Small article/story on NPR about Montecristi/Pile

[Panamabob]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4683911


Great little story...be sure to look at the photo of Don Rosendo and then look at the VIEW GALLERY. Look at the house of one of the top weavers. Is he getting his due?

Good business models and not-for-profit foundations be damned. You can't save the industry by overpricing the hats by thousands.

Those of you who have our hats and have a small RD inside...that is the man who finished your hat.

Those who have an FP or variation that is his sister in law Flerida Pachay.

Those of you who have an MP or MMP or WP or WM or WMP ow WMMP that is his nephew Modesto Mero Pachay.

Those of you who have an GP...that is his neice Glenda Pachay.

 

[Feraud]

It is very sad to see an artist, whose work sells for a lot of money, not get his fair share. It is also sad to hear of the dwindling number of men who make these hats.
Is there anything that can be done to attempt to turn this around? I would think not buying the overpriced hats might reduce the demand...
Anything else?

 

[Panamabob]

Ecuadorians have a saying:

The blacksmith eats with a wooden spoon.

A $2.00 baseball cap from Colombia is a lot easier on the pocketbook than a $12.00 material hat that you've woven for 3 months.


We don't have any trouble selling the overpriced hats at decent prices.

We sell well over 1000 hats of various qualities each year. Over 3500 hats in the last 3 years. Who was selling that many before we were? At what profit? Why do the weavers still live in housing such as you see? We certainly can't afford to give back the same amount of "extra" money as those who sell the hats at the markup, but we certainly are paying the "same" prices up front, thereby helping in that way. We keep a list of the things we buy for our hatting friends and family by way of the profits from the hat sales. That is our business. When we become a true non-profit (NOTE, not not-for-profit) who wants to be on our board?

The best way to save the art is to keep the hats moving. If a hat is $400 up front how can one conscientiously sell it for $30,000? And if you sell it for $30,000 why not shuffle a few bucks down? $30,000 buys an awfully nice apartment building in Montecristi, Ecuador.

 

[Richard]

what is poverty?

is this guy really "poorer" than relatively middle class americans like myself, in debt up to our ears, with relatively steady cash flow but all available time taken away, yeah, we have health care, the right to go to an hmo for 8 minute intervals after an hour wait, sure some treatment if something really goes wrong, but probably what went wrong was a result of hellacious lifestyle choices induced by a toxic society. money aint everything. heck, even a guy who had nothing has a lot better net worth than me. I'm 10 years out of law school and I still have a negative balance sheet from student loans, etc. That house in the NPR photo looks pretty good to me if I could get one without huge payments.

 

[Prairie Shade]

Panama Planter

Thanks Modesto for my Planter. I wondered what the MP stood for!!!!!

 

[Panamabob]

Richard,

Are you serious? The guy(s) spends his waking hours weaving hats...and the best ones get him about $100.00 a month for the work.,,,the best ones, not the mediocre ones.

A 2 liter of Coca Cola is $.65 (last check), a loaf of bread is $1.00, a gallon of gas is over $2.00, a movie is $5.00, it cost me more monthly for electricity in Ecuador than 3 months here in the states, my phone cost 2X more there in Ecuador, the taxes are 12%./....on and on.......check my buddy at www.cuencanet.com if you think I jest.

Believe me 10% more of the money that goes to the likes of those at zip code 96734 would do these guys a world of good.

A house like that is probably about $2000 and that takes a long time to buy at the rate of $100.00 a month for a hat that would have a $3500+ price tag on. Look at the house, BTW, and you'll see that upkeep is constant, as are the mosquitoes and other vermin.

Sure, let's get rich off of the back of some mestizo in Ecuador...he doesn't need the problems I'll have with his money.

 

[Feraud]

Richard, you have many valid points regarding the negative aspects of our consumer based materialistic society. I would answer "yes" that man is probably poorer than most middle class Americans like you and I.

I doubt any one of us would trade our lives to make $25.00 a week weaving hats. As romantic as it may sound to make "Montescristi" hats the "old fashioned way", it is more than likely way too boring for most of us to handle on a day to day basis.

 

[feltfan]

Quality of life

Of course quality of life comparison data are available.
Obvious metrics like infant mortality, income to cost ratios,
and relative building quality, and the effect of diseases like
malaria and things we have all but forgotten like polio (to
say nothing of the quality of life for women in many such
countries) are easily found.

I wonder if Richard has ever visited what we call "third world"
countries and spent time getting to know the people and their
languages? Those HMOs look pretty good if you don't have one.
Refrigerators do, too. Stop lights come in handy. Consumer
advocacy. Clean tap water and taps. Having the spare dollars
to buy hats on eBay.

Anyway, you get the point. Hard to understand why people shouldn't
get the value of their work. Or at least 50% of it.

 

[jamespowers]

I suppose the most important thing about rewarding the work of a craftsman is making sure that they do not become bored and disenchanted with the work and stop doing it altogether. One hundred dollars a month for producing super finos is not exactly conducive to keeping ones interest in a repetitive task.
I am all for capitalism and the benefits that it rewards us with but there is a such thing as taking advantage of the third world and its people. Yeah, people who know me are not going to believe I am writing this but it is true. It is one thing to get the cheapest thing around and sell it for the highest price possible but that usually involves trinkets and such things that trained monkeys could make. Trained and accomplished artisans deserve more than that.
I suppose their government could be less corrupt and more thoughtful to the plight of their people but they just are not. That does not diminish their craft though. My worry is that their weaving skills will not be passed on and we (the world) will irretrievably lose the ability to obtain a nice panama hat. :cry:

Regards to all,

J

 

[gcollins]

damned.[/COLOR] You can't save the industry by overpricing the hats by thousands.

Hi Bob, I thought you got kicked off FL as well? Well, good to see you back though.

You're right, Bob, unless you pay the best weavers more for their hats than others give them. The non-profit organizations are doing more than the guy who not giving them anything--but even is that not enough? It is not either/or--this seller or that seller. It is not PanamaBob vs the higher priced guys. It is the guy who pays the weavers enough to live a middle class lifestyle. Pay them more, Bob, and make a difference! No artisans in the developing world make bundles of money for most arts, and unforutunatly most have died. Out. Terrible shame.

The only way to help them is to give them more for their bodies, or make sure money gets to places that directly help them live better. Bottom line. The consumers on this end have no choice--their choice of seller has nothing to do with what the weavers get. They're just looking for a nice hat at a good price. Or a great hat that helps the weavers in great ways. Nothing wrong with that, right?

War or Peace?
G

 

[Panamabob]

James,

You got it. The weaving skills are the most important thing and they aren't going to continue while working for Ecuadorian peanuts.


Feltfan,

If the guy got 50% of every hat, you can bet your bippy they'd do an even better job.

Feraud,

You are on the money.


Richard and the rest,

Honestly, come on down with me one time and we'll see and hear first hand how these people live, work, and breathe these hats.

 

[Richard]

i am serious

1. I don't use gasoline. I ride a bicycle. I don't think we as a country are wealthier for having all these cars. I think a society that is bicycle based would be wealthier. I'm not impressed that gas is 2.00 a gallon. Similarly, I think coca cola is disgusting, as are all other sodas. I think we would be wealthier as a society if we didn't have any soda at all. As for vermin, well, I do currently have a bunch of mice in my house, as does everyone else out here in the desert of southern california where we kinda don't belong. if the house cost 2,000 and he makes a $100 a month, the house costs 20 times his monthly salay. upkeeps even more expensive here i bet. A quick mental check on my rate; I'd need 100 times my monthly salary to buy an average house around here. the only time i've been to the doctor in the last 10 years is for zoloft because im bummed out, and I blame that on society too. stopped taking it a while back because i decided I probably should be kinda bummed out. Is bread what these people normally eat? I mean, the price might be high because it's an odd food. what's the normal staple down there and how much does that cost. I'm really not tryign to be obnoxious, this is an issue very close to my heart lately, as my family and I have been radically downscaling and cutting back. I recently stopped wearing shoes (except in court) not just because of money but because I think shoes are bad. I am willing to reevaluate everything. My soles are toughening up. I know I could survive without soda or baked bread. Or meat. but I don't think i could make it without a panama straw hat :cool2:

 

[Panamabob]

Nearly speechless. Where I live houses are cheap, about 3 years of my salary for a nice house.

I've lived in both countries and the common man is much, much, much better off here.

My point is that the love of money is the root of all evil. Or something like that.

One shouldn't get rich off of poor Ecuadorians....punto. It would be a lot different if wealth was shared.

And, yes, that man Rosendo Delgado is quite wealthy. He's not a weaver, he finishes the hats and sets the price for them.

 

[BellyTank]

Bake your own bread- it's better for you and way cheaper- fun too.
The wife has one in the oven right now- due October...

B
T

 

[Richard]

I think once you get past subsistence levels, discretionary income gives you less and less pleasure as it increases. So, once you get room and board covered, you get a lot of pleasure relatively from the first chunk of discretionary income, and less and less until eventually it becomes meaningless stacks of money. What I see in the USA is huge houses filled with useless crap, unhappy people in unhappy marriages, people spending hours and hours on the road in cars on their way to work, mortgaged to the hilt, eating deadly foods in toxic quantities with rampant obesity and diabetes and allt he attendant problems. If that's wealth, I'm not interested. I'm not saying money causes all this, but the time involved in acquiring wealth and sustaining it is. interesting link; www.tumbleweedhouses.com ; they sell tiny houses, 250-400 square feet. I am seriously considering moving in with my family of five. they're cheap and beautiful. of course, we wouldn't be able to have a lot of "stuff" in there. Or barely anything at all. A chair. A bed. A book. no tv, no computer, no nothing. i guess we'd be "poor". and while im lucky enough to have a bit of health insurance, a significant chunk of the country doesn't. Heck, soon they may be the majority.

 

[Panamabob]

California must be a real joy.

I agree with much of what you say as being true. People seek happiness in things instead of each other. This has nothing to do with paying someone a fair wage.

 

[Rundquist]

Isn't the main reason for the dying art of Panama hat weaving (besides a lack of demand), the middlemen that run the Panama hat syndicate (or what ever the real name is)? Those are the men that are truly raping the weavers. I understand that logic says that if the demand were higher, the hat brokers would possibly have to pay more to the weavers to help keep up with demand, which in turn might attract more people to the art of panama hat weaving. But lowering the price (which I have no problem with) wouldn't necessarily make that much of a difference to the level of demand for panama hats in my opinion. The general gob out there just isn't that interested in wearing one. The art of Panama hat weaving is doomed in my opinion. I do think that the real slime though in all this is the middleman. He's the one that isn't paying an honest wage. The Panama hat situation actually has many parallels to the diamond industry. Diamonds aren't even a rare substance on earth, and yet the diamond syndicate has created a demand for them based on the idea that they're rare. They create their own rules that everybody has to contend with or face blacklisting. But at least there's a demand for them (even if it's only been fabricated). In the case of the Panama, there's not even a demand for them. That's the real problem as I see it.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

Richard, are you serious? From your posts it is hard to tell if you are speaking tongue-in-cheek or are actually dead serious.

If you are serious...well...nevermind.

 

[Panamabob]

Since I've been way in the inside....

Perhaps you are correct about this but only in the Cuenca region. But most certainly not in Montecristi. You can ask Graham at Optimo, off the record of course, if what I say is true. I've been spouting for years and none of the big money man have contradicted what I've said. They can't. To be quite honest, I've been sent legal papers by one and my wife and I have been offered jobs by another. Let's see them refute that.


In Montecristi the demand is such for the good hats that you have to wait for them to be done because by the time they are the size of a quarter someone has their mark on them. The weaver's are getting what they are asking, the hats go to a middleman who pays more people to finish them, then he sells them to the people who want to resell them or tourists.

Let's say he, the middleman, paid $50.00 for the hat, then spent a few dollars having the backweave done (at last check, only one woman was doing the backweaving in Montecristi), a few dollars having the hat pummelled and softened, then the hat spends time bleaching, the family spends time cutting it down, the middleman's family spends time perfecting the backweave and fixing imperfections. Now the hat is ready to be sold. I'd be fairly safe in saying that that $50.00 hat would now be about $100.00 or so. A $100.00 hat has upwards of 900+ weaves per square inch and sometimes even 1000. That fine of a hat would easily go for thousands as sold by many people.

Let's see, I pay you $50.00 for something, I genuinely spend time working on it and resell it for $100.00. You turn around, spend a few hours working on it, sell the story, and it goes for, what, $2000 or $3000?

Now you'll tell me about the not-for-profit foundations. Well, they must have a board (paid?), they have a president or some other functioning leader (paid?), someone is blocking the hats and being paid (It is a good idea to lead the organization if you are a hatblocker). Terrific business model. Buy low, sell really high, take a cut as board member, take a cut as the manager, take a cut as the hat blocker, and decide where the money goes after that.

I'm not at all against doing good business. I'm against people acting like they are saviors and such when they really do very little.

Perhaps this will change.

I've heard first hand stories of a foundation being the sole owner of all hats out of Montecristi, or at least being the DIAMOND standard, a company that is recognized by such a foundation about Montecristi. That is making the rules. Blacklisting will be easy. That is the downfall of the Montecristi.

I'm not sure how many hats one needs to sell for there to be a demand, but we sell easily 1000 hats a year.

 

[Feraud]

I do not see discretionary income as the problem but the people behind it with a problem. Yes, there are a lot of unhappy affluent people. There are many productive people with extra income. The problem is peoples' motivations for making money and how you pass these ideas down to your children.
If we all lived at the subsistent level, I wonder how much room there would be for music, art and hat making? I do not believe in the fantasy of 'poor happy folks' sitting around with nothing but their happiness reading to each other and putting on sock puppet shows.
The ability to appreciate your life, family, friends, hats, etc. is not dependent on money(or lack of) but your outlook on life. I do think the little extra money makes life a lot easier!