1. Dutch TV Show - Kidney Donor Hoax
- click here to read the BBC article
A TV show in Holland had a very strange 'reality TV show' in May 2007. In the show, 3 sick people competed against each other for a kidney. The kidney was from a dying person who wanted to donate her kidneys.
The TV show became very famous in Europe, and many people were shocked. They said the show was in bad taste. However, on the last day of the show, the presenter said the show is a hoax. The 3 sick people were really sick and needed new kidneys, but the 'dying' woman was an actress - she was not dying, and did not want to donate her kidneys!
The purpose of the TV show was to tell people about the problems of kidney donations. Every year, 200 people die in Holland because of kidney illnesses. The TV show producers wanted to encourage people to carry a donor card and donate their kidneys after their death.
What do you think?
1. Was the show in bad taste?
2. Are hoax TV shows okay, if the purpose of the show is good?
3. What do you think about donor cards? Do you have one? Why / Why not?
2. America's Super-Rich
Based on the Article 'Welcome to Richistan, USA' by Paul Harris, The Observer 22 July 2007
'Solstice' is a time-share company for the super-rich. The membership fee is $875,000 and the annual fee is $42,000. It only has 80 members, and of course they are all super-rich. They share 10 houses in London, California and other places, a private yacht in the Caribbean, and a helicopter for heli-skiing. Solstice is a new type of company for multi-millionaires.
In 1985, there were 13 billionaires in the USA; now there are over 1,000 billionaires. In 2001, 227,000 people became new millionaires in America. The wealth of all these millionaires is $30 trillion (30,000,000,000,000), which is more than the GDPs of China, Japan, Brazil and Russia together.
The super-rich are always looking for new ways to spend money. They do not want Rolex watches - they are too cheap! They buy Franck Muller watches, which cost $736,000. They go to the Algonquin Hotel in New York and order a "Martini on a rock" (a drink with a diamond in the glass). They want to buy a Rolls Royce, but there is now a 5-year waiting list for these cars. And of course they buy expensive boats. One famous multi-millionaire, Larry Ellison, has a boat with 80 rooms, a basketball court, a cinema and a helipad.
At the same time, the number of poor people is increasing in America. There are now 36 million people below the poverty line in the USA. The gap between the rich and poor is called the 'wealth gap', and it is also increasing in many other countries such as the UK, China and India. Many people are worried that this increasing wealth gap is morally wrong and causes many social problems. Other people think the wealth gap is fine, as the super-rich help the country get richer. How about you? What do you think?
Vocabulary
Time-share - members of a time-share group can share houses, boats, etc. in beautiful places. For example, if you have a time-share in a house in Italy, you can use the house for your holidays. Other people will also use the house at different times.
Poverty line - If you are on the 'poverty line', you can only just buy the things you need to live (food, basic clothes, etc). If you are below the poverty line, you cannot buy the basic things you need to live. You are living in poverty (poor).
Wealth gap - the gap between the rich and the poor.
What do you think?
1. How do you feel about super-rich people?
2. The wealth gap in Japan is increasing. How do you feel about this?
3. Do you want to be super-rich? Why / Why not?
3. The Price of Cheap Clothes
These days, we can buy clothes very cheaply in the shops. However, why are some clothes so cheap? An investigation by the Guardian newspaper shows that many factory workers making clothes in India are paid just 13 pence (US 26 cents) per hour. Some of Britain's biggest clothes shops, including 'Primark' and 'Marks & Spencer', buy their clothes from Gokaldas Export, India's biggest clothes exporter. Gokaldas factory workers must work 48 hours a week, but they are only paid 13 pence an hour. This is less than the minimum wage decided by international labour standards, and is much less than these factory workers need to buy basic needs.
Other investigations have shown that many internationally famous clothing companies, including Gap, pay similar low wages. Moreover, workers often have to work 18 hours a week overtime.
'Cividep', an Indian workers' rights group, fights for the human rights of factory workers. Cividep says that factory workers need a better wage so they can live in dignity, drink clean water and pay for their children's education.
What do you think?
1) Do you know about this problem?
2) Would you stop buying clothes from companies which pay low wages to factory workers?
3) Would you pay more for clothes, so factory workers can get a higher wage?
4. The Ageing Population
Sources: "The Bitter End", by Guy Brown (New Scientist, 13 Oct 2007); Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/)
The average life expectancy of a human being until 200 years ago was about 30 years. As the world developed, life expectancy rose, especially in richer countries. Thus, life expectancy in the USA was 48 years in 1900, 66 years in 1950 and 75 in 2000. Life expectancy in India, which was still a very poor country, was 32 in 1950, but had gone up to 63 by 2000. On average, life expectancy is increasing in developed countries at 2.2 years every 10 years - this is the same as 5 hours each day!
Average life expectancy data includes people who die from illness, accidents and war. Therefore, the data does not clearly show the number of elderly people in society. In the UK (population 60.7 million), there are now 4.6 million people over 65 years old; in 2074 it will probably be over 15 million people. However, if you look at the number of people 100 years old or over, the increase is amazing. Now there are just 10,000 people in the UK over 100 years old; in 2074 this is expected to be 1 million.
Although life expectancy is going up fast, the health of elderly people is not improving so fast. Thus, while life expectancy has gone up by 2.2 years in the last 10 years, healthy life expectancy only increased by 0.6 years. What does this mean? It means that elderly people are living longer but they are living with illness. Alzheimer's disease shows the problem. At 65 years old, only 1% of people have Alzheimer's; but at 85 years old, 25% of people have this terrible disease. Similarly, all other diseases increase as we get older. In the USA, 74% of people over 80 years old have a disability.
As medicine improves, doctors can stop people dying of serious illnesses. However, they cannot cure many of these illnesses. Elderly people can continue to live, but many live in pain, confusion and suffering. In fact, doctors believe that 25% of Americans over 85% are severely depressed. Perhaps this shows that people in developed countries value a long life more than they value a healthy life.
Questions
1. What is your reaction to this article? Are you surprised? Are you shocked? Are you worried about the future? Please explain.
2. How are things changing in your country for elderly people?
3. When you become old, do you want to live with your children? Do you want to live independently in an apartment? Or do you want to live in a 'retirement home'?
4. How can we make life better for elderly people?