Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "LastWeekTonight" channel.

  1. The Taliban has fought for 30 years to gain control over the country. The Taliban is not a foreign force, but is made up of the people of Afghanistan. It has had enough popular support for 30 years to supply it with fresh fighters who are willing to die for the cause, willing to fight for 2 decades against the combined forces of the US and NATO. It has had enough support to make the former Afghan army and police force lay down their arms as soon as they heard the Taliban was getting near. The Taliban has little support in Kabul and other urban centers, but in the mountains, support is strong. The expression "You get the government you deserve" is especially fitting for Afghanistan. The tragic conditions in Afghanistan today are identical to what they have had for the last 40 years. The brief period of Western control represents the only break in that long period of suffering. But they didn't want the West there, they wanted to control Afghanistan the Afghan way. They got that now. Good luck.
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  2.  @Robstafarian  So white people are benefitting every which way? Both when they immigrate, and when non-white people immigrate.
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  3. If you go to your local supermarket in the US and buy a $5.- loaf of bread made with wheat grown by an American farmer, that farmer will make $0.07 - $0.40, depending on the type of bread.
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  4. I'm surprised to see John Oliver present such a level-headed view of sex work, but I applaud it. It's long overdue to start legislation that will legalize and protect the rights of sex workers. The perpetual criminalization of sex workers is REAL, SYSTEMIC oppression of a group of people in, not just America, but many countries the world over. It's a disgrace that needs to end, the sooner the better.
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  5. Re. Child labor in the industry: As John Oliver explains, most of the cocoa farms are small, family run plots. The children working in them are likely the farmer's own children, or perhaps children from the village. If an inspector comes by and says 'you can't have children working here. Stop it or we won't buy from you', that will be devastating for the farmer and his family, incl. those children. What is the farmer supposed to do? Without the kids, he can't harvest the cocoa alone and he will lose income, income that his family desperately needs. It's easy for us here in the rich part of the world to say we don't accept child labor, but that is because we can afford it. Those farmers can't. Both they and their children need to work to make the most basic of living. In time, the industry in Ghana and Ivory Coast will consolidate: People will move to the city for better opportunities, leaving the land for their neighbors to grow on. Mechanization will make inroads, efficiencies increase and the farmers will make a better living. That is just how economic development works. That is how it worked for us in the rich world 100-300 years ago when we were wretchedly poor, and that is how it has worked for farmers in China and Malaysia and other places where the economy has grown. As for the big Chocolate companies, they don't buy their cocoa from the farmers, they buy it from middlemen, who buy it from middlemen, who buy it from other middlemen, who buy it from the farmers. The lowest level middlemen who buy directly from farmers are also locals who make just a smidgen more than the farmers themselves. They don't want to pay more because they will lose their livelihood. And so it goes through the links. Imagine yourself at the supermarket cashier, chocolate bar in hand. If you decide to pay triple the price for that bar, do you think that money will go to the farmer? No, it'll be divided through all the levels of middlemen, all of whom need that extra cash. The best the farmers can do is to join forces in a large cooperative, negotiating a minimum price that all buyers must pay. It may not make them rich, but at least it will ensure their future. Aside from that, they will simply have to wait until Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire starts on a path of rapid economic development. Only then will their lives really see big improvement.
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  6. Ok, only 2 minutes into this video and already it is so predictable: Those who farm the product don't make a big share of the final price. Yes, that is true, as it is true of bread, or a steak dinner, or a skim milk latte, or a T-shirt, or a smart phone, or most other products. How many times do we have to go through this? The farmer who grows wheat and milks his cows doesn't make a very big share of the cost of your delicious croissant because he doesn't make the croissant, he only makes some of the initial raw material. The worker who digs up iron ore with a giant machine does not make a big share of the price of a car, because he doesn't make the car, only a part of the raw material. The person who guides your tour group around Rome does not get a big share of the price of your trip, because he/she is only a tiny, tiny part of the final product. All this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has ever considered what it takes to make a bar of chocolate.
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  7. 'No tax on tips' is a great incentive to cook the books: A plumber comes to your house to fix something. He says: 'if you tip me $50 I will lower the bill by $60'. You save $10 and he gets $50 of the total tax free. Everybody's happy, except the IRS and the Treasury.
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  8. John Oliver doesn't like Steven Pinker...
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  9. 4:58 "Yeah, that slimy bean soup is cocoa". Only a clueless, out-of-touch city person would have this reaction. It just goes to show how far removed the modern city person is from the production of their food. It's sad, but only those very same city people are responsible for their own ignorance. Do better!
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  10. John Oliver says: "Over a thousand USPS employees have tested positive for Corona virus and 40 have died." According to USPS (https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/employees-since-1926.pdf) there are 496,934 employees in USPS. If a thousand have gotten the virus that is equivalent to 2012 cases per million. In the country at large, 4200 per million have tested positive, twice as many as within the postal service. 40 employees have died, or 81 per million, three times less than the general population. Thus, it is actually much safer to be an employee at USPS than not.
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  11. I feel like John Oliver thinks I'm a school child, or someone with a mild developmental disability, or perhaps just someone who spends more time taking selfies and reading about celebrities than educating themselves.
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