The Magic of the Cities.

Zen promotes the rediscovery of the obvious, which is so often lost in its familiarity and simplicity. It sees the miraculous in the common and magic in our everyday surroundings. When we are not rushed, and our minds are unclouded by conceptualizations, a veil will sometimes drop, introducing the viewer to a world unseen since childhood. ~ John Greer

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The informal way of life in Mexico

Transport (at Zocalo)
Mexico upside down

The informal sector is economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government, and is not included in that government's Gross National Product (GNP), as opposed to a formal economy. Examples are barter and gift economy.
Although the informal economy is often associated with developing countries, where up to 60% of the labour force (with as much 40% of GDP) works, all economic systems contain an informal economy in some proportion. The term informal sector was used in many earlier studies, and has been mostly replaced in more recent studies which use the newer term.
The English idioms under the table and off the books typically refer to this type of economy. The term black market refers to a specific subset of the informal economy in which contraband is traded; where contraband may be strictly or informally defined.
Given the complexity of the phenomenon, the simplest definition of informal economic activity might be: any exchange of goods or services involving economic value in which the act escapes regulation of similar satchel acts.
In developing countries, the largest part of informal work, around 70%, is self-employed, in developed countries, wage employment predominates. The majority of informal economy workers are women. Policies and developments affecting the informal economy have thus a distinctly gendered effect.



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music+image

Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all.  /  Gracias por su visita. 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

the colors of these pictures are really gorgious!
Bye :-)

brattcat said...

Such an interesting, informative post.

Luis Gomez said...

Excellent post, thanks for all the info.

Kim said...

First, I'm loving the music (nice funky groove. . .can't find the player to see who it is). Second, I like each of the three shots today a lot. You've really captured some of the underground economy in action. The light you caught in the third shot is really nice, and the middle shot is so bold and graphic even with the figure, and I like the blue sky background with all the warmth of the pedicab driver's setting. Love, love, love your work!
-Kim
PS- going out on a nice lively Tito Puente sort of number.

AB said...

¡Viva Wexico!