blog.hardcore.lt/ve 2.0

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:11:15 +0100                                                     
From: Zaczek <hydrozag(at)poczta.onet.pl>                                                
To: alter-ee  <alter-ee(at)lists.most.org.pl>
Subject:  capitalism in Egypt                                                   
Sender: alter-ee-admin@lists.most.org.pl                                                  
X-Mailer: onet.poczta                                                                     
                                                                                          
My dad lives in Egypt and he told me an interesting story that tells something about how  
capitalism works.                                                                         
                                                                                          
I once wrote about how the trash collecting in Cairo city was taken over by Coptic        
immigrants from the countryside. They built a whole district on the mountain where trash  
is disposed of. They made a relatively good living on re-processing plastic from trash and
the people in the city had a relatively cheap cleaning service. They used to go early in  
the morning with their carts and collect garbage from homes, and asked for some small     
money in exchange.                                                                        
                                                                                          
About a year ago, the Egyption government has sold the monopoly for collecting trash to an
Italian company. At the time i thought it would be the end of the relative prosperity of  
the Coptic people. The situation evolved this way:                                        
                                                                                          
The Copts come to collect trash as they did before, they just have to do it one hour      
before the Italian company comes. The Italian company charges for collecting trash and    
people are billed for it in their electricity bills, just in case they didn't want to pay.
There is nothing left to collect for the Italian company because the independent trash    
collectors have already cleaned up everything by the time they arrive.                    
                                                                                          
So the government is happy that they have been bribed to sell the contract to the         
Italians, the Italians are happy that they receive money for doing nothing, the Copts     
manage somehow with a lower income (cause people don't want to pay them anymore since they
already have to pay the Italians), and regular people have to pay more money for a service
that used to be cheap and which is not being done by the people who are being paid.       
                                                                                          
Zaczek                                                                                    
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