Chap. 23

 Is globalization a positive or negative thing, in terms of inequality? Is it making things better or worse? Yes.

Inequality, when looking at the individuals themselves, seems to be an overall negative thing, as the majority of the people are making little amounts of money. On the other hand, countries and their governments are making loads, and the inequalities seem to be going away. The models / concepts the chapter displayed, when looked at individually, without the other ones included, can be seen as either good or bad. The global scale makes it seem like globalization is a very good thing and it's solving issues. But the model that includes the people, and excludes the nations makes it seem like disparity has greatly increased, being weighted by population. The average of one nation could be the same as another, but the spread could be very vastly different;
a population of 1000 has a total income of $100,000, in each country. But country A could have a "top 1%" that makes 95,000 of that 100,000, and the 990 other people make the 5,000. On average, the population is making an equal amount of money, but the outliers are what makes it like that. Country B could have it as everyone making the exact same amount as each other. In both countries, the average income is the same, but there's a massive difference in the population.
If you don't look at all models all together, taking everything into account, then it is impossible to determine whether or not globalization has a positive or negative impact on inequality. Only when someone looks at all of the evidence can they determine. Even then, people will have varying opinions based on their values.

The Maya coffee situation is strange. The fair trade systems in place make it so that the farmers are guaranteed a minimum amount for their production. The price had even doubled! Without context, this looks like farmers are benefiting greatly from the fair trade systems. However, the farmers barely get anything as-is. Double of nothing is still nothing. Farmers aren't making enough to benefit.
The issue gets even worse when you remember that farmers have the least amount of power in the long chain that is the process of coffee making. If a buyer doesn't like the price the farmer set, they won't buy, making the farmer's coffee essentially useless.

Cobalt Pipe. The congo. The conditions of the cobalt mining operations are so poor. The workers have their BARE FEET out. The only source of light they have is a toy lamp. The amount of space they have to work in is barely larger than the top-down directions of a person. The mines in the Congo are also linked to more human rights abuses and even child labor. The mines have kids going down into highly dangerous places, and they work to extract materials to power a phone.