Yes, there's a strong argument that Christianity has a great deal to do with this, but nevertheless the great visible shift in fundamental attitudes, toward the presumption that everyone has an equal claim to liberty and material comfort, came as Christianity was subsiding as a cultural and social force.

That's true, I guess, but I think it was a result of inertia. The forward movement was there, and it would not surprise me to see it come to a stop and turn in the other direction.

The idea that some people are meant to do the hard work while living in poverty is still prevalent in a lot of places, and we participate in that in a way that would be hard to escape unless we were completely self-sufficient.

And changing the subject, one of the things we used to do on vacation is tour great houses. It doesn't bother me at all that some people live that way and that I never will. I just am glad that there are beautiful things like that in the world.

Now I don't care about houses, I just want mountains and water. It does make me kind of sad that some people get to live on the beach and I don't.

AMDG

My first impulse was to apologize for living on the beach (almost), but then I decided not to. :-)

It's the "almost" that keeps you from having to apologize. That and the fact that you don't have a pier.

AMDG

You never know when you are walking on a razor's edge.

AMDG

It's possible to make a principled argument about that, that raising the minimum wage actually has unintended consequences that are overall negative. *Possible*. But I very much doubt that the people actually paying the wages are looking at it that way.

By the standards of most people I am wealthy, but I have a lot of anxiety about retirement, not owning a home, etc. I can't even imagine what it is like for people of meager means. I would happily leave America if one of those socialist nations in W Europe would take me in, tax me like crazy, and then take care of me until I die. God bless America.

I don't know for sure but I have the impression that those countries are not particularly open to immigration from countries apart from situations where they can feel self-righteous.

That's very true, Janet. It's probably difficult to find clothes that *aren't* made that way.

Sopposing large numbers of people didnt buy clothes made in swear shops in China? Wouldnt the swear shop owners just throw a few people out of work? Its hardly likely they will react to loss of business by increasing wages.

I have been buying fair traded clothing on and off when I could afford it for twenty five years. I certainly prefer to do so. I fear there are a lot of people behind the scenes making a fortune out of fair traded goods

That's probably true, about people making money of fair-traded goods.

"Sopposing large numbers of people didnt buy clothes made in swear shops in China?..."

That kind of consideration is why I tend to avoid taking hard-and-fast positions on questions like this. The world is so complex that the way things work out in reality is quite likely to be different from what's intended. If nothing else, the result will probably be mixed.

Guess I've never bought fair trade anything. I'm sure it's a good idea. I guess it's just one of those things that I more or less unconsciously decided I didn't want to deal with.

My goal is to eat expensive, fair-traded chocolate occasionally rather than frequently to consume cheap chocolate. That's fairly easily achieved. Of course it is harder with coffee and tea. With meat and eggs, the idea is to eat free range meat somewhat more rarely, say four times a week outside of fasting seasons. These have become typical aspirations of at least one section of the European middle class. They barely exist in America even as vague aspirations.

We don't have TJ's in my mid Western town. We do have Aldi - which always seems like a weird downmarket outpost of Europe in America! Its weird because outposts of Europe are normally exclusive and expensive!

As far as I know Aldi hasn't made it down here yet. Must be infiltrating from the north, as there's one in my north Alabama home town.

On local versus fair trade, I'd go local if there was a choice. Our 'local' olde fashioned health food store is currently endangered by a new Whole Foods round the corner from it. So I buy my fair traded coffee there. I don't drink much of it.

I drink a lot of tea and I'm not even going to pretend that fair trade comes into my calculations. In England, certainly, it was a factor. But in the USA it is so difficult getting loose tea that adding 'fair traded' into the equation makes it too much of a headache.

Please don't say something which implies that 'tea' can come from a tree or bush that is not a 'tea plant'.

I used to share an office with a woman who would say "Sweat and blood give coffee its flavour. I've never had a fair trade coffee that didn't taste like ditch water." Which I thought was in rather poor taste, but essentially unanswerable. I've never had a fair trade coffee that didn't taste like ditch water, either.

I drink my coffee black (i.e. I'm not tasting anything but coffee) and can testify that there are *vast* differences in flavor. Surely that ditch water taste wasn't specifically to do with its being fair-trade.

I keep wondering if there is any tea that doesn't taste acrid and astringent. Long ago I used to drink it without milk or sugar, but I don't know how--now I find that quite unpleasant. I gave up coffee for tea this past Lent, not easy for me to do, and started out drinking straight tea, but it was so very unpleasant that I couldn't keep it up. Finally settled on a teaspoon of sugar and a few drops of lemon juice. A tablespoon of half-and-half was also acceptable.

By the way, I haven't looked for a long time, but loose tea used to be readily available in supermarkets here. I used to be it regularly. Made kind of a mess in my office with it.

I regularly give up coffee for Lent. I've never been able to give up tea.

!!

The idea of someone being loose tea strikes me as very amusing.

AMDG

My local roasterie has this, which I first tried five or six years ago and is now a favorite. It's not my every day joe, but I have it two or three mornings a week. It tastes different than any other coffee I've ever tried. It looks light in the cup but tastes dark (but not charred or smoky) if that makes any sense. You don't want to get it roasted dark because that kills the "earthy" quality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsooned_Malabar

I get some delicious fair-trade coffee from our health food store. I'm not a connoisseur but I've never had eye rolls from those kinds of people when I offer it after lunch.

When I was in NYC I went into TJ with some anticipation because I'd heard so much about it. I couldn't see anything in there I wanted to eat, and there were enormous lines at the check out, so I left. Eventually after I got Olivier, I used to there to get some special kind of dog biscuit I heard were perfect for training puppies. Some special flavour. I love speciality food shops. I've got a slight weakness for foody stuff. But I didn't see anything remotely tempting in there. I could go to TJ when I got to Chicago for the hairdresser and St. John Cantius, and sometimes I think I might give it another shot. But it never seems worth making the dogs wait another couple of hours for me to get home.

"It also does something more than taste good and more than give me the caffeinated buzz, which I don't even like. It's a weird craving that I don't understand."

I hear ya. I'm the same way about beer too. It's not related to the alcohol; there's just something about the malt/hops balance (sweet/bitter) in a good beer that nothing else approaches. Except coffee.

TJ's is like a smaller, downmarket version of Whole Foods. It's still more expensive than your average supermarket, but you can find good stuff at reasonable prices if you shop selectively. Their coffees are excellent, and they also have their own wine and beer lines which are inexpensive and surprisingly good.

Coffee and beer, yes!

I mean, not together, but sharing the summit of desirability in the beverage category.