Wed

Jan 16
2008

Dale Dougherty

Dale Dougherty

The Rest of the Rest of Us

Macworld is about the excitement of the arrival of new "cargo," to use Jared Diamond's term from Guns, Germs, and Steel. As Diamond wrote, people with more resources see the world differently. It shapes our world view. The things we possess are not just these things but (to us) symbols of hope and signs of optimism that good things are possible. Technologists, by definition, are people who not only have resources but are resourceful -- we know what to do with what we have. It's a huge advantage.

I was reminded of Apple's slogan that the Mac was "The Computer For The Rest Of Us" unveiled as part of its "1984" commercial. How we identified with that slogan. To quote Henry V, "we happy few." It spoke to how we saw ourselves as outsiders, as participants in a rebellion against conformity. We saw technology as a way of setting ourselves free -- free to explore, free to do things our own way, free as in freedom. With this technology, the "rest of us" became an enlightened majority and ever since we've been buying computers, cell phones, HDTVs, HD video cameras, digital cameras, GPS systems, iPods, etcetera, etcetera.

Well, what about all those people who don't have what we have, who don't pay attention to Macworld, who don't keep up with the latest technology? Aren't they the "rest" of the "rest of us?" It's possible they don't understand "our" world and more likely that we don't understand theirs. They don't have our access to tools and information (resources) and they don't share our sense of hope and optimism. They don't share our belief that technology (and the people and companies developing it) can change the world. Instead, they live with fear of many things, including a fear of what we may do, including making decisions without considering them.

I raise this issue because I feel iPhone guilt. Taking the iPhone out of my pocket in a public place makes me uncomfortable. Some people ask nicely about it: "How do you like it?" But I'm keenly aware that others don't have what I have and they notice it. The iPhone is a great phone but I'm conscious that it's helping to define "the rest of us versus them."

A recent Economist story, "The Social Technologist," profiles Yossi Vardi, the gregarious Israeli entrepreneur who made his name selling ICQ to AOL in 1996 and has been herding start-ups ever since.

His message: only a happy few are benefiting from Israel's amazing high-tech boom. “We have become two countries: a high-tech one with few children and very high incomes, and a poor one with lots of kids.” Vardi says.

The same could be said of the United States, of course, or any country with a sufficiently developed "high tech" sector. What's worrisome -- and you see this if you go watch student presentations at Stanford or sit-in on any number of presentations by high-tech start-ups -- is that the resourceful keep discovering new ways to serve one another. The people with lots of cargo are excited about getting more cargo. MySpace keeps getting better.

I recently visited Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where the market once supported lots of jobs in textiles, tobacco, and furniture-making. One person told me that a 16-year-old could drop out of high school and walk into a factory for work and live a middle-class life. Today, kids still drop out of high school at 16 but they don't have a factory job waiting for them. Even those who once had the factory jobs are out of work now and attend government-funded retraining programs. Said this same person: "How many lawn mower repairmen do we need?"

One of the presidential candidates (sorry, I can't remember which one) said that we are losing lots of jobs, and not just factory jobs, but white collar jobs as well. In other words, the college-educated will have difficulty finding many of the "good jobs" that were available to previous generations. I've never heard a politician say before that the college-educated may be in the same position that factory workers have been in over the last 20 years.

It's not just the tech community that has trouble seeing these problems clearly. Timothy Noah writes in Slate of a recent column by Gloria Steinem in support of Hillary Clinton and maintains that Steinem's own agenda is blocking her view of the big picture:

"Gender," writes Gloria Steinem on the op-ed page of the Jan. 8 New York Times, "is probably the most restricting force in American life." That is incorrect. Poverty is the most restricting force in American life. It's become somewhat unfashionable to point this out, but I don't see how it could be otherwise. Given the choice between being born poor and being born female, which would you choose?

Nonetheless, one doesn't want to be a poor single mother with children. One would rather be a Hillary or Gloria. Steinem's argument's basis in gender would have us believe that the problems of poor women are essentially the same as those women who themselves have lots of resources or who grew up in families with lots of resources.

Novelist and English professor Lorrie Moore writes in an Op-Ed in The New York Times called Last Year's Role Model that the "political moment for feminine role models has, arguably, passed us by."

The children who are suffering in this country, who are having trouble in school, and for whom the murder and suicide rates and economic dropout rates are high, are boys — especially boys of color, for whom the whole educational system, starting in kindergarten, often feels a form of exile, a system designed by and for white girls.
In the progressive Midwestern city where I live, the high school dropout rate for these alienated and written-off boys is alarmingly high. Some are even middle-class, but many are just hanging on, their families torn apart by harsh economics and a merciless criminal justice system.

While we have become comfortable debating issues of gender and race, many of us are missing the obvious fact that people who are poor lack the resources the rest of us have and that's what makes them disadvantaged. That's why they see the world differently. That's why they don't share our optimism for the future or the future of their children. With a public school system that's failing the poor (and all but the brightest of the middle class), there is not much hope that children in poverty can find a way to escape it. An article on Barack Obama in The New York Times make this point:

After Hurricane Katrina, (Obama) did not attribute the lumbering federal response to the race of most of the storm’s victims. “The incompetence was color-blind,” he said, adding that the real stumbling block was indifference to the problems of the poor.

It's unacceptable that our government is indifferent to the poor. But let me reframe this argument again in terms of technology, lest you think I'm trying to make a political point. (I hope you understand that I'm not trying to argue on behalf of a candidate but rather for the importance of poverty as an issue deserving our full attention.)

Is the high-tech world indifferent to the problems of the poor? Do we have any competence that matters in helping them find a better life? Or are we just making "the happy few" that much happier?

What is a social network if the people facing the toughest problems are not part of it? They don't need more signs that tell them that they are on their own. The have-nots don't do networking. It doesn't get them anywhere.

Whether it's the latest from Web 2.0 or Apple Computer, do we need to ask what it means for those who aren't able to take part? Does it help them catch up or put them further behind? That calculation is part of the social cost of any new technology. We might think of it like we're starting to think about our oversized carbon footprint and its impact on the physical world. Is there any way to offset the negative social impact of the technology that we're so busily developing?

It's a challenge for the "best of us" to address.


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Comments: 30

  Greg Tallent [01.16.08 02:17 PM]

I think some people are indifferent, and others try to help. That's just the way the world is. We need to change the way the former think about what's important in their lives - the next bit of technology, or perhaps a small contribution that creates value somewhere else. Greg

  monopole [01.16.08 02:43 PM]

Last night I realized that the eee and the XO have become the "Computer for the Rest of Us". I used to work for John Dove in the early '90s and on occasion we would discuss the idea of distributing small network computers to everybody in the US. Not only would this have the potential of greatly reducing government paperwork through electronic forms but it would have the potential to huge amounts to info to poor but bright children and adults.

Now we are nearly at the point where this will be a reality. The XO in particular is a great exercise in using tech to make things cheaper and greener rather than faster.

Also the EEE is way sexy. I'm having a great time showing off my mods and hacks and then telling people the price tag.

Back in the day of the homebrew computer club, big iron was insanely expensive, and the new personal computers were dirt cheap in comparison. Now the EEE, and the XO are going to be cheap in comparison to PCs after a few design cycles. And I expect a renaissance in computing as a result.

  Thomas Lord [01.16.08 02:46 PM]

To get over iPhone guilt, look beyond the moment of taking the phone out.

Look at the structural elements of the flows of capital that create poverty around you.

Work on those. Directly. Where's the food come from? The water? Power? Civil order? Where is labor directed?

(Here it is appropriate to pimp Technocrat a bit -- not because that's where the solution action is converging. But, you can often read there some good structural analysis of some parts of the problem.)

That said, while the nice toys give you some freedoms that are new, it cuts both ways and entangles you both by transactionalizing your private life and subjecting it to greater surveillance, and by helping to make you statistically more likely to be worse than useless when "the big one" hits.

-t

  Karen [01.16.08 03:05 PM]

"a public school system that's failing the poor (and all but the brightest of the middle class),"

Actually, the brightest of the middle class are being failed too, as gifted programs get cut to fund the NCLB mandate. I've heard it said the dropout rate is the same for kids at *both* extremes. So perhaps "all but the bright-but-not-TOO-bright of the middle class."

Not that that takes away from the main point.

  Dan Goodman [01.16.08 03:13 PM]

Not that there isn't more to be done about this problem, but there are people trying to address it. Whatever you think of their results, there is the one-laptop-per-child initiative, One Economy (http://www.one-economy.com/), etc.

  Julio Fraire [01.16.08 04:44 PM]

Affordability of technology does not seem to be the problem. Take the Open Source movement as an example: It is mainly happening in developed countries, eventhough software and documentation are freely available on the Internet.

One could argue that people in developing countries would be interested in, at the very least, decreasing by a couple hundred dollars the cost of a PC by using some version of Linux, but this is not happening at a large scale. I think that being poor might be by itself a lock-out for technology, even when it's free (as in free beer).

I do not think the toys of the "happy few" are what the poor (or developing) need to shorten the breach. I wonder if market-driven technology can shorten the breach; it might be fundamentally flawed for this.

  steve [01.16.08 05:26 PM]

The improved technology that you can access doesn't create the gap between us and them. Even the poorest people have access to the equipment that only rich people had 10 years ago.

The gap is from the timing differential where richer people have a lead time of accessing equipment that the rest of the world won't have until a few years later.

So the impact is related (and limited) to the additional abilities that such equipment allows. So the iPhone, as remarkable as it is, doesn't offer a whole lot more than a normal phone and a hand-held map.

It is the category extenders and breakers that have real impact, and the first mover advantage applies very strongly in these areas.

  Srinagesh Eranki [01.16.08 07:32 PM]

As others have highlighted before me in this discussion, the disparity did not start with the will not end with the iPhone.

The rest are missing more than just the iPhone ..

  bowerbird [01.17.08 01:23 AM]

thank you. this needs to be said much more often.

-bowerbird

  Mike [01.17.08 04:41 AM]

It's interesting that even in the comments, we're trying to deny that there is a problem. Of course there's a problem, but it makes us uncomfortable to acknowledge it.

The digital divide is exemplified by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - many people (not us geek types) still struggle daily with the point in the pyramid where "Esteem" is the driver. Some are still fighting for "Safety". Only when you get into "Self actualisation" do most *current* applications of technology become relevant. I say "most" and "current" because things are starting to happen where the tech is being brought to bear on the very problems which keep people away from the peak of the pyramid.

When you're fighting for financial survival, the iPhone isn't even going to be on your radar. Is technology indifferent to the poor? Yes, for the most part.

  bex [01.17.08 07:58 AM]

You're lumping many different things together... the iPhone is just a trinket, but things like Wikipedia and the internet can empower the poor and disaffected.

Don't mix them up...

Example: how much freedom has high-tech given to the elderly and the handicapped? They can stay in touch with friends, family, and go shopping.

As the wealthy demand the latest gadgets and broadband, the poor can get cheap (sometimes free) computers running Linux, and use cheap (sometimes free) dial-up.

Its high-tech hand-me-downs.

I say, purchase that iPhone! Next, demand that your city centers get blanketed with free WiFi! Get the latest Apple Air, and donate your old laptop to a poor school.

Think that your public schools suck? Start a charter school! Outsource teaching to folks in India, do classes via teleconference, and it will STILL be cheaper. That should shame the public schools into doing a better job for the poor.

The best thing you have to offer is your knowledge and your hope. Don't mourn that you have it while other do not: instead, help others find what you found.

Peace.

  dobedo [01.17.08 04:10 PM]

Actually we as a technology community ought to give ourselves some credit for helping the poor. The fact is cheap cell phones are transforming economies and life itself in poor countries. And here in the U.S., through our tax funded programs, most people now have access to computers at schools and public libraries.

The problem is that technology can't solve the more fundamental problems of poverty that you are talking about. Yet as technologists there are things we can do.

Here's one:


Does your company offer internships or part time jobs? Then reach out to schools with low income students and give the jobs to their students. It won't be as easy as giving jobs to upper middle class kids, you'll probably need to do a whole lot more mentoring, but you will really be making a difference.

  cw [01.17.08 05:37 PM]

Outstanding perspective...

  Alex [01.17.08 06:41 PM]

Good read.
BUT, please, please, keep in mind you are writing a blog post. This thing was so long I had to drink a red bull half way through:)

  christina O'Reilly [01.17.08 08:47 PM]

thanks dale. for years i've felt that economic class is the sleeping giant. i remember trying to talk with an elementary school principal and said we've got to reach the children in the lower economic brackets who aren't succeeding in school not because it's the charitable thing to do or even the heart thing to do (though both of those are important), but because if we don't we will have a progressively weaker and weaker society. we have to address these issues for the health of our country.

  saba [01.18.08 09:16 AM]

Yes for the most part, when people are daily worried about where the next piece of bread they are going to eat is gonna come from, they end up considering technology as a luxury.

But that's only the case until they actually see the benefits as we can see from the remotest farmers in the middle of Africa that carry cell phones with pay as you go cards and get their information from tv, dvd and radio to conduct their business. They've found easy to use technology that actually works in their lives.

However, Internet and computers in general are slow to be adopted there because for the most part they are just an annoyance. Network is soooo slow, computers crash all the time, viruses are rampant but the updates for antiviruses NEED good network, new versions of OS and other software are hard to keep up with and educated IT professionals are hard to come by as they are all working for the developed countries...

Generally, computers and internet are considered inefficient and a waste of time in the developing world since people spend more time fixing them and cursing them rather than using them.

So the easier it is for people to see the SEAMLESS application of techonology in daily life, the quicker the less rich would adopt it thus helping themselves. More than poverty, it's just a lack in innovation for practicality that's creating the gap. A lot of technology is created just for luxury and not need unfortunately. And a lot of new technology is also created for those who already have the older technology to support the new...

  saba [01.18.08 09:21 AM]

oops sorry for the 3 posts... it kept giving me a reCaptcha error while adding it at the same time... see what i mean?

  Michael Chermside [01.18.08 09:48 AM]

I'd like to address just ONE of many questions you raised: "Is the high-tech world indifferent to the problems of the poor?".

I would venture to say that it is not indifferent, although your next question "Do we have any competence that matters in helping them find a better life?" is a harder one.

As evidence, I point to the significant support that the OLPC project (http://laptop.org/) has received. They have attracted volunteers willing and able to invent an entire operating system.

I think there are many of us "knowledge workers" who recognize the problem and are willing to do something about it. All we need to do is to find places where "knowledge" (our product) will help.

  jennifer [01.18.08 09:49 AM]

I think it's important as computer and information technologists, engineers and the like to ask ourselves as we work, "how does what I do benefit society?"

  Thomas Lord [01.18.08 11:37 AM]

Ok, let's see. I live in the East Bay part of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Around here, there is no shortage of poverty. Food and housing security are sketchy, for many. Career opportunities are quite scarce. Civil security (e.g., relative safety from violent crime) is nowhere to be found in some of the less well off neighborhoods. Many of the schools perform quite poorly. Incarceration rates are high.

One of the communities that suffers from these problems more than most is mostly Black people. That community grew in the first place, 1-2 generations ago, when lots of war and dock work was available: this was a middle class community with no shortage of home owners, well enough off that it floated a cultural economy that made many important contributions. But... the work dried up, tax bases shrunk, infrastructure failed, floods of cheap drugs entered, loose street gangs got displaced by organized crime, floods of weapons entered, organized crime produced anarchic affiliations, and violence still keeps getting worse.

So you have a little money, one day, and you live in such a place, and your kid is hungry and your cousin imagines you owe her $10 and will kick you out of the house, your feet are bleeding from crappy shoes, and you haven't been able to afford to do laundry for a week. First priority, get some food for the kid.

Well, it's a rough neighborhood and the nearest store a liquor store which, aside from being somebody else's territory, can only sell you milk and bread of the lowest quality at a price that would get you the better stuff at the fancy grocery store in Berkeley. In your price range, flavored sugar water with a hit of citric acid and maybe a frozen burrito fit your price range. Getting on the bus for the better store will wipe out your "budget" so you don't have options.

Your landlord has a buddy doing some renovations and gets you a couple of days work digging trenches. Already a bit of a problem since, to get the bus-fare to get there you're going to owe someone a favor. And when you get to the job, the boss who's paying you below minimum wage in cash under the table decides it'd be fun to spend a few hours chewing your ear off about why he thinks you'll never get anywhere in life because your such a horrible person. So you put up with that and go back home with a few 10s in your pocket but someone sold Grandpa's meds and he's having a shouting psychotic episode until folks scrape up some change for a pint of hooch so at least the old guy will sleep for a few hours. Meanwhile your kid is coming home from the public school and though you hope his new "computer class" will help give him a leg up the big news of the day is the gun shots and all the cops that showed up on the far end of the playground that day.

Your sister's baby dady is a little bit flush and has some standing in the neighborhood and, when your in his graces and company there's a little safety -- but his dealings are shady and, anyway, his surplus cash goes largely to flash which is pretty much mandatory to maintain his social status so he can intimdate away the punks a bit. There's a guy down the street who some people get help from but if you want his help your going to get pressure to join the corrupt and violent remains of a revolutionary group started in the 60s but which today mostly wants your cooperation in scamming the welfare system and keeping the members in line.

There's a job assistance and placement program across the border to the next town. Could help if you can scrape bus fare. Your rich cousin lives in that town and advises it (but can't give you money because, while richer, he lives hand to mouth too). Anyway, there's a bench warrant for your ass in that town because you never paid the ticket you got for smoking a joint in the park 3 years ago and some of the cops might recognize you or, even if they don't, decide to check because you look out of place and they saw you jay walking.

Meanwhile, someone a few miles away is posting to a blog to address the question of whether social networks -- a technology that aims to commodify social relationships and make the control of their production into a business -- whether or not those social networks can help.

And perhaps they can.

Job creation? Food security? Economic opportunity?

Are these, perhaps, just small matters of hacking?

It may help to point out that while the poorest parts of the local Black community are really the avant guarde of these circumstances, the "rich" people around are largely leveraged out the but in a time of declining house prices, sinking dollar, and increasingly diminishing career paths. Their kids aren't getting much better educated and, as a group, they don't know how to pull together like your people do so when the s- hits the fan for them it'll just get uglier.

Perhaps the first priority is a really good "contacts management" database.

-t

  Kevin Ollivier [01.18.08 12:53 PM]

I think we sometimes forget that technologies that are ubiquitous today were, at one point, only for "the happy few". Today, cell phones are prevalent even in developing nations, and in fact, cell phones have been helping people in developing countries to get better prices for crops they grow, or even run eBay auctions on their goods. These things are having a significant positive impact on their lives.

Think about a cheap iPhone - a clone or subsidized model, if you will. Children in poor countries could carry these around, complete with voice lessons, educational games, and links to web-based resources. Considering how much it costs simply to produce textbooks in many developing countries, these phones may actually radically reduce the cost of education.

In fact, I think arguably what shows our wealth is that we don't need technologies like the iPhone - for us, they're a luxury. ("Bah, a web browser on a phone, it's nice but I'll just browse from my computer...") For people in developing nations, these technologies can become the means for getting a good education, reducing inequality, becoming informed, and even pulling themselves out of poverty. Because we have money, we can choose ways that are more "convenient" for us, but for them price and availability make all the difference.

So, I'd say, pull out your phone and show it off. Get people excited, and some of them will buy it. And eventually, as it gains popularity here and competition ensues, it or something like it will make its way into the developing world. And an iPhone-like device may just become an affordable ebook reader, educational tool, and portal to the outside world that they've never had before.

  Thomas Lord [01.18.08 01:47 PM]

I don't buy that Kevin.

Yes, iPhone's will fall in price. Once the price gets low enough, they'll be rendered obsolete and unsupported.

You are right that cell phone's in general have made a big difference but it's not a difference that couldn't have been made, years earlier, faster, cheaper and better.

And, meanwhile, as these technologies do get delivered into developing regions they come with enormous entanglements -- otherwise they wouldn't penetrate those markets. People get excited when they see the poor entrepreneur who sets up a booth in the bazaar and sells phone calls. They get excited when the guy with a couple goats to sell can be more efficient because he can check spot prices without walking miles to market. All good. But it's a bit sketchier when you look at the business arrangements and surveillance and control points being liberally distributed.

-t

  Hari Jayaram [01.18.08 03:02 PM]

Your article raises many important issues.Having just got back from a one month trip to India. I was faced with many of the same questions in my mind.

I agree that a lot more of us need to start tackling the real issues and stop stroking ourselves with the newest gadget or piece of technology.
But gadgets do change peoples worldviews and change society albeit slowly. In India even the lower middle class and poor have access to cheap cell phones. Somehow I think that makes their life better. Being able to talk to their loved ones at home in the villages or get an SMS with the market price of wheat does help improve their life in some small measure

  Ray Grieselhuber [01.18.08 08:30 PM]

Fantastic post.

It would behoove us all to spend more time helping people who can't help us. Your point about the technology elite constantly reinforcing each other's eliteness has got to be one of the biggest bruise on our generation's karma, precisely because we have resources and opportunities that none before us ever had.

So what is O'Reilly Media going to do? I had visions of a "Poverty Hacks" book after I read this post and perhaps that would be a good start. A collection of all the ways and people (including ordinary, non-deity types would be nice) available to fight poverty locally and globally.

  Thomas Lord [01.18.08 09:41 PM]

re a "poverty hacks" book --

doesn't "Make" kind of incline towards the ballpark of that general direction?

I'm not saying they should rest pat there but.. credit where due, and all.

-t

  paul merrill [01.20.08 10:30 AM]

LOVE how you turned the technology focus onto the gaping needs of the poor - that are a HUGE part of life in this world, even though MacBook Air buyers don't usually see it.

  Brian Stretch [01.21.08 11:10 AM]

Capitalism in a nutshell: once you get beyond what's needed for mere survival, people who are good at managing and creating capital get more. People who aren't lose the ability to do further harm. It's a very simple self-correcting system.



Supply-side economics in a nutshell: the small business owners who make up the bulk of the top bracket taxpayers get a higher return on capital than Congress, therefore keeping taxes simple to comply with and within striking distance of the Laffer Curve does wonders for prosperity.



You want to help "the poor"? Make it easy for the people who want to create wealth to get on with it. Defeat the class-warfare demagogues who preach that there's no hope, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Clean out the "progressives" who have poisoned the teaching schools with dysfunctional new teaching theories (fuzzy math, whole language, etc) and political correctness (grievance studies, etc). Repeal the zoning laws that prevent efficient, high-density housing from being built. Repeal the mortgage interest deduction that encourages McMansion construction in favor of a much higher personal deduction. There's lots of jobs that require a solid work ethic more than a genius-level IQ but the paperwork inflicted on anyone with the audacity to create jobs is terribly discouraging. Said paperwork grinds up tremendous intellectual energy yet creates no wealth. Pass the Flat Tax!



And if you want to spend lots of money to be a beta tester for the technologies that the rest of the world will take for granted in 5-10 years, enjoy it! Guilt is silly.

  Thomas Lord [01.22.08 01:15 AM]

Re Brian Stretch

For those unaware of the hip jargon of class warriors (for the elite) and their patsies, "grievance studies" is a made-up, denigrating term that has gained some currency in the latest round of attacks on academics who dare to teach any of a wide range of fascinating work from the last 50+ years in philosophy, sociology, and so forth. You'd think these intellectual heavyweights would have more important things to do but...hey, "the smartest guy in the dorm lounge" has a heart of his own, I guess. Perhaps what we really need is a department of Ayn Rand studies to give "balance?"

-t

  anonymous [01.22.08 10:34 AM]

I'm not with Heifer Project, I just list that website as a good place to see what a litte money and a lot of caring can do right away.

Having grown up poor and become wealthy, I know both worlds. In my case, I keep myself close to my roots by making sure I "remember" what it feels like to be poor.
Step 1 : Send the same amount of money to charity as I do every time I buy myself something (iPod, car, house, vacation trip, etc)
Step 2 : Spend as much time helping others as I do helping myself (volunteer 4 hours for every golf outing, volunteer 1 week for every week-long vacation trip)

No matter how many complications are added to the tax system, I can always afford to hire more CPAs, lawyers, and financial planners to figure out how to best minimize taxes and maximize investment returns. Poor people can't do that.

Bush's stupid idea that sending everyone a check for several hundred dollars to stimulate the economy won't work. If I get a check, I just put it in the bank because I can afford to buy anything I want whenever I want to. If a poor person gets a check, they buy what they need (food, shelter, clothing, daycare, insurance, medical care, etc).

Giving more tax breaks or rebates to business owners doesn't make sense unless it is tied to actually spending the money right away on something that generates new jobs or something. But just because a business owner buys a building or some new equipment, he shouldn't be given a "rebate". He should only be rewarded for "making a real difference in human terms" :

Offer health insurance to employees who haven't had it before
Hire 5% more people than last year
Offer daycare support to families with kids
Offer education reimbursement
etc

  Недвижимость [05.11.08 08:39 PM]

I love this idea! Only through information sharing and a concerted effort will we be successful in getting away petroleum.

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