Collect Call from Iphone 3GS – Ricardo Bollier

Are you ready to buy the new Iphone 3GS? Better your pocket be ready too. As technology extends to new stages, providing more conveniences for the society making our lives more simple and practical, the longing to have the updated equipment is a endless run, due to the fact that technology changes faster everyday. Normally, the price that you pay for a brand new apparatus is high; however, Apple Company inverted this rule while bringing the Iphone with a modest price in US: US$ 300. Two years after that, they launched the new Iphone version 3GS that you can buy with even less money. Nevertheless, this new price advantage implemented in US didn’t arrive at Brazilian market, which was anxious to get a high quality product with a reasonable price. That brings us the question why the same product can have such different values? In our case, the Iphone 3GS commercialized in Brazil has such a higher cost comparing to the same product sold in US due to the abusive taxes, the telephone servide companies’ profit and luxuries status of the new Macintosh gadget that arrived in our country.

The First reason why the Iphone 3GS price is high in Brazil has to do with the exorbitant taxes that the government applies to cell phones made outside the country. “The tax amount is more expensive than a airplane ticket to US plus the money to purchasing the same mobile” said Roberto Silva, a 24 years old student, to Veja Magazine published on October 27th. He and his friends have declined to buy the new Apple gadget, once they have found about the Iphone’s price. However, what many costumers don’t know is that more than an half of the price is composed of suffocating taxes. According to Abinee (Associação Brasileira da Indústria Elétrica e Eletrônica) on its report released on 2009, the tax percentage for an imported cell phone can be more than 60%, including IPI, ICMS, Broker costs and PIS/Confins. “It’s is an awful burden for the costumers that don’t see these amount returning in high-quality public services” said Antonio Amorin, Abinee President. Therefore, these heavy duty that are imposed to Iphone 3GS by Brazilians law, as a barrier for cell phones made outside the country, will maintain its price up high for the Brazilians customers.

The second reason why the Iphone 3GS has a steep price comparing with the American is based also on the profit margin set by the telephone service companies. On the last two decades occurred a revolution in the telephone service that is offered to the clients. From poor governmental service to specialized private assistance, an ocean of investment was dropped from all tele companies in order to make this radical change. Ricardo Saldanha, 54 years old and 20 years working as a TI engineer for a cell phone company, remember this period. “It was more expensive than starting from scratch, because we needed to replace all old equipment used by the preceding governmental companies”. Consequently, to recover all these funds spent by all telephone corporations, the profit margin for their services are considerable high. In addition, while the US company that is allowed to purchase the Iphone can require a two years contract with the buyer, the Brazilian companies, by law, can only make a one year contract, what also influences to rise the cell phone prices. João Castro, 34 economist, said to Valor Econômico printed last Sunday that “bigger the investment, bigger the risk for the telephone companies; and the only way to get out of this risky situation is to get a higher profit and, as a result, charging high prices for their products”. Thus, making the Iphone value higher, the telephone companies want to increase their profit and through these earnings regain part of the investment they have made in this mobile service market.

The third cause why the Iphone 3GS is on the stores with at least three times more expensive than the American ones, is the frenzy of thousands consumers that see the new Apple good as an icon of status and keep crowding the stores and vanishing the available units, independently of the price. Three weeks after the Iphone 3GS has been launched in Brazil, it was almost impossible to find it available on some stores. The telephone corporations are celebrating the sales but also are complaining the low quantity of Iphone 3GS exported by Apple. “If, for any chance, 300 Iphone just appear in my store, I guarantee you that I could sell it in less then 3 days” said proudly the VIVO manager of the Villa Lobos Mall store, Marcos Pereira. At the same store, Silvia Nakata, 28, Ambev Sale Manager, was disappointed for not finding the new Apple mobile. “Everybody in my department wants to have one 3GS Iphone and some of them keep on showing them to all colleagues as a status certificate”, she said. According to Dr. Waltenberg, 65, psychologist, on his interview about the Iphone phenomenon published by UOL on October 1st, everyone wants to reach a status level higher than your own possibilities for the moment, “if you can’t buy a mansion, you will want at least to buy a nice car to show everybody; if can’t afford an expensive car, you will buy something else to get the others attention and now the Iphone is the new heat, latter it will be placed for something else”. As long as the 3GS phone sales are on fire due to the huge demand, it will follow the economic law, manipulating the price to stay at stratospheric level. In conclusion, as long as the Iphone is considered as a powerful status icon by the customers, the demand will sustain the elevated cost for the fashion and innovative cell phone created by Apple.

Even though Brazil has a lower GDP and a inferior per capita income comparing with same US indexes, according to 2008 IMF database report publised on Febuary, the new Iphone 3GS is purchased in Brazil with a very upper price contrasting with what is paid by the Americans for the same product. This occurs because of the massive taxes, the profit hungry of the telephone companies and the status sensation that the new Macintosh mobile provides. However, this huge price gap between identical products commercialized in Brazil and abroad, appears not only with mobiles but also with several others technological items that are not made in our country. As long as the new technologies produced outside are doomed to have offensive high values, it will be available only for a small part of the society, not reaching its full capacity of promoting innovation everywhere and to anyone. Until the High-Tec is perceived as a shared progress that should be accessible to the majority, the Iphone 3GS new buyers will need to pay the bitten bill.

Midterm – Stepping on a dangerous zone

The traffic in São Paulo is so big that makes you think about walking instead of driving? For your safety, don’t do that. Traffic in São Paulo is increasing more and more every year, becoming an obstacle for every citizen. On july 18th, according to CET report, the traffic was so huge that has broken the record with the length of 197 km. With the view of thousand cars not moving, many drivers could think they would arrive earlier at their destinations if they have walked. However, the truth is that they should avoid walking, as much as possible, the streets of São Paulo in order to not get robbed by a thief or a car running over them.
 
First of all, pedestrian should think twice before deciding walk long or short distances since São Paulo, according to the State Police in its last report published in March 8th, is the brazilian city where the large number of robbery occurs with pedestrian. João Saldanha, a 35 years old engineer, used to drive the 3km way from his home to this company. After spending more than a half hour driving this short distance, due to traffic, he decided to go to work on foot. However, in the next day while he was walking to work, he was attacked by one thief that took his wallet and laptop. His case is one example of several others robberies that happened daily in the city, and that makes the citizens afraid of walking on the dangerous city of São Paulo.
 
Finally, walking around the streets is a dangerous game for those who want to go on foot due to the fact that the traffic has become so chaotic where cars, bicycles, or buses’ drivers have no respect for pedestrians. According to Marcos da Silva, president of the organization WALKING BY, in every 2 hours occurs an accident in São Paulo in which a pedestrian has been involved, suffering a serious consequence and in some cases even death. Rita de Castro, a 18 year old student, was on the sidewalk going to University. The building is only 300m far from her home. The day of the accident, she remember that a car appeared out of the blue on a fast speed and turned to the sidewalk without the driver’s control. She was ran over and had to stay at the hospital and only after 3 weeks of treatment and 5 surgeries she could go home hopping to walk again. Many people were not so lucky like Rita and lost their lives. Doesn’t matter if they are on the sidewalk or crossing the road in the right place, seems that in São Paulo the walkers should be responsible for what the drivers are doing and not opposite, when drivers should be with full attention to protect the pedestrians.
 
Therefore, the citizens should really take these facts in consideration and see traffic through another point of view, not only considering the time but also thinking about the risks of being a pedestrian. The day that the government provides us the guarantee to walk on a city with more responsible drives and with fewer crimes, then we can consider the sidewalk as a good option for the huge traffic of São Paulo. Until then, we need to think again, and again.

Ricardo Bollier – Essay 2

No fretado inside São Paulo’s downtown? Bad idea. As the city of São Paulo gets bigger and more crowded every year and to go back and forth from a place to the other has become a trial to the citizens due to the traffic, the new municipal law which prohibited the fretado buses to get inside downtown is a contradiction, because it wants to help population but will only bring more problems.  When Marcos Oliveira, councilman from PDT party, decided to apply the fretado’s new regulation, he affirmed that without those big fretados buses on downtown, the streets would get more room and consequently the traffic less slow, representing a god changing for entire city of São Paulo.  However, the council didn’t realize that the things are not so simple and actually, without the fretado option, several people were sentenced to deal now with a bigger traffic, to suffer more pressure or even with the possibility to lose their occupation.  Therefore, the fretado buses should be allowed to go inside downtown in order to decrease traffic, avoid stress and retain jobs.

At first, the fretado buses should be allowed to get inside São Paulo downtown because it will avoid the passengers from going to work in their own cars, making the traffic in the city even worse. Many fretado’s users choose this option of transportation due to the fact that São Paulo public transportation system is not branched enough to provide a minimum of quality, comfort and speed.  These benefits are items that fretado’s users are longing to have and now, due to the prohibition, they can only find inside their own cars. Juliana Furnas, 30 years old secretary, is one of the users that changed the fretado to her own car to go to work. She said that no way she was going to work using the public system due to the lack os quality.  According to Detran in their report pushed on august 13^th, the necessary number of cars on street to transport the passengers of one fretado would be around 30 and If we place all these cars in a line, it will correspond to 75 meters of traffic. It is 2.5 times the length of a standard fretado bus, said João Saldanha, Detran Traffic Department Director. Therefore, fretado is a better choice to avoid the traffic chaos in the city of São Paulo.

Moreover, the fretado also represents a quality of life for users who don’t want to drive in a stressful traffic. According to Marcos do Carmo, president of Automobiles Association of São Paulo, everyday more than 800 new cars are launched to the streets of São Paulo making the chaotic traffic reach almost every corner and increasing 10 minutes per year the average of time that the drivers spent daily behind the wheels. Dr.  Esdras Vasconcelos, professor of psychology at USP, says that stress is not only caused by the traffic; however, the traffic is where is easy to get out of control, increasing the effects of stress. The doctor also adds that the traffic environment can make the drivers feel many stress symptoms such as nerve brake down, heart fast beating, lack of memory and others. Also according to Dr. Vaconcelos, although the fretado users normally spent normally 15 minutes more in the traffic comparing with car’s drivers, they can enjoy much more their time chatting, reading a book and even taking a nap in a fretado, after all, less stressful activities. Marcia Souza is one of the fretados users that had to take her personal car and now felt the hard difference between getting a fretado and driving inside São Paulo downtown. Since she left the fretado, she is not sleeping well and having concentration problems. For these reason, the fretado busses is a safe place for those who do not want to waste a precious time driving inside São Paulo and are longing to use fretados once again to go downtown.

Finally, the fretado prohibition law is also a disaster to many workers who depend of fretado business. According to the Fretado Transportation Union report released in July 2009, more than 3000 employees have their jobs related to fretado business. If, because of the new law, the users decide that they are no longer taking daily the fretado to go to their companies, it will be difficult to retain the fretado drivers’ job. João de Oliveira, 58 years old and 20 years working as a fretado driver, saw in these last 2 weeks of implementation of the new law that the number of users of his fretado bus has been reduced in 75%.  Mr. Oliveira also adds that he is concerned about how to keep working due to the fact that less users is less money to pay all his expenses such as gas and bus maintenance. According to Folha de São Paulo report published in July 23th of 2009, these circumstances are also occurring with almost all fretado drivers and unless the government revises the prohibition law, they will need to find new occupation.  Because it is very important to retain these thousands of jobs, the fretado buses should be allowed to get inside of São Paulo downtown.

The government and the council should revise the fretado prohibition law as soon as possible due to the facts that it has brought only more traffic to the streets of São Paulo, banished thousand of fretado users into a stressful situation behind the wheel or in the public transport system, and, more problematic, can cause the loss of jobs for thousand citizens. The São Paulo traffic is one of the most difficult problems of the city, however, instead of changing to worse the fretado option with a law that was not discussed with the population, the government should change the public transport system making it more user friendly, more branched, faster and with more quality. Only then the citizens will have better choices and freely decide, not based in a prohibition, the best option of transport for each one. Until then, the idea of taking out the fretados of São Paulo downtown, is moving from bad to terrible idea.

Ricardo Writing 1

When I was a child, I used to stay at home all the time when I was not at school. My mom didn’t allow me or my two older sisters to play outside on the streets. “This is for your safety,” my mother used to say without explaining that some neighbors had problems with the police. She was a strict woman and the general of our humble family; it was wise for us to do so.

Rule #1: Stay at home and play with my sisters, and not with the neighbors. Inside the walls, we were allowed to play all kinds of games just using our imagination, and the afternoon after the school had become our time to discover an old Egyptian treasure or to chase a thief (not the neighbor), or even to travel out of space.

With all this young excitement around, It was not easy for my Mom, who used to work at home as a tailor, to take care of us and at the same time spend almost 10 hours a day laboring to finish the shirts orders. We were running around and playing wildly all the time with so much energy that only childhood can provide and to place our games world far from her professional life, my mother had another rule. Rule #2: Never play with her equipments or anything else that she uses in her job: cloth, paint, needle, etc. Keeping far from them, we were out of trouble, however how can three kids be always far from trouble?

One summer day we were sweeting under the sun when mother suddenly called us by our names. “Gisele, Gislaine e Ricardo”. We were used to be called by our niknames and we knew that the bitter sound of our names beeing shoulted meant in a free translation “You all are in trouble. Come here now!” We stopped our game and even our breath and rushed to see what was going on. Her arms were crossed in front of the chest and she said to the small scultures, who didn’t dare to move.