#not saying that the point of the post (income inequality is huge in the usa) is not correct! but!!!!!

[sleepsong]

me trying not to reblog posts just to pedantically correct them

[cryptodictation]

Luis Alberto Moreno: “There are many risks, but I would not point now to another lost decade in Latin America” ​​| Economy

IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno, in a file image.EFE

After 15 years as president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Colombian Luis Alberto Moreno (Philadelphia, USA, 66 years) faces the final stretch of his term in a particularly troubled period for the region. Although the health shock of the coronavirus has been, at least until now, less than in other continents, the pandemic places Latin America at the forefront of economic fire. All in all, Moreno is moderately optimistic in a telephone interview with EL PAÍS: although the pandemic “exposes all endemic problems” of the subcontinent, he sees it premature to speak of another lost decade in the region – as some economists have already suggested – and believes that the crisis it forces to have more cohesive societies.

Question. The coronavirus economic blow will be global, but Latin America is, like the rest of the emerging economies, in a particularly compromised position. What is the region exposed to?

Answer. Both health and economically, Latin America starts with pre-existing conditions, as immunologists say. In the middle of last year, there were already many people protesting in the streets for the quality of public services, especially university education and health. We are facing a huge challenge and the issue is what the exit strategy is like in countries like ours, where there is poverty and close to 50% of workers are in informality. This virus exposes all these endemic problems in Latin America. In the fiscal response, the governments do not have the power of the European countries or the United States either. With the exception perhaps of Peru, no other country has the firepower to carry out a countercyclical program of that size.

P. There are those who already point to the risk of another lost decade in the region.

R. I would not point to another lost decade. We have risks, many, and it is true that we came with less growth and problems in many economies, but I never underestimate the ability of Latin Americans to find solutions. There are ways to find exits. For example, value chains, supply chains, will be rethought and we will have the opportunity to think about products not made in one country or another, but made in the Americas. There is a great opportunity for linkages.

P. The economy will suffer, but many economists point to inequality as the greatest challenge at the moment: this crisis is going to be primed, in the first instance, with groups that start from a weaker situation.

R. The big question is whether everything we have achieved in the last 15 years in terms of poverty reduction and extreme poverty, with the incorporation of some Latin Americans into the middle classes, is going to be lost or if, on the contrary, the capacity of social systems and all the impulse of the Governments to increase the debt and the public spending manages to cushion the effects. All are strengthening the transfer programs that were developed almost two decades ago and have been extremely successful, despite remaining the most unequal region in the world. The crisis will undoubtedly have an effect, but if the times are not so long and we find exit strategies, it may not be accentuated as much. The issue is how fast we are going to get out and that is a question that we still cannot answer.

P. Some countries, such as Brazil, are experimenting with basic income programs focused on supporting informal sector workers, those who are most at risk, during an initial period of three months. How do you rate them?

R. This is exactly what I was referring to with the transfer programs, which in this case will be unconditional, to preserve the income of many families.

P. Do you see enough the fiscal responses that Latin American governments are putting on the table?

R. More than enough are possible. We do not have the fiscal space that other developed countries have. Except for Peru, the rest will be between 3% and 5% of GDP. There are many limitations as to what can be done.

P. The answers are far from uniform: I cited the case of Peru, but on the opposite side is Mexico, which has not launched a truly countercyclical plan.

R. Each country is handling it differently, but everyone is going to have to find some kind of answer. Informal workers and small and medium-sized enterprises are the ones that will most need the support, because they represent the vast majority of employment, above 60%.

P. Social protection systems were already among the great debts of the region. Very few countries have unemployment insurance, for example. Could the pandemic be a wake-up call for more emphasis to be placed on this aspect?

R. Without a doubt this is the great debate ahead. That unemployment insurance, to some extent, is being done through the delivery of resources to poor families, at least in this period of the pandemic. And that's the kind of progress we're going to have. Healthcare is also going to have to change completely and obviously there are going to be huge demands for support. Everything will have to be done within limited fiscal spaces, which will force many of the things that Latin America has not done: focus much more on those who need it most and be much more effective in the way that it is done. makes public spending. And, without a doubt, make fiscal reforms to recover the battered fiscal balances that will remain after the crisis.

P. The region was coming from one of its periods of greatest social tension in a long time. Do you think that the coronavirus can exacerbate them?

R. I hope not. This crisis is going to force us to have much more cohesion as societies, to work more collectively. We are going to have to look far beyond selfishness. Of course, there will always be political tensions: it is the nature of democracies, but I think that this requires an enormous reflection on where we were.

P. The demands of the protesters, a few months ago, in countries like Chile, were in line with more social cohesion and better quality public services. And that, too, is what the virus exposes.

R. It is evident that they were pointing to deficits that existed in our countries. 15 or 20 years ago the demand in Latin America was for these services to be provided; now it is of quality. That is the great pending subject.

Information about the coronavirus

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– Questions and answers about coronavirus

– Guide to action against the disease

– If you have symptoms, these are the phones that have been enabled in each country in Latin America.

Due to the exceptional circumstances, EL PAÍS is offering all its digital content for free. Information regarding the coronavirus will remain open as long as the severity of the crisis persists.

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The post Luis Alberto Moreno: “There are many risks, but I would not point now to another lost decade in Latin America” ​​| Economy appeared first on Cryptodictation.

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[makeitwithmike]

How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World

By Emily Copp

Earlier this year, UN Women launched a bold social media campaign that received international attention, with millions of views and thousands of participants from around the globe.

In this episode of the Hootsuite podcast, we chat with UN Women’s Dhatri Navanayagam on the strategy behind the campaign that the world could not ignore.

In this podcast you’ll learn:

The inspiration behind a viral campaign

How to use compelling content to start a global conversation

Why you should always use data to build your story

Press play to hear the show in its entirety, or if you don’t have a set of earbuds handy, read the transcription of our conversation below.

Q&A with UN Women’s Dhatri Navanayagam

Stop the Robbery is a powerful campaign that raises awareness about the gender pay gap. Can you give us an overview of this campaign?

Globally, women still make 23 percent less than men, and at the current rate it will take 70 years to close the pay gap. We really wanted to raise awareness about this issue and spark a global conversation on this topic in a way that would affect change.

To provide some background to the #StopTheRobbery campaign. This campaign was launched during the 61st Commission on the Status of Women this year on March 13th, and it was in direct support of an initiative that was launched by UN Women. The idea was to expose the pay gap in a way that the world couldn’t ignore, that being the biggest robbery in history.

We decided to stage a robbery in the center of all conversation in 2017: Twitter. We created a website called the 23percentrobbery.com from which users could tweet from and show the world what it really felt like to be robbed. So every one of those tweets generated had 23 percent of its characters blacked out, basically creating a visceral visual reminder of how the pay gap affects women every day.

Each blacked out tweet was accompanied by a message stating how UN Women had robbed this tweet of 23 percent in recognition of the 23 percent global gender pay gap.

What was your inspiration for the hashtag #StopTheRobbery? Why did you choose the word robbery?

We really wanted to elevate the conversation around equal pay by changing the vernacular around the issue. And for the world to really sit up and pay attention, we reframed the gender pay gap as the biggest robbery in history, essentially giving it an identity that the world couldn’t ignore. We wanted to make a bold statement and pull no punches in terms of highlighting the reality of the unfair income inequality that exists between men and women.

And the hashtag itself, #StopTheRobbery, is a clear call to action. And so we wanted a hashtag that was actionable and sent out a clear message that the gender pay gap must be closed.

So the idea was to use language that would make people sit up and pay attention, and provide a clear call to action on how to spread the message.

Definitely.

That strategy was super effective. Can you speak to some of your social tactics that supported this strategy? I know you’ve touched on it a little bit already.

So the three main social tactics used all spoke centrally to that 23 percent global pay gap and were aimed at bringing that to life. So number one, you had the redacted tweets, which came from the 23percentrobbery.com website, and number two was the social experiment film, and number three was the social media profile filters.

At the same time, the website also had infographics, which had striking facts and figures about the pay gap, which members of the public could also share on social media. So again the idea was very much thinking about how can people share this information and spread it to their friends, family, work colleagues, and start having a productive conversation on this.

You mention a social experiment video. Could you tell us a little bit more about what that looked like?

So this was a stunt that was filmed outside Madison Square Park here in New York, and it invited members of the public to have their shoes polished by either a male or a female shoe shiner whose wages reflected the global gender pay gap. It was one dollar for the male shoe shiner and 77 cents for the female shoe shiner.

The video highlighted the public’s reaction to the gender pay gap. And if you’ve seen the video you can tell how many were not even aware of the gender pay gap, and secondly who felt that it was very unfair and wanted to take a stance on the issue.

And so this video was distributed on the website, 23percentrobbery.com, across UN women’s social media channels, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, as well as across prominent media outlets like Refinery29. Again very much with the idea of having people share the video, engage with the video, comment on the video, and again start that conversation that needs to be had.

It sounds like from the content of the video and some of the tactics you’ve been talking about, this is definitely an issue that requires education.

Like you said, there are a lot of people who are not aware of the gender pay gap or informed as to the reasons why the gender pay gap exists and what measures we can take to help close the gap.

So for us, the #StopTheRobbery campaign was really a starting point for making people aware of that gender pay gap and encouraging a dialogue on this issue.

What has the response been like on social? What type of reach did you see from this campaign?

Let me start off by saying that one of the many comments that we received on social media was in response to the Secretary General’s tweet. He took part in the campaign and tweeted out a redacted tweet. He got a lot of comments saying that this was one of the most creative tweets they’d seen all year. So that was absolutely wonderful to hear.

And in terms of people engaging with the campaign across social media, the campaign generated in total 14,700 tweets by more than 7,000 users, which had a potential reach of 55 million Twitter users. And in terms of the #StopTheRobbery video itself, we reached nearly 1.1 million unique users and received close to 540,000 views across UN Women-owned social media channels and some media outlets like Refinery29.

And so to give you a sense of the momentum, within two hours of the video being launched on Refinery29’s Facebook page, it had received close to 30,000 views. In terms of the UN Women global’s Facebook pages alone, 35 posts about the campaign in English, Spanish and French reached 1.4 million and engaged 49,000 users who either commented, shared, liked or clicked on the posts. So there was very much a sense of engagement with our users.

That’s an amazing reach that you had in a very short period of time.

What also helped to further amplify this campaign and really bring out that global reach—because once again this is about having a global conversation—was the widespread coverage that we got. So we had at least 40 media outlets here in the USA who covered it from Refinery29 to Mashable, Huffington Post, and we had huge attraction from international media as well. So that was fantastic to see.

Yeah, that is fantastic. And I think that ties back to the idea of your super tight messaging and your theme, which makes this campaign so unique and interesting in terms of representing this problem in a creative way.

We mentioned before that this is a topic that definitely requires education and awareness, and a lot of people may not be informed on the issue or why the gap exists. Did you get any pushback from people on social saying, you know, “This isn’t the case” or fighting back? And if so did you use those opportunities to education them, and how did you do that?

We actually didn’t get any pushback on social media at all. But to your point about people not necessarily being informed on the issue and therefore having different points of view, once again I think the gender pay gap is a topic that a lot of people are not necessarily aware of or informed about. And I think this campaign was very much a starting point for raising awareness and encouraging a dialogue on it.

And at the same time, from the 23percentrobbery.com website, we drove people directly from there to our Equal Pay page on the UN Women’s website, where they can learn much more about the issue.

By leading with facts your argument was indisputable.

Definitely.

This is such an inspirational campaign and we love seeing brands and organizations using social to encourage dialogue and engage people and have important conversations. So do you have any advice for how brands or organizations can take a stance on important issues in a meaningful way?

I think the number one piece of advice that I would give drawing the #StopTheRobbery campaign is really thinking about how can you reframe the conversation in a new and original manner which gets people sitting up and paying attention.

We reframed the gender pay gap as the biggest robbery in history on purpose to give it an identity that the world couldn’t ignore. We wanted to make a bold statement. We wanted to have a clear call to action and say, “This must stop.” And through our activation on Twitter we wanted to really show what it felt like to be robbed and to bring that alive in a very visual and visceral manner.

So I think thinking about how can you reframe these types of conversations in different, meaningful ways that resonate with people is the first step to taking a stance on important issues in a meaningful way.

And I think that for people that may not have understood the issue, you really helped to educate in a way that wasn’t just fact based but also emotion based, which is so important.

Completely, I think the emotive aspect of it is incredibly important.

Is there anything that we can do to support this cause?

I think there’s two things that you can do. The first thing is to take part in the campaign and use your voice to raise awareness of the gender pay gap by tweeting out messages in support of income equality, and you can do that by visiting the 23percentrobbery.com website and tweeting directly from there.

And second of all, take it upon yourself to learn more about the gender pay gap and start conversations with friends, family, work colleagues on this topic. The first step to bringing about change is we need to raise awareness of the issue and to have a productive dialogue.

Awesome, thanks so much. And for those of you who want to get involved, we will provide links to all of the things that Dhatri mentioned in the show notes. So you can just click and check them out and start the conversation with people that you know, because it’s super important.

Listen to the Full Episode

The post How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

The post How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World appeared first on Make It With Michael.

from How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World

[bizmediaweb]

How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World

Earlier this year, UN Women launched a bold social media campaign that received international attention, with millions of views and thousands of participants from around the globe.

In this episode of the Hootsuite podcast, we chat with UN Women’s Dhatri Navanayagam on the strategy behind the campaign that the world could not ignore.

In this podcast you’ll learn:

The inspiration behind a viral campaign

How to use compelling content to start a global conversation

Why you should always use data to build your story

Press play to hear the show in its entirety, or if you don’t have a set of earbuds handy, read the transcription of our conversation below.

Q&A with UN Women’s Dhatri Navanayagam

Stop the Robbery is a powerful campaign that raises awareness about the gender pay gap. Can you give us an overview of this campaign?

Globally, women still make 23 percent less than men, and at the current rate it will take 70 years to close the pay gap. We really wanted to raise awareness about this issue and spark a global conversation on this topic in a way that would affect change.

To provide some background to the #StopTheRobbery campaign. This campaign was launched during the 61st Commission on the Status of Women this year on March 13th, and it was in direct support of an initiative that was launched by UN Women. The idea was to expose the pay gap in a way that the world couldn’t ignore, that being the biggest robbery in history.

We decided to stage a robbery in the center of all conversation in 2017: Twitter. We created a website called the 23percentrobbery.com from which users could tweet from and show the world what it really felt like to be robbed. So every one of those tweets generated had 23 percent of its characters blacked out, basically creating a visceral visual reminder of how the pay gap affects women every day.

Each blacked out tweet was accompanied by a message stating how UN Women had robbed this tweet of 23 percent in recognition of the 23 percent global gender pay gap.

What was your inspiration for the hashtag #StopTheRobbery? Why did you choose the word robbery?

We really wanted to elevate the conversation around equal pay by changing the vernacular around the issue. And for the world to really sit up and pay attention, we reframed the gender pay gap as the biggest robbery in history, essentially giving it an identity that the world couldn’t ignore. We wanted to make a bold statement and pull no punches in terms of highlighting the reality of the unfair income inequality that exists between men and women.

And the hashtag itself, #StopTheRobbery, is a clear call to action. And so we wanted a hashtag that was actionable and sent out a clear message that the gender pay gap must be closed.

So the idea was to use language that would make people sit up and pay attention, and provide a clear call to action on how to spread the message.

Definitely.

That strategy was super effective. Can you speak to some of your social tactics that supported this strategy? I know you’ve touched on it a little bit already.

So the three main social tactics used all spoke centrally to that 23 percent global pay gap and were aimed at bringing that to life. So number one, you had the redacted tweets, which came from the 23percentrobbery.com website, and number two was the social experiment film, and number three was the social media profile filters.

At the same time, the website also had infographics, which had striking facts and figures about the pay gap, which members of the public could also share on social media. So again the idea was very much thinking about how can people share this information and spread it to their friends, family, work colleagues, and start having a productive conversation on this.

You mention a social experiment video. Could you tell us a little bit more about what that looked like?

So this was a stunt that was filmed outside Madison Square Park here in New York, and it invited members of the public to have their shoes polished by either a male or a female shoe shiner whose wages reflected the global gender pay gap. It was one dollar for the male shoe shiner and 77 cents for the female shoe shiner.

The video highlighted the public’s reaction to the gender pay gap. And if you’ve seen the video you can tell how many were not even aware of the gender pay gap, and secondly who felt that it was very unfair and wanted to take a stance on the issue.

And so this video was distributed on the website, 23percentrobbery.com, across UN women’s social media channels, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, as well as across prominent media outlets like Refinery29. Again very much with the idea of having people share the video, engage with the video, comment on the video, and again start that conversation that needs to be had.

It sounds like from the content of the video and some of the tactics you’ve been talking about, this is definitely an issue that requires education.

Like you said, there are a lot of people who are not aware of the gender pay gap or informed as to the reasons why the gender pay gap exists and what measures we can take to help close the gap.

So for us, the #StopTheRobbery campaign was really a starting point for making people aware of that gender pay gap and encouraging a dialogue on this issue.

What has the response been like on social? What type of reach did you see from this campaign?

Let me start off by saying that one of the many comments that we received on social media was in response to the Secretary General’s tweet. He took part in the campaign and tweeted out a redacted tweet. He got a lot of comments saying that this was one of the most creative tweets they’d seen all year. So that was absolutely wonderful to hear.

And in terms of people engaging with the campaign across social media, the campaign generated in total 14,700 tweets by more than 7,000 users, which had a potential reach of 55 million Twitter users. And in terms of the #StopTheRobbery video itself, we reached nearly 1.1 million unique users and received close to 540,000 views across UN Women-owned social media channels and some media outlets like Refinery29.

And so to give you a sense of the momentum, within two hours of the video being launched on Refinery29’s Facebook page, it had received close to 30,000 views. In terms of the UN Women global’s Facebook pages alone, 35 posts about the campaign in English, Spanish and French reached 1.4 million and engaged 49,000 users who either commented, shared, liked or clicked on the posts. So there was very much a sense of engagement with our users.

That’s an amazing reach that you had in a very short period of time.

What also helped to further amplify this campaign and really bring out that global reach—because once again this is about having a global conversation—was the widespread coverage that we got. So we had at least 40 media outlets here in the USA who covered it from Refinery29 to Mashable, Huffington Post, and we had huge attraction from international media as well. So that was fantastic to see.

Yeah, that is fantastic. And I think that ties back to the idea of your super tight messaging and your theme, which makes this campaign so unique and interesting in terms of representing this problem in a creative way.

We mentioned before that this is a topic that definitely requires education and awareness, and a lot of people may not be informed on the issue or why the gap exists. Did you get any pushback from people on social saying, you know, “This isn’t the case” or fighting back? And if so did you use those opportunities to education them, and how did you do that?

We actually didn’t get any pushback on social media at all. But to your point about people not necessarily being informed on the issue and therefore having different points of view, once again I think the gender pay gap is a topic that a lot of people are not necessarily aware of or informed about. And I think this campaign was very much a starting point for raising awareness and encouraging a dialogue on it.

And at the same time, from the 23percentrobbery.com website, we drove people directly from there to our Equal Pay page on the UN Women’s website, where they can learn much more about the issue.

By leading with facts your argument was indisputable.

Definitely.

This is such an inspirational campaign and we love seeing brands and organizations using social to encourage dialogue and engage people and have important conversations. So do you have any advice for how brands or organizations can take a stance on important issues in a meaningful way?

I think the number one piece of advice that I would give drawing the #StopTheRobbery campaign is really thinking about how can you reframe the conversation in a new and original manner which gets people sitting up and paying attention.

We reframed the gender pay gap as the biggest robbery in history on purpose to give it an identity that the world couldn’t ignore. We wanted to make a bold statement. We wanted to have a clear call to action and say, “This must stop.” And through our activation on Twitter we wanted to really show what it felt like to be robbed and to bring that alive in a very visual and visceral manner.

So I think thinking about how can you reframe these types of conversations in different, meaningful ways that resonate with people is the first step to taking a stance on important issues in a meaningful way.

And I think that for people that may not have understood the issue, you really helped to educate in a way that wasn’t just fact based but also emotion based, which is so important.

Completely, I think the emotive aspect of it is incredibly important.

Is there anything that we can do to support this cause?

I think there’s two things that you can do. The first thing is to take part in the campaign and use your voice to raise awareness of the gender pay gap by tweeting out messages in support of income equality, and you can do that by visiting the 23percentrobbery.com website and tweeting directly from there.

And second of all, take it upon yourself to learn more about the gender pay gap and start conversations with friends, family, work colleagues on this topic. The first step to bringing about change is we need to raise awareness of the issue and to have a productive dialogue.

Awesome, thanks so much. And for those of you who want to get involved, we will provide links to all of the things that Dhatri mentioned in the show notes. So you can just click and check them out and start the conversation with people that you know, because it’s super important.

Listen to the Full Episode

The post How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World published first on http://ift.tt/2u73Z29

[unifiedsocialblog]

How a Powerful Social Campaign Went Viral Around the World

Earlier this year, UN Women launched a bold social media campaign that received international attention, with millions of views and thousands of participants from around the globe.

In this episode of the Hootsuite podcast, we chat with UN Women’s Dhatri Navanayagam on the strategy behind the campaign that the world could not ignore.

In this podcast you’ll learn:

The inspiration behind a viral campaign

How to use compelling content to start a global conversation

Why you should always use data to build your story

Press play to hear the show in its entirety, or if you don’t have a set of earbuds handy, read the transcription of our conversation below.

Q&A with UN Women’s Dhatri Navanayagam

Stop the Robbery is a powerful campaign that raises awareness about the gender pay gap. Can you give us an overview of this campaign?

Globally, women still make 23 percent less than men, and at the current rate it will take 70 years to close the pay gap. We really wanted to raise awareness about this issue and spark a global conversation on this topic in a way that would affect change.

To provide some background to the #StopTheRobbery campaign. This campaign was launched during the 61st Commission on the Status of Women this year on March 13th, and it was in direct support of an initiative that was launched by UN Women. The idea was to expose the pay gap in a way that the world couldn’t ignore, that being the biggest robbery in history.

We decided to stage a robbery in the center of all conversation in 2017: Twitter. We created a website called the 23percentrobbery.com from which users could tweet from and show the world what it really felt like to be robbed. So every one of those tweets generated had 23 percent of its characters blacked out, basically creating a visceral visual reminder of how the pay gap affects women every day.

Each blacked out tweet was accompanied by a message stating how UN Women had robbed this tweet of 23 percent in recognition of the 23 percent global gender pay gap.

What was your inspiration for the hashtag #StopTheRobbery? Why did you choose the word robbery?

We really wanted to elevate the conversation around equal pay by changing the vernacular around the issue. And for the world to really sit up and pay attention, we reframed the gender pay gap as the biggest robbery in history, essentially giving it an identity that the world couldn’t ignore. We wanted to make a bold statement and pull no punches in terms of highlighting the reality of the unfair income inequality that exists between men and women.

And the hashtag itself, #StopTheRobbery, is a clear call to action. And so we wanted a hashtag that was actionable and sent out a clear message that the gender pay gap must be closed.

So the idea was to use language that would make people sit up and pay attention, and provide a clear call to action on how to spread the message.

Definitely.

That strategy was super effective. Can you speak to some of your social tactics that supported this strategy? I know you’ve touched on it a little bit already.

So the three main social tactics used all spoke centrally to that 23 percent global pay gap and were aimed at bringing that to life. So number one, you had the redacted tweets, which came from the 23percentrobbery.com website, and number two was the social experiment film, and number three was the social media profile filters.

At the same time, the website also had infographics, which had striking facts and figures about the pay gap, which members of the public could also share on social media. So again the idea was very much thinking about how can people share this information and spread it to their friends, family, work colleagues, and start having a productive conversation on this.

You mention a social experiment video. Could you tell us a little bit more about what that looked like?

So this was a stunt that was filmed outside Madison Square Park here in New York, and it invited members of the public to have their shoes polished by either a male or a female shoe shiner whose wages reflected the global gender pay gap. It was one dollar for the male shoe shiner and 77 cents for the female shoe shiner.

The video highlighted the public’s reaction to the gender pay gap. And if you’ve seen the video you can tell how many were not even aware of the gender pay gap, and secondly who felt that it was very unfair and wanted to take a stance on the issue.

And so this video was distributed on the website, 23percentrobbery.com, across UN women’s social media channels, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, as well as across prominent media outlets like Refinery29. Again very much with the idea of having people share the video, engage with the video, comment on the video, and again start that conversation that needs to be had.

It sounds like from the content of the video and some of the tactics you’ve been talking about, this is definitely an issue that requires education.

Like you said, there are a lot of people who are not aware of the gender pay gap or informed as to the reasons why the gender pay gap exists and what measures we can take to help close the gap.

So for us, the #StopTheRobbery campaign was really a starting point for making people aware of that gender pay gap and encouraging a dialogue on this issue.

What has the response been like on social? What type of reach did you see from this campaign?

Let me start off by saying that one of the many comments that we received on social media was in response to the Secretary General’s tweet. He took part in the campaign and tweeted out a redacted tweet. He got a lot of comments saying that this was one of the most creative tweets they’d seen all year. So that was absolutely wonderful to hear.

And in terms of people engaging with the campaign across social media, the campaign generated in total 14,700 tweets by more than 7,000 users, which had a potential reach of 55 million Twitter users. And in terms of the #StopTheRobbery video itself, we reached nearly 1.1 million unique users and received close to 540,000 views across UN Women-owned social media channels and some media outlets like Refinery29.

And so to give you a sense of the momentum, within two hours of the video being launched on Refinery29’s Facebook page, it had received close to 30,000 views. In terms of the UN Women global’s Facebook pages alone, 35 posts about the campaign in English, Spanish and French reached 1.4 million and engaged 49,000 users who either commented, shared, liked or clicked on the posts. So there was very much a sense of engagement with our users.

That’s an amazing reach that you had in a very short period of time.

What also helped to further amplify this campaign and really bring out that global reach—because once again this is about having a global conversation—was the widespread coverage that we got. So we had at least 40 media outlets here in the USA who covered it from Refinery29 to Mashable, Huffington Post, and we had huge attraction from international media as well. So that was fantastic to see.

Yeah, that is fantastic. And I think that ties back to the idea of your super tight messaging and your theme, which makes this campaign so unique and interesting in terms of representing this problem in a creative way.

We mentioned before that this is a topic that definitely requires education and awareness, and a lot of people may not be informed on the issue or why the gap exists. Did you get any pushback from people on social saying, you know, “This isn’t the case” or fighting back? And if so did you use those opportunities to education them, and how did you do that?

We actually didn’t get any pushback on social media at all. But to your point about people not necessarily being informed on the issue and therefore having different points of view, once again I think the gender pay gap is a topic that a lot of people are not necessarily aware of or informed about. And I think this campaign was very much a starting point for raising awareness and encouraging a dialogue on it.

And at the same time, from the 23percentrobbery.com website, we drove people directly from there to our Equal Pay page on the UN Women’s website, where they can learn much more about the issue.

By leading with facts your argument was indisputable.

Definitely.

This is such an inspirational campaign and we love seeing brands and organizations using social to encourage dialogue and engage people and have important conversations. So do you have any advice for how brands or organizations can take a stance on important issues in a meaningful way?

I think the number one piece of advice that I would give drawing the #StopTheRobbery campaign is really thinking about how can you reframe the conversation in a new and original manner which gets people sitting up and paying attention.

We reframed the gender pay gap as the biggest robbery in history on purpose to give it an identity that the world couldn’t ignore. We wanted to make a bold statement. We wanted to have a clear call to action and say, “This must stop.” And through our activation on Twitter we wanted to really show what it felt like to be robbed and to bring that alive in a very visual and visceral manner.

So I think thinking about how can you reframe these types of conversations in different, meaningful ways that resonate with people is the first step to taking a stance on important issues in a meaningful way.

And I think that for people that may not have understood the issue, you really helped to educate in a way that wasn’t just fact based but also emotion based, which is so important.

Completely, I think the emotive aspect of it is incredibly important.

Is there anything that we can do to support this cause?

I think there’s two things that you can do. The first thing is to take part in the campaign and use your voice to raise awareness of the gender pay gap by tweeting out messages in support of income equality, and you can do that by visiting the 23percentrobbery.com website and tweeting directly from there.

And second of all, take it upon yourself to learn more about the gender pay gap and start conversations with friends, family, work colleagues on this topic. The first step to bringing about change is we need to raise awareness of the issue and to have a productive dialogue.

Awesome, thanks so much. And for those of you who want to get involved, we will provide links to all of the things that Dhatri mentioned in the show notes. So you can just click and check them out and start the conversation with people that you know, because it’s super important.

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[cabiba]

A few days ago, the former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) during the Obama Administration wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that full funding was required “to sustain America’s economic vitality.” Otherwise, “Americans could experience the economic equivalent of flying blind.”

In FX’s Fargo Season 3 Episode 1, the opening scene is set in 1988 East Germany during the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In a prison camp, viewers see an interrogator questioning a prisoner obviously arrested due to mistaken identity. Angrily the state agent asks, “Are you saying that the state is wrong?”

The prisoner, aware of the consequences, sheepishly replies “no, but…” After this seemingly unrelated scene, the show returns to present day Fargo, North Dakota.

What’s the relationship between the BLS op-ed and this scene? The state is wrong!

The Difference Between Labor and Capital Productivity

During the post-WWII era, worker productivity—as measured by output per hour published by the BLS—has continued to rise at a constant rate. While wages rose in lockstep with increasing productivity until the mid-1970’s, they have since stagnated, rising only 15 percent as much (11 percent as compared to 75 percent) through 2016.

The BLS data, as interpreted by the union-funded think tank  EPI indicates that the wealthy owners and managers of capital have expropriated 85 percent of the “fruits” of labor.

Whereas Republican candidates in last year’s U.S. Presidential election challenged the assertion of “economic vitality,” Democratic candidates—particularly socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders—focused primarily on income inequality.

Using BLS data, EPI attributes the entire rise in inequality to the decline in private sector unionization which fell from about one in three workers in the 1950’s, to one in twenty today.

But this purportedly expropriated “labor surplus” has yet to be found: business investment barely covered depreciation and new business start-ups plummeted during the Obama Administration.

While the incomes of the very rich did soar during this time, the 11 percent increase in real wages is actually closer to 15 percent including non-wage compensation. Over the last four decades, this would rank as one of the most successful eras of the last millennium.

The EPI calculation of productivity gains of 6.6 times that (purportedly more conservative than BLS’s own calculation) is unprecedented. Since it’s obvious that the millennial generation isn’t working twice as hard as the Baby Boomers, this implies they have almost twice the workplace smarts.

The Flawed Marxian "Labor Exploitation"

Back in the GDR, where the workers union is part of the state, labor compensation was determined politically based on the flawed Marxian “labor theory of value.” This led to the equally flawed “labor surplus” theory adopted by American unions.

In free markets, labor tends to move where its productivity is highest and is compensated accordingly. Consistent with the “labor surplus” theory that ignores the action of capitalist entrepreneurs and returns to capital, technology, and innovation that had brought about the greatest increase in living standards in recorded history in market economies is simply assumed.

In 1987, standing at the Brandenburg Gate, President Reagan delivered his most memorable lines:

“Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Unfortunately, failed states don’t admit to being wrong, so in 1989 the citizens finally did.

While the unionization movement in the U.S. never formed a formal political alliance with the Communist Party (CPUSA) it was infiltrated by and shared some of the same basic mistaken ideology of labor exploitation, as well as thuggish Soviet tactics.

Elia Kazan’s 1954 movie, On the Waterfront, depicts union corruption and violence. This was a direct reaction to Kazan personally being ostracized after testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about the communist infiltration of Hollywood. This marked the high point of private sector unionization.

The Rise of Public Sector Unions

Meanwhile, back in the USA, unions have to work through a political party, historically this has meant working with the Democratic Party.

As private sector unions were largely replaced with public sector unions, union financial support more closely resembled the soviet model: public funds for political action. More often than not, this was collected involuntarily, going straight to union coffers and ultimately into the hands of the Democratic Party.

Without the constraints of either totalitarian corruption purges or market discipline, public unions are free to support both the growth of state and local government spending and an increase in public compensation.

Politicians vote for their own salaries and lavish pensions with two-thirds of pension costs postponed and hidden from public view.

Progressive labor policies have been extended to the private economy. Service Employees International Union's Andy Stern was by far the most frequent visitor to the Obama White House, which supported the union plank including a card check, a living wage, and an increase of the federal minimum wage.

Restrictive state certification rules—reminiscent of the guilds of earlier centuries— have also increased five-fold since the 1950’s.

Americans have historically lauded those who achieved great success through individual merit, be they entertainers and athletes or capitalist entrepreneurs. Education provided the path to increasing worker productivity along with technical innovation.

Unionization and State Control of Education

Whereas only one worker in four had any post high school education in the 1950’s, about two-thirds of today's high school graduates will go to college.

However, business can’t find enough skilled workers, while un-or-under-employment of college graduates still hovers around fifty percent. What explains this huge dichotomy?

Since the 1970’s some states like California have largely taken over funding and control from municipalities, and the federal government has expanded its role in primary and secondary education with the creation of the cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.

Public institutions of higher learning have expanded rapidly, largely at the expense of private universities. The weakest failed, while the strongest—the Ivy League schools—now get more revenue from tax dollars than tuition dollars.

Most educators became unionized during this period as well. Hence the relationship between communities and teachers as well as between college deans and faculty has largely been replaced by the relationship between a public union and the state. Costs continually rise while the quality of education falls.

The United States spends more per student on primary and secondary education than any of the industrialized Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. But the quality of U.S. primary and secondary education, particularly in urbann areas, has been declining and falling behind the international competition, ranking among the worst.

At colleges and universities, the rise in the average grade from a "C" to an "A" masks the continuing decline in workplace value.

The Loyalists Are Back

The libertarian-inspired American Revolution a century prior to Marx, was directed against the crony capitalist British Empire. This has been depicted in two new TV shows: Frontier on Netflix—featuring the Hudson Bay Trading Company— and Taboo on FX— featuring the East India Trading Company.

The Founders weren’t immune to exerting political influence. Benjamin Franklin secured the Postmaster sinecure for himself and the Royal governorship of New Jersey for his son, who later rejected his familial bond to remain a Loyalist, as did the most politically favored third of the American population.

War and public spending, starting with the Civil War and President Lincoln’s goal of “public improvements” have eroded the constitutionally limited government constraint on crony capitalism.

Hell on Wheels, which airs on the AMC network, depicts how the private transcontinental railroad turned Washington D.C. into a crony capitalist swamp.

Big-government liberal Joseph Stiglitz and small-government libertarian David Stockman both conclude that crony capitalism is the biggest cause of rising income inequality today. How else would one explain the eight or nine-digit paydays of retired lifetime politicians like Bill Clinton and Al Gore?

The broad majority of the Clinton coalition who aligned against the “deplorables” is made up of today’s big government “loyalists.” This includes politicians, bureaucrats, regulators (and the regulated), administrators, the Wall Street elite, trial lawyers, academics, progressive think tanks, the military industrial complex, and any others on the receiving end of government largesse. If the “deplorables” can’t beat them, their only alternative may be to join them.

But former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously noted:

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

Crony capitalism failed in Britain for the same reason.