheet.

Earlier in his career, Connolly suffered a serious blow. The collapse of investment broker Barlow Clowes in 1988 after massive fraud was one of the biggest City's biggest scandals. 

Its downfall saddled taxpayers with a £150million bill as they paid compensation to investors who lost their savings.

Following an investigation, Connolly was judged to have signed off Barlow Clowes accounts with a lack of professional 'efficiency, conduct and competence'.

Deloitte took issue with the criticism of Connolly who was subsequently appointed chief executive and global chairman.

Connolly and Almanza are now leading the battle against Garda World, which is backed by private equity firm BC Capital. They say the bid 'significantly undervalues' G4S – and dismissed its suitor's criticisms as 'opportunistic' and 'scare-mongering'.

Garda World boss Stephan Cretier said he would 'educate' shareholders on the true state of G4S. Connolly retorted wryly that a suitor should not be too negative about a firm he is trying to buy.

Around a quarter of shareholders have already rejected Garda World's offer.

Among The Believers In North Korea's 'Holy Land'

The alleged birthplace of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has become a pilgrimage destination.

By Sebastien Berger 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's father and predecessor is said to have been born in a simple wooden hut on the slopes of a sacred mountain, and guide Kim Un Sim has no doubts: "Welcome to our holy land."

The North is avowedly atheist, with its own Juche ideology proclaiming that "Man is the master of all things", but quasi-religious terminology abounds at Mount Paektu, a dormant volcano straddling the border with China.

It has long been considered the spiritual birthplace of the Korean nation and -- according to Pyongyang's orthodoxy -- Kim Jong Il, son of the North's founder Kim Il Sung, came into the world at a secret guerrilla camp on its slopes, where his father was directing the fight against Korea's Japanese colonial overlords.

Now it is a place of pilgrimage for tens of thousands of North Koreans every year, who are trained from birth to revere their leaders.

Kim Jong Il "was born amid arduous conditions" guide Kim said, "not in a luxurious house, but in an ordinary, humble log cabin", with bitter winter temperatures plunging to minus 40 Celsius (Fahrenheit).

His mother Kim Jong Suk -- another member of the North's revolutionary pantheon -- could only be served soup made from dried mountain herbs and corn, she added.

"The guerrilla fighters shed tears from pity that our general -- only a few months old -- had so little to eat and brought back food and goat milk.

The story has several echoes of the Christian Nativity, from a bright star shining in the sky, a birth in adversity, and well-wishers bringing gifts to the new arrival and future leader.

Guide Kim said the secret camp, never located by the occupying Japanese in nine years, was Kim Il Sung's headquarters from 1936, from where he travelled across Korea and to bases in China "to finally accomplish the historic liberation of the country".

There was no mention of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 that triggered Japan's World War II surrender, and with it the end of Tokyo's 35-year rule over the peninsula.

'Paektu bloodline'


The ruling Workers' Party of Korea and the Kim dynasty bases its claim to legitimacy on what it says was Kim Il Sung's pivotal role in the national struggle for independence.

Korea's foundational myth says its people are descended from King Tangun, born on Mount Paektu to a god who came to earth from heaven and a bear transformed into a woman.

Kim Jong Il's birth in the same place puts the ruling family firmly in the same tradition, a concept reinforced by the North's references to his son and successor Kim Jong Un as a member of the "Paektu bloodline".

Outside historians, though, say that the founding Kim spent most of the war in exile, as a guerrilla fighting Japanese forces in China then a battalion commander in the Soviet army.

Soviet records state his son was born in the Russian Far East village of Vyatskoye on 16 February 1941, exactly a year earlier than his official birthday.

After the war, the Mount Paektu camp was lost to the surrounding forests, the guide explained, but Kim Il Sung recognised its location on a visit to the area in 1986 and had its three huts rebuilt to ensure younger generations could be taught about "our country that he has defended and won back with his blood".

"It is the ardent wish of all the people to visit the secret camp," she added.

'Spiritual pillar'

Every year 100,000 North Koreans or more are taken on study tours to the camp, the mountain, and nearby revolutionary sites where relics of operations are preserved.

Dressing in khaki uniforms said to resemble guerrillas' outfits and carrying red flags, they march to the summit of the volcano, where an inscription in Kim Jong Il's handwriting proclaims: "Mount Paektu, holy mountain of the revolution" and a tablet on the rim declares Kim Jong Un "another unsurpassed hero received by Paektu".

The visiting troupes sing songs such as "We Will Go to Mount Paektu" and paddle joyously in Lake Chonji, its crater lake.

For ordinary workers it can be a two- or three-day trip, but for students the standard itinerary is four weeks, officials said, including a period of voluntary work on a construction site or other project.

"Everyone needs a spiritual pillar," said Ri Yong Myong, 30, who is studying Korean literature at the elite Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang after 10 years of military service.

"Rather than wealth or honour, the Korean people hold Mount Paektu, which is the holy mountain and the mountain of our great leaders, as our spiritual pillar.

"My body is full of the spirit and force of Mount Paektu so I can provide loyal service to the leader by even grinding all my bones and flesh."

Ordinary North Koreans always express wholehearted support for the authorities when speaking to foreign media, but a Western official with knowledge of the peninsula said that for many, their beliefs are deeply held.

The North's teachings were "all-pervading", he said, drawing a comparison with "medieval Europe and the role of the church and doctrine".

"For the average person there's nothing to challenge the narrative."

Copyright AFP. All rights reserved.

Mount Paektu is a place of pilgrimage for tens of thousands of North Koreans every year

 Photo: AFP / Ed JONES

#USURY
Mastercard and Visa accused of cashing in on pandemic with excessive fees

The fees being charged have doubled in the last two years which could force retailers to pass on the extra costs to their consumers

By Nina Siena

October 22, 2020 

Mastercard and Visa are in hot water as The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has accused them of charging "excessive fees" while cashing in on the pandemic. The fees being charged by the payment firms have doubled in the last two years, which could force retailers to pass on the extra costs to their consumers.

In an interview with the BBC, BRC head of finance policy Andrew Cregan said, "It is vital that the government takes action to tackle excessive card costs. It is an abuse of a dominant market position by these companies."

The BRC revealed their findings showing the average cost of a cash transaction to retailers is only 1.42p while payments made through debit cards costs retailers 5.88p. Credit cards on the other hand, cost 18.4p.

The duopoly of Mastercard and Visa controls about 98% of the UK market. However, numbers from the latest Payments Survey show they have the least competitive layer of the card payments ecosystem due to their complex billing structures. This by itself could potentially lead to increased abuses of their card schemes.

The BRC is pushing the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to conduct investigations regarding the existing card schemes of these big players.

As credit card bills are expected to rise by another £40 ($68.50 CAD) a year, retail and hospitality trade organisations have joined forces to call for legal actions to rein in and tackle card fees as recent events have forced industries to accept only card payments in observation of the pandemic social distancing rules.

British Independent Retailers Association commercial director Jeff Moody said small local shops are being penalised as they are unable to negotiate for better fees with these payment firms compared to the contracts given to large national chains.

"With card transactions now the majority of their payment transactions, these costs are therefore being felt by consumers," Moody adds.

In response to these accusations, Mastercard said, "Digital payments are the most effective way of receiving and making payments for business and by their nature are significantly less costly than cash."

The card company added that they do not hold any strong belief in the BRC's report as this does not represent the facts of the entire UK payments industry.

High on the agenda of many of the nation's retailers: what they call Mastercard's and Visa's dominance over translations and the fees involved. The NRF is seeking to block a class action settlement against the credit card issuers, saying the ruling doesn't go far enough is leaching the two companies that handle 80 percent of the nation's swipes. The next hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday in Washington. REUTERS

UK

Grab your turkey early as shortage looms over Christmas dinner 2020
The British Poultry Council (BPC) said the problem is due to a shortage of skilled workers that process the meat

By Nina Siena

Updated October 22, 2020 

This year's Christmas dinner may end up to be not so joyous as the traditional feast is under threat of running low on turkey supply. The British Poultry Council (BPC) said the problem is due to a shortage of skilled workers that process the meat. The council is urging the government to exempt the workers from quarantine rules to ensure retail markets are fully stocked for the holiday season.

About 1.000 EU workers are required to keep turkey stock supplies from running aground. According to the BBC, the proposed exemption would cover seasonal workers coming from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia at the end of October 2020.

But with the crippling pandemic, workers will not come to Britain if they have to undergo a 14-day quarantine before starting work. The type of skilled people needed in turkey processing are not available among UK workers.

A spokeswoman for the government said, "We recognise and appreciate our dedicated farmers who continue to work tirelessly during this challenging time to keep our nation fed. We are working with industry to assess needs and ensure a steady supply of British turkeys as we approach Christmas."

Meanwhile, BPC head Richard Griffiths expressed his concerns. "The great British Christmas cannot survive without access to non-UK labour."

"Turkey producers are heavily reliant on licensed and trained EU workers with specific farming, processing, and butchery skills. These skills cannot be replaced without a lengthy training and recruitment period."

Griffiths also points out that there is a deficiency of UK workers with the right training and qualifications required to slaughter and process about nine million turkeys that have been reared for the Christmas season.

These workers have been specifically trained for this job in Watok - Welfare of Animals at Time of Killing. They are licensed to slaughter animals which means they all hold certificates of competence issued by the Food Standards Agency. It takes at least 12 weeks to attain basic slaughter and knife skills.

"It will be unfeasible to train and up-skill UK workers within the short window available," Griffiths said.

"That will pose a risk to affordability and potentially force people to go without food this Christmas," he added.

Griffiths warned that if seasonal vacancies do not get filled up, this will cause a significant impact on the production, supply and cost of food during the holidays.

Here is exactly why Trump's supporters like him

One of the reasons for Trump's enduring popularity, despite everything he has said and done, is that his supporters believe he has behavioral integrity.

By Rangapriya Kannan, Craig Barkacs

Updated October 23, 2020 1

"How can Trump supporters still like him after that?"

This question has been asked with greater frequency since the last presidential debate, which is widely being called the worst one in history, and President Trump's subsequent COVID-19 diagnosis. The question itself is not new and has been repeatedly asked in some form or another since the 2016 elections.

As with most complex phenomena, the true answer is likely a combination of factors, but there is one answer that has not yet been offered. While many remain baffled as to how Trump supporters continue to like him despite his latest act of bullying, lying, egotism or vulgarity, we suggest that it is in fact because of those incidents that they do.

Let us explain. In psychology, there is a value-neutral concept known as behavioral integrity. It refers to the perception that an individual or group is behaving in a way that aligns with what they say, that they do what they say they will do, and that their messaging is consistent.

Research shows that when followers perceive a leader figure to demonstrate behavioral integrity, it bolsters their feelings of trust and confidence. An important clarification to be made here is that whether the leader in question actually does these things or not (e.g., does he actually do what he says he will do?) is not important to this concept, only that he is perceived as doing these things.

One of the reasons for Trump's enduring popularity, despite everything he has said and done, is that his supporters believe he has behavioral integrity. They perceive that his actions align with his words, they perceive that he does what he promises to do, and they perceive that his messaging is consistent (again, whether he really does these things or not does not matter).

A second clarification that needs to be made is that while many of his supporters may certainly agree with what he says or does, not all of his supporters necessarily do. Rather, even for those who might not support Trump, what they appreciate in Trump is the (perceived) consistency and authenticity with which he says and does the things that he does. An article in the Los Angeles Times, published after the first debate, included a quote from a voter named Jay Williams, 35, a Black construction worker, that captures this perfectly:

US President Donald Trump's rallies feature chants of 'lock him up' against opponent Joe Biden.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump attend a rally at Orlando Sanford International Airport in Sanford, Florida

Williams was not particularly bothered that Trump had refused to condemn white supremacists. "Donald Trump will stand up for what he believes in," he said. "Whether we agree with it or not, he fully believes in it. I would say, in a way, you have to admit it's admirable that he stands firm. But at the same time, you know, it is what it is." He shrugged. "Most of the U.S. presidents were white supremacists," he said. "Trump's just more honest."

Honesty and authenticity are traits that have often been attributed to Trump (and, for that matter, to Bernie Sanders), and it has been speculated that authenticity may be a reason why both Trump and Sanders enjoy a certain fierce loyalty from their supporters. According to business theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer, however, the reality is that we do not grant power to those who are authentic and honest — we grant power to those who project confidence and strength and often that means their displaying traits we say we don't want our leaders to have: self-aggrandizement, shameless lying, and never admitting to mistakes.

Besides, dogged consistency is not the same thing as authenticity. To make people believe you have behavioral integrity, you need to appear consistent but you don't necessarily need to be authentic.

In point of fact, Trump often does not do what he says he will do. He does not live in a way that aligns with his professed values. And he does not have consistent messaging. Yet for a number of reasons these discrepancies do not matter to his loyalists. One reason for this is that he has effectively discredited the media in the eyes of his followers such that reports of his inconsistencies are seen as "fake news."

Trump himself has admitted that the reason he consistently attacks the media is so that when negative stories are published about him no one will believe them. Some of his supporters may even acknowledge that he is not as consistent as it may seem, but they do not care so long as he is consistent about the things that they care about most, and that he consistently goes after those they do not like, be they immigrants, career politicians, or liberal media.

Finally, another reason that Trump supporters may be stubborn in their support is that they crave consistency (i.e. behavioral integrity) in their own words and actions as well as in their leader's. Robert Cialdini, the guru of psychological influence, calls this the "Consistency" Principle of Persuasion, which holds that once people commit to an idea or course of action, they naturally wish to remain consistent with it because if they do not, it creates the discomfort of cognitive dissonance.

Research bears this out. One study, for instance, found that the more people were presented with evidence that threatens their beliefs and opinions, the more they clung to those beliefs and opinions, potentially explaining why the more Trump flaunts his narcissism and arrogance, or the more his political opponents point it out, the more fiercely his supporters defend him.

Like many observers of the current political situation in our country, we are deeply perturbed by the vicious divisiveness, spirit of animosity, and lack of trust in the democratic process that informs so much of our public discourse. But to continually express bewilderment over the obstinacy of Trump supporters does not fix the problem. True healing can only begin with understanding. When we understand that the perceived consistency of Trump's behavior, not its moral content, is precisely why his supporters like him, and that this comes from a natural tendency of human nature, it is then that we can form strategies to counter this self-reinforcing pattern.

Rangapriya (Priya) Kannan is the chair and professor of the Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the founder-director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Catalyzer at the University of San Diego School of Business. 

Craig Barkacs, J.D., is a professor of business law and ethics in the Master's in Executive Leadership and MBA Programs at the University of San Diego School of Business.

(This article first appeared in IBTimes U.S. edition.)