I was talking to an Aussie and a Yank last week and we were discussing politics, or rather our respective political systems and parties. The Aussie mentioned that she’d voted for Kevin Rudd in their last elections and was absolutely delighted that he’d given a formal apology on behalf of the Australian government for the Stolen Generation of Aborigines.

Which reminded me that I think the single biggest, most important and most difficult problem facing Australian society is that Aboriginal life expectancy is still 17 years less than that of white Australians. That single statistic actually highlights the vast array of issues currently facing members of the oldest continuous culture on the planet. Whatever people are trying to do about it, they need to do more, and better. It’s not really good enough.

As I said, it’s easy to identify other people’s problems. Because there’s actually enormous disparity in life expectancy between the rich and poor in the UK as well. Men in Glasgow have a life expectancy that’s 11 years less than men in London.

Poverty is closely correlated with lower life expectancies. People in poverty have worse diets and lifestyle, poorer housing, are more likely to work in physically taxing jobs, and often have worse education for their kids and may be be able to access healthcare.

The problems within individual developed countries however, don’t really compare to those in less and least developed countries. Life expectancy in many countries has been decimated by the Aids epidemic. Because with malaria and TB running rampant, it needed to get worse . The number of people worldwide who live on less than $1 a day is unbelievable. I know that some things are cheaper in other countries, but not really things like pharmaceuticals.

We, you and I, could do something about this if we wanted to. If you and I each donated some money, that would help. We are after all, rich beyond many people’s wildest dreams. And giving money will make us each feel richer - there’s nothing like a warm glow on a cold autumnal day.

I’m donating September and October’s adsense earnings for Blog Action Day 2008. What are you doing?

Other bloggers who are getting involved

• being frugal
• gather little by little
• the good human
• my two dollars
• moolanomy
• cash money life
• military finance network
• that one caveman
• bible money matters
• mrs micah
• debt kid

advice to the happy couple

If you ever look in etiquette books, you’ll see that the bride and groom are always advised that their wedding is not a grabfest and they should refrain from suggesting directly that gifts are required or even anticipated. In English culture, it is definitely not considered polite to mention gifts on the invitations that you print, and including an insert about a registry is also frowned upon. Note that as with all etiquette rules this is culture specific.

Send thank you notes to all the guests that you invite who turn up (regardless of whether they got you a gift), and those who don’t turn up who send best wishes, congratulations or gifts. Essentially, everyone that you invite should be getting a thank you note. If they ignore your invitation and your wedding, then (and probably only then) you needn’t bother.

advice to the guest

Get a gift. If you’ve been invited, get a gift regardless of whether you’re going or not. It’s true that you don’t have to, but it is expected, by society at large, that you will. No gift needs to cost a lot of money and it doesn’t need to be taken from a registry. It should simply be something appropriate to both you and the couple, as far as is reasonably practicable.

There are exceptions. But if you’ve been invited, politeness requires that you send at least a card with your best wishes. Failure to do this is really an insult to the couple. Meaning to be rude and doing it is one thing, but inadvertently being rude is something to be avoided.

double standards

So, I’ve suggested that couples getting married definitely shouldn’t expect gifts from their guests, and guests definitely should send gifts to couples. Does this feel like a double standard to you?

It’s not. The rule of being polite and courteous is that you put yourself out in order to make things more comfortable for other people. It is more polite not to expect a gift than to expect one. But on the other hand, it is much more polite to send a gift to a wedding than not to send one. It indicates that you care about the couple, and that you support their marriage.

If you suspect that you’ve only been invited in order to solicit a gift, then you can either fulfil their expectation and send a gift, or send a gift of nominal cost - which could just be a card. If you aren’t that close, and they moan about it to other people, they will only make themselves look bad. Sort of giving them enough rope really.

what do I actually do?

I consider myself pretty lucky. All the weddings I’ve been invited to have been for people that I would consider friends to some degree or another. If they’ve had a registry of gifts I’ve always bought off that, which has worked out well because some/most of them have had very different taste in stuff to me. Otherwise, my standard gift is a bottle of champagne or wine, or extremely posh chocolates for non-drinkers. Plus a card filled with best wishes. I can be a bit cheap I guess, because I normally spend in the £20-£25 range (approx $40-$50). I would push the boat out for siblings or parents (and any other close relatives if I acquired them) but haven’t had the occasion to yet.

what about you?

What do you think about weddings gifts? Do you feel as more or less obligation to send them than I do? Let me know in the comments.

Only about £100k (10% of the £1m) would be heading in a truly charitable direction, with the other £400k being split amongst my close family - siblings and parents. I enjoy giving, and feel that this would be the right thing for me to do.

This leads me to thinking about gift economy. From wikipedia:

A gift economy is an economic system in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo.

I find this concept really easy to understand. The point is that you give things away. Giving things away gets you more status / karma / brownie points etc, and those are really important, more important than things. In a gift economy hoarding is bad. If you hoard things then you are disrupting the system, meaning that people in need will go without and you will lose your good name (in some sense).

The beauty of the gift economy is that everything that people give has to be received by someone. In this way, as long as everyone pretty much takes part, you don’t lose out.

I’m always struggling to explain gift economies to people because they fixate on how you know that you get back as much as you put in. This is frustrating to me, because part of the whole point is that you probably don’t. But the status/karma/brownie points that you do get are more important as a marker of success than cash.

Gift economies are kind of the opposite of capitalist economies. It seems reasonable that a gift economy works best on a small scale where all participants are connected to each other. It’s plausible that a gift economy only works on a small scale.

As with all types of economies, gift economies rarely exist in pure forms and for all products. The most notable real life examples are found in traditional Pacific Island cultures (dying out somewhat), but they exist in extremely modern cultures - open source software is essentially a gift economy, as is economy of blood donation in the UK. Recently (although it’s not described as such) Trent @ the simple dollar tried to describe the gift economy that exists within parts of his extended family and if you think about it, it’s normal for gift economies to exist inside nuclear families.

This has been my best attempt at explaining what a gift economy is. To a certain extent, there’s a gift economy within my own family (siblings and parents) although it operates partly as a market economy as well. What do you think?

I could invest for monetary reward

Although the entrepreneurs that kiva invests in do pay interest (which may or may not be at a high rate), this interest only covers the cost of running the schemes. One of the reasons that banks don’t lend out microloans is that the cost of the paperwork and collection is relatively fixed, so for a small loan, it eats up all the potential profits. Another reason, is that banks don’t commonly exist in some of the smaller villages as there is enough business there to make it worth their while. This means that the poorest people don’t have access to capital - in a modern capitalist world, they are at a distinct disadvantage.

The reward that I get through investing in kiva is better than money though. I know that I am making a difference, improving the world, and generally fulfilling my purpose for being. I’m not going to withdraw the money and put it into my ISA - which is my default solution for all my spare or windfall money.

I could donate to charity

I donate regularly to charity and am happy to continue to do so. The charities that I support are for causes that I believe are important, and I’m not opposed to increasing my donations. On the other hand, investing with kiva means that my money can be used again, and again, and again. The minibus driver has used the money, and now someone else can use it. And hopefully, in a years time, another person can use it, and so on.

Not everything can be solved through capitalist loans. Not every problem has a business as it’s solution. I’m going to continue to donate money to Oxfam to support their work in overseas development, but I’m also going to support some individuals in their quest to get out of the poverty trap by reinvesting my money in another loan through kiva.

I won’t, I’ll make a microcredit loan

Actually, reinvesting with kiva is pretty easy. It’s more effort to get the money out than it is to invest in a new loan. I’m quite pleased with the results, it’s nice to be able to help people out and treat them as competent and successful business people rather than deserving of sympathy.

If you’ve invested through kiva, what do you think of it? Are you opposed to microcredit for any reason? Let me know your views in the comments.

Firstly I’m going to give a couple of things to the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal. They are looking for gifts for children under the age of 17 and for the elderly. I’m planning on choosing something appropriate for a teenage boy, as people don’t commonly buy for them, and also for a small baby, as baby toys are easy to pick out.

Secondly, I’m going to be making a donation to Shelter. I may not consider myself to be a Christian, and I am certainly aware that the celebration predates the Nativity, but it seems appropriate to give to a homelessness charity at Christmas when you consider that the story tells of a couple who had nowhere to stay for the birth of their first child. Two thousand years ago that may have been acceptable, but it certainly isn’t now.

I’m sure that you’re all more warm and generous than I am, so tell me about your Christmas charity plans and ideas.

1. I don’t believe in charities

Honestly? I can assure you that charities do in fact exist. Here’s a list:

• oxfam
• greenpeace
• cancer research uk
• great ormond street hospital children’s charity
• medecins sans frontieres
• shelter
• PETA

2. Charities waste a lot of money

All charities have to spend some money on running themselves. Telephone bills and stamps don’t pay for themselves. And with the biggest charities, volunteer work may only go so far. It’s quite difficult to find people willing to volunteer full time, but you can find people willing to work full time for very reasonable wages. Some charities do spend too much on adminstration, but it’s really a very small number.

3. I don’t have very much money

It’s unlikely that you don’t have enough money to give away a little. Plan for it. Cut back on one luxury a month. If you are reading this, you are privileged to have access to the internet. You can afford to give to charity. If you really, really, really can’t find the room in your budget, give time, donate clothes to the charity shop or food to the soup kitchen, or try to persuade your employer to donate.

4. I can’t find a cause that I like

You haven’t looked hard enough. Seriously, there’s a charity for every cause. In fact there are charities for diametrically opposed causes. So you don’t want to support the military, there are charities that work for world peace. So you think that atheists have got it all wrong, there are charities that try to convert the unchurched. You can donate to support capitalism for heaven’s sake.

5. I’m too lazy

As a deeply lazy person myself, I have to say that this is possibly the worst excuse yet. Walk through any shopping street and you’ll probably find yourself accidentally signed up for a direct debit scheme with a charity that you’ve never heard of. Make it automatic. If you can’t be bothered to think of a charity to donate to, click on this link, which will take you to one of my favourites and donate there.

At least they are a worthwhile charity, right?

My taste in home decor is minimalist and modernist - think chrome, glass and Le Corbusier - pretty difficult to pull off with home made. I live on my own, and don’t really want lots of baked goods. The reason that I don’t make them myself is that there is no one to eat them. I’m just not a hand made / home made sort of person.

I’d personally rather receive a pair of funky socks that cost £1, than a hand knitted holiday sweater that I’ll never wear. And if anyone wants to get me something that I’ll truly love, get me a book.

I donate money to Oxfam, a large overseas aid and development charity, and to Scope, a charity that supports individuals with cerebral palsy. I am a member of Amnesty International and contribute a little bit of money there. I also donate time to a local organisation that promotes among other things inter-religious dialogue.

I explicitly chose to donate to Oxfam because overseas development is a cause that I believe is important, and it also presents are reasonable and realistic response to the HIV/Aids crisis in Africa and Asia, as well as campaigning on behalf of the disenfranchised.

I chose to become a member of Amnesty International and contribute money because I am aware that I have the privilege of living in a country with relative freedom of speech, press and conscience. Not everyone has this privilege.

I donate my time to the local organisation because I was asked to and because I believe that the organisation is important.

I donate to Scope because I was suckered into it at a train station once, and I haven’t got the heart to cancel a direct debit to a charity. I think that I would rather donate to Shelter, the homeless charity instead, as unwelcome things on your own doorstep tend to be forgotten.

Those of you that do donate money or time, who do you donate to and why?

My comment was the following:

I’m not (and never have been) married, but I’ve been to a few weddings and I always want to give a gift. I don’t like giving money because I always have a small budget and I don’t want to look cheap (I don’t really enjoy giving money anyway).
I prefer to give something that the couple want and find gift regsitries very helpful especially if I am fond of the couple but don’t know their personal tastes very well.

Michael Langford wrote the following in reply which I’ve highlighted with italics - my response in intermingled in plain text:

You might like giving a gift. But if you don’t keep in mind what the couple needs, you’re just assuaging your own ego, not helping them.

When trying to plan a registry, especially if you realize china is not something you need and pass on it, you have to put out a *large* amount of effort finding 5-25 dollar items you “want” so small gift givers aren’t frustrated. This just wasn’t our experience, this was some frustration we found out 3 of our married couple friends also shared. We end up putting a list of small items we might someday want or need, then end up throwing away or storing for years.

I’m afraid that if someone puts something on their gift registry then I am bound to assume that its something they want. And putting in effort for your friends is just one of those things that I think you do. If you think its too much trouble, then don’t bother - but effort is what relationships are about.

Give your friends a real gift, that of the item they’d actually use, the money, and take the risk that they’ll think you cheap.

Not everyone likes to receive money, just as I don’t like to give it. Why should I take the risk of looking cheap when there is a gift registry to choose from where I can buy something that they have said that they want in my budget.

And by the way, every bride and groom knows exactly how much every item costs on the registry. Everyone does. You’re not hiding your “cheapness”, you’re just making the bride and groom indulge your vanity. If they really need the item, and no one gets it, then your gift of money will be (possibly) spent on it. However if it was just a cheap item put there so “Young friends can afford something”, you just did them a huge favor.

Part of me thinks that this is a cultural issue. There really is more of a money taboo in the UK than in the US. For example, we don’t tip at the bar, although we might buy the bar staff a drink. Even though everyone involved knows the price of the drink, we can collectively (and subconciously) pretend that money isn’t involved. I think that it works the same way for me with gifts. I am not saying that this is healthy, merely that it is not uncommon.

Ask one of the more recent married couples you know and bought gifts for which one they’d have liked better: The gift or the same amount of cash. You’ll see who you’re really making happy by gift buying is you, and you’re not helping out the new couple as much as simply dropping cash in the envelope would.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. All gifts come with some obligations. They are meant to strengthen the relationships between people. Of course I’m making myself happy by buying the gift, I want to improve my relationship with these people because I like them and they like me. In any case, not everyone prefers cash and I feel distinctly uncomfortable giving it - gift giving is supposed to give pleasure to the giver as well as the receiver.

Please feel free to comment on my comments