Subject: Re: FYI: Malaria vaccine update
From: TL ADAMS
Date: 9 Nov 1996 01:16:18 GMT
B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote:
ns, he received, in 1958, funding
> However, the agricultural use of insecticides was increasing dramatically,
> and the absence of malaria meant that immunity wasn't developing in the
> populations. Mosquito exposure to increasing agricultural use of the
> pesticides meant that resistance was developing... The recipe for a
> return of malaria was in place.
Plus the basic nature of thirdworld agriculture, ditch irrigaion,
poor run-off control, endemic use of pesticide. You not only set up
alot of places to breed the vectors, but you deliver the material to
them to become resistant to.
>
> >or whatever you call that real nasty wormy thing that wraps itself
> >in human antigens so it grows giagantic without a immune reponse.
>
> Not guinea worm?, it's not that large ( 0.5 metre ) , but GW is supposed to be
> the nearest to the second disease to be eradicated. It was hoped that
> if the war in Sudan ends, then the worm could be eradicated over the
> next few years. The cost of eradication is estimated at <$30 million since
> 1989 ( Economist 2 Sept 1995 p.106 ). For those that haven't seen Guinea
> Worm sufferers. It arrives as larva via a mouthful of water. In the stomach
> it burrows through the gastric wall and lives in the thorax. It mates, the
> male dies, the female grows for a year or so to about 0.5 metre, and then
> slithers down the inside of the skin to the leg, where a blister forms. The
> sufferer immerses the blister in water, it bursts, and the worm begins a
> slow emergence that can take several weeks, releasing larvae as it
> leaves. The amazingly-cheap solution is to pass the water through a
> filter cloth before drinking.
Ya, thats the worm. Very interesting example of an foreign substance
being wrapped in human antigens and fooling the immune system. Had
a college that was studing it to develop better biomaterials with less
rejection. Got some good results.
I thought the worm migrated throug the lymph system and would ofter
cause lymph blockage and resulting elephantitize type imflammations.
Oh, it is a cheap solution to use a simple water filtration system.
But is there the will to implement it.
The same with choleria in South America, not expensive to solve,
but the will is not there.
>
> >> There is nothing wrong with making money in an of itself, but it does tend
> >> to skew one's perception of what is safe and effective.
> >So lets all take money away from the FDA so industry can get those wonder
> >drugs to the market alot quicker.
>
> interestingly, reading the book it is striking how many of the disease
> triumphs have come from government workers who have liased and
> utilised local knowledge, and who, typically, have limited resources at
> the time they were researching the disease - when compared to
> pharmaceutical industry research teams.
Sorry, I was being sarcastic about the FDA. I'd had just recently listen
to a brain dead Newt clone saying that the FDA was killing people and
that we should do away with it. I won't say that the FDA is perfect,
far from it, and the spirit know that it needs some reforms, but
it had helped more that it has hurt by a long degree
> Bruce Hamilton
>
>
>
Subject: Re: Nuclear madness (Extremely safe nuclear power)
From: bbruhns@newshost.li.net (Bob Bruhns)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 04:27:11 GMT
Patrick Reid (pjreid@nbnet.nb.ca) wrote:
: These deaths won't occur at all (or, rather, only a small fraction of
: them). Those predictions are based on a no-threshold model.
From what I'm reading, you've got it backwards. There is a whole
lot of response to lower exposure levels of radiation, tending to
level out at higher levels. This "supra-linear" curve is an
improvement on the linear curve which was the original supposition
from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Exposure effects are elevated over the
linear model at relatively low dosages. Evidently this has something
to do with the "Petkau effect", a free-radical-oxygen mechanism at low
radiation doses, which impairs the immune system. (Abram Petkau,
"Radiation carcinogens from a membrane perspective," Acta Physiologica
Scandanavia, Supplement 1980, 492:81-90.) Hmm, seems to me we've seen
a LOT of immune deficiency trouble in recent years.
And it seems that infant mortality follows nuclear power reactors.
From the late 1960's to the early 1980's, infant mortality rates in
the 30 states with nuclear reactors fell significantly behind the
remaining states. (Jay M. Gould, B. Jacobs, C. Chen, and S. Cea,
"Nuclear emissions take their toll," CEP Newsletter, December 1986.)
Infant deaths in Pennsylvania rose from 141 in March of 1979, just
before the TMI accident, to a peak of 271 in July 1979, and dropped
back to 119 by August - a significant rise, because infant mortality
is normally at its minimum during the summer months. (Monthly Vital
Statistics Report, 1979 issues.)
And cancer mortality in Connecticut is bad, especially in the
regions around the Millstone reactor since its three million Curie
release in 1975. Research indicated a strong correlation between
Strontium-90 levels in Connecticut milk, and the distance between the
dairy farms and the Millstone plant. Also, Connecticut cancer
mortality rates from 1970 to 1975 increased in proportion to the
proximity to the Millstone plant. And cancer mortality in the New
England states downwind from Millstone showed the same correlation
with distance. (E. J. Steinglass, "Strontium-90 levels in the milk
near Connecticut nuclear power plants," submitted to Congressman C. J.
Dodd and Connecticut State Representative John Anderson, October
1977.)
: Could you expand on your problem with long half-life isotopes,
: please? I couldn't understand exactly what you were saying.
OK; regarding the supposed 10 000 year spread of deaths from
Chernobyl, I was wondering about the distribution curve of deaths
over time. Would it be flat and level, as one fellow thinks, neatly
spreading 30 000 dead at exactly 3 per year over 10 000 years? Or
would the deaths follow more closely the 30 year half-lives of
Strontium-90 and Cesium-137, and the 24 year half-life of plutonium
239? This would make a significant difference, I think.
Bob Bruhns, WA3WDR, bbruhns@li.net
Subject: Re: Major problem with climate predictions, WARNING: LONG BORING POST
From: ozone@primenet.com (John Moore)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 00:47:05 -0700
On 8 Nov 1996 01:16:37 -0500, af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca
(Scott Nudds) wrote:
>(John Moore) wrote:
>: Life leads directly to corruption in practice, which is why today the
>: labor unions and socialist governments are highly corrupt.
>
> Less corrupt in general than the right wing dictatorships and puppet
>governments sponsored by Capitalist governments like the U.S.
During the last 15 years every government in the western hemisphere,
with the exception of Communist Cuba, became a democracy - largely
through US pressure. We used to sometimes support right wing
dictatorships in our cold war struggle with the USSR.
>
> John Moore appears to be a fatalist, in his observation that "Life
>leads directly to corruption in practice." Is John Moore promoting the
>acceptance of corruption, or is he offering death as the only solution?
I am promoting the recogniztion that perfect systems and perfect
justice are not possible, and thus utopian solutions are most likely
fatally flawed.
>
>
>(John Moore) wrote:
>: It is hardly immoral. An economic system which rewards work and
>: ingenuity, which allows people to retain the fruits of their labor,
>: and which is based on voluntary aggreements between its players is
>: hardly immoral.
>
> Unfortunately, Capitalism is not such a system. In a capitalistic
>system hard work is not valued at all, working hard is only valued if
>the work being done is valued. Ingenuity is only valued when those doing
>the evaluation are smart enough to appreciate the genius involved, and
>this is often not the case.
Capitalism rewards EFFECTIVE work, not hard work. You are confused.
>
> Under capitalist systems, laborers toil at jobs that only provide them
>with a fraction of the value of their work, the rest of the value is
>siphoned off by those owners who generally do not toil, do not work
>hard, and who employ others who are more ingenious to make decisions for
>them.
Please provide the formula by which we may determine the value of a
laborer's job!
>
> Under capitalist systems contracts are based on the worst form of
>coercion - toil at this task, move on to another equally abusive
>position, or starve.
yeah, right.
>(John Moore) wrote:
>: And it need not be tempered by socialism - it requires either well
>: moral individuals, or rule of law, in order to temper the immoral
>: impulses of some individuals who may choose to operate within
>: capitalism.
>
> John Moore's view of capitalism is that a system based on absolute
>self interest and greed will function without government control if the
>greedy and self-absorbed individuals who belong to the society are moral.
True. I have no problem with greedy and selfabsorbed indivuals (other
than as conversational companions) with their economic activity is
channeled into positive actions.
>
> As it is most improbable that a person who is greedy and self-absorbed
>is also a moral person, we can discount his claim as an obvious
>impossibility.
having fun setting up those strawmen and then knocking them down?
Its pretty pathetic of you, you know.
>
> John Moore offers another alternative, that the greedy and
>self-absorbed society can be tamed by the rule of law. In other words,
>through coercion and threat of violence if individuals violate the laws
>created by the greater society.
>
> I think that this is a reasonable alternative, and point out that this
>is the alternative that has been implemented, and an alternative that
>John Moore and his criminal Libertarian brethren refer to as "socialist"
>in nature, and therefore hate.
You are really hopeless. A little more precision in your thinking
*might* allow you to understand what I really say and think. I will
leave it as an exercise for the reader. I'm tired of repeating it.
>
> John Moore is correct that the definition and enforcement of law is a
>socialist enterprise, as it places the welfare of society above the
>welfare of the individual.
that's a pretty broad definition of socialism. As far as I can tell,
your simple mind can only formulate such broad generalities as:
government == socialim
Subject: Re: Major problem with climate predictions, WARNING: LONG BORING POST
From: ozone@primenet.com (John Moore)
Date: 9 Nov 1996 00:47:14 -0700
On Mon, 04 Nov 1996 13:26:42 -0700, mfriesel@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>John Moore wrote:
>As, apparently, are attempts to eliminate corruption by any other
>means. This leaves very few alternatives - any alternative would seem
>to be effective in some conceivable situation, but not in others.
>There is apparently as little meaningful theoretical justification for
>capitalism as for any other system - what we could best do is to
>attempt to implement a system wherein the largest number have
>discretionary wealth.
I'm sorry I left that impression. There is a moral and a theoretical
justification for capitalism.
The moral justification is that allowing individuals to perform
voluntary transactions, and keep the results of that, is moral. Any
other system amounts to theft.
The theoretical justification is the "invisible hand" argument:
Capitalism has built in incentives which result in desirable results
(demonstrably by far the best economic results). This economic success
combined with the morality of not institutionalizing theft or slavery
is the justification.
>I don't think this is an 'ism' - I think it is
>simply a matter of competent government, corrupt or otherwise.
Au contraire. Capitalism is based on a ceertain kind of government. It
is couple to an economically non-intrusive goverment. A non-intrusive
government, still susceptible to corruption and bureaucratic ills,
does less damage than one which is involved deeply in every aspect of
economic life.
>
>You may note that technological and scientific advancement has not
>been confined to, nor perhaps particularly supported by, the U.S.
>U.S. development, with some exceptions, has been based largely on the
>expertise and discoveries of others and driven to a large part by land
>grabbing in the early industrial era, and war. Much of our motivation
>has arisen as a reaction to the achievements of real or potential
>competitors, external competitors not internal ones. Computer-related
>technology is an exception to some degree, the transistor and the
>internet at least being discovered/developed in the U.S., although in
>part as cold-war efforts. Marconi was not a U.S. citizen, Fermi, von
>Braun, Einstein, Oppenheimer, and others who led the U.S. intellectual
>community (Feynman excepted) were not natives.
If you really look at technology, you find that most advances are made
by private companies. Theoretical advances are more likely to be in
research organizations and Universities, but eh engineering advances
(which is the greater part of the job) are done in private companies
in order to achieve market advantage. War certainly galvanized the
economy in general.
Land grabs had little to do with technological advance.
>Judging from the
>current economy, we tend to fall on our faces rather hard, speaking
>from a technological standpoint.
What are you talking about?
>doesn't seem to promote much at all. Even the USSR, under continual
>economic pressure from the West and outspent at last, launched the
>first satellite and the first space station.
Which is irrelevant. We know that military efforts and very expensive
other projects (Apollo, etc) can create new technology. But only a
good capitalist economy can exploit that technology for general use.
As a side note, I should point out that the US had the capacity to
launch a satellite earlier than the Sputnik launch, but didn't because
it was not a priority. Furthermore, both countries depended heavily on
the engineering efforts and personnel of the Germans.
>
>JM continues:
>>
>> And, as I said above, concentration of power is inevitable. In the
>> USSR, inheritance was done by making sure one's kids inherited
>> favorable jobs in the apparat - even if there was no money
>> accumulation.
>
>This could be, and does not speak well for U.S. Capitalism when its
>favorable points are that we're no worse in some respect or other than
>the soviets.
That's pretty weak.
I am trying to show that this sort of behavior is inevitable. But I
would say that the US is better even in that area because inheritance
results in an individual spending private money, and losing it if he
is not competent. The corrupt nation verson of this involves placing
incompetent people into powerful government positions where they spend
the peoples' money.
>The Hunt brothers over-reached, and I suspect (note I don't know)
>stuck a long pin in the rump of their wealthy peers. The same may be
>the case in the more recent suit involving two major oil companies
>-someone overstepped their bounds, and possibly with Millikin's little
>sojourn into junk bonds. But these all took place about a decade ago,
>and I think are simply spats among the ultra-wealthy. The Hunts may
>well succeed today.
Junk bonds were a valid financing method... much maligned by the
media. Many of the top technology companies in Silicon Valley were
funded by junk bonds.
Actually, rich people can drive the price of a commodity. The question
is: so what? It depends on who gets screwed. In the commodity market
it is normally other, smaller players who are essentially gambling in
that market. It rarely hurts you or I.
>
>JM says:
>
>> The wealthy greatly influencing the price of a commodity are acting
>> within the free market.
>
>Yes, but when such price setting undermines the proposed purpose of
>the free market and of the capitalist enterprise of which it is
>supposed to be a part, we are no longer talking about either
>capitalism or a free market.
Capitalism is not a perfect mechanism. In fact, I would argue that
determining market prices should be a messy operation, because of the
lack of adequate information, and the disparity in information among
the players.
If someone wants to run up the price of something, they still have to
find someone to buy it at the inflated price, or they make no profit.
This presumes stupidity somewhere down the line, and the stupid indeed
do lose *their* money in these circumstances.
>JM says:
>
>> Actually, capitalism has been doing very well without uniform
>> distribution of wealth, so once again the facts contradict your
>> assertion.
>
>I reply:
>
>First, note you didn't present any facts to contradict anything, jsut
>an assertion. According to the Oct. 21 U.S. News:
>
>'The fastest growing parts of the U.S. economy today include gambling,
>prisons, and medical treatment. Casino gambling doubled between 1990
>and 1994; the private prison industry has been growing at a 34% clip;
>medical treatment, 27%.'
So?
>
>'Campaign spending will set a record this year, topping a billion
>dollars for the first time.'
This is unfortunate. I don't know how to correct it.
>
>'Car crashes add at least $57B to the GDP, divorce and estimated $10B
>to $20B more.'
So? Are these a result of a defect in capitalism?
>
>'Day care has become a $4B industry; but many would consider that just
>the flip side of household decline.'
Yes, but people do it by their own choice to some extend. Also, many
two worker families result strickly from the high rate of middle
income taxation... otherwise one parent could care for the kids.
>
>'Consumer electronics had been a major growth sector...skipping along
>at 23%. Even though most boomboxes, video games, and the like are
>made abroad, they still contribute mightily to the retail market'
Yes?
>
>& etc.
I truly don't understand why you show us this?
>
>For example, another 900 firings and forced retirements are set for
>the Hanford area in January. And you were at least partially correct
>in one respect - part of the cost over-run caused by decreasing the
>Hanford budget is due to termination pay for some 32 managers. 5600
>employees have been fired or forced into retirement over the last 18
>months.
So? This is simply reallocation of labor. In a socialist economy, if
it functioned efficiently (not likely) these people would be forcibly
transfered. An economy that was stagnant in jobs in the face of rapid
demographic and technological changes is a poorly performing economy.
>
>But this is only part of what appears to negate your claim.
So far, the *only* negative thing you cited, as far as I can tell, is
the reallocation of labor in one small area. What's the problem? My
company has grown from 150 to 400 people in the last three years - is
that bad because it brings labor reallocation?
> Credit
>card debt and bankruptcies among the middle class have been
>increasing, as has been reported in the article cited above and on
>public radio where some Stanford pundit stated that we don't know why
>when the economy is doing so well, or words to that effect.
Greed.
Taxes.
Miscalculation (easy to do with easy credit card terms).
Certainly not a sign (by itself) of a bad economy.
If you think that all sectors of an economy should do well at the same
time, right down to individual companies, then I suppose you should
look with alarm at such a thing. But that isn't how things work, and
I don't think it should be.
>I reply:
>
>There are a number of things that can be done almost immediately, but
>that will not be done. 1) tie Congress and other government officials
>into the compensation and entitlement programs they have created for
>the public. No special compensation packages
Agreed. The Republican congress has made significant progress down
this road.
> 2) Make it a serious
>crime for government officials to accept money any money other than
>salary during tenure,
I don't think this would do much good, and it would hurt a lot of
folks.
> and a number of others including extreme and
>enforced (always the problem in cases like these) limits on campaign
>spending.
There is a little problem with the latter: The First Amendment was
specifically created to prevent the government from enacting
restrictions on speech - ESPECIALLY political speech. So if I want to
spend a bunch of my bucks running ads for or against someone, I am
constitutionally protected.
>But I have a more far-reaching concept - to create a rule that limits
>individual wealth at least according to a sigmoidal function centered
>on the mean incomes from all sources of U.S. citizens.
You'll never get agreement from me on that idea. I think it is
immoral.
> It should be
>easy to avoid poverty, requiring effectively only the desire to work,
>and not difficult to rise above the mean income level, yet as your
>income increases further income becomes more and more difficult,
>requiring increasingly greater effort.
Thus if you have someone that is very productive, we are giving them
the message to only work 2 hours a day (enough for a productive person
to earn well above average) and then goof off.
Bad idea.
This is the idea behind progressive income taxes, and has been shown
to inhibit economic development. Both Kennedy and Reagan sharply
reduced marginal income tax rates, and the result in both cases was
economic improvement AND increased tax collections by the government.
> For a viable economy to absorb
>such a rule may be difficult, but I think definitely worth some
>research.
I do not.
>
>An onus is place on oneself, not on others, and I think that
>indications of what drives me are plainly obvious.
No, I'm confused. You seem to have a visceral objection to wealth
disparities, but have not justified it. Other than that, I don't know
what drives you in this area.
>
>JM says:
>>
>> But capitalism does not object to charity. In fact, in our capitalist
>> system we have vast amounts of voluntary contributions to charity.
>>
>
>I interject:
>
>Capitalism says nothing about charity. Where do you get your
>information?
I said it does not object to charity. There is nothing anticapitalist
about charity. Captialism is very much about freedom to make and spend
money. Spending it on charity is a natural outcome.
>Welfare is the provision of charity and opportunity elevated to the
>social level. It is corruption which makes it otherwise.
I'm sorry, but corruption or not, it is theft. What gives some
shiftless bum (for example) the right to forcibly extract a bunch of
my income for me? If he did it with a gun, it would be armed robbery.
Welfare just lets him do it with a tax collector instead. No moral
difference.
> Presumably
>opportunity is very good for capitalist enterprise, so I'm surprised
>at your stance on this issue. Creating massive government debt is
>robbery if it is not an investment providing return. I think the
>problem is that the wealthy no longer consider themselves to be
>members of the societies whose existance is responsible for their
>wealth.
We are obviously not communicating. Where did you come up with massive
government debt in this discussion? Are you referring to the
consequences of entitlement programs?
And your shot at the wealthy is quite unrealistic, based on wealthy
people that I know, except perhaps for *some* of the extremely rich.
>
>JM says:
>
>>
>> We had vast amounts of poverty in this country prior to the creation
>> of welfare, and yet the poor were better off by all social indivators*
>> that I am aware of.
>
>I reply:
>
>Unfortunately your assertion doesn't mean anything. Perhaps you can
>explain how living under a viaduct constitutes being better off than
>living in low-income housing, or indicate the source of your
>information.
Look in any history book about the early parts of this century. The
poverty rate was very high, the crime rates much smaller than today,
drug addiction was less of a factor (it was more distributed across
all levels of society).
Poor people were provided for primarily by churches and religious
charities, but also other charities. They did not have the social
pathologies that they have today, because they didn't stay poor.
Today, those who live in low-income housing are living in horrible
conditions in the midst of terrible crime. Often they become welfare
dependent - staying in those quarters for generations, with each
generation believing that welfare is just a natural part of life, and
guaranteed.
We don't have poor because of poor economic conditions, we primarily
have poor because of social pathologies and the collapse of our
socialist education system.
>> Again, you misinterpret. The most effective charity organizations are
>> private, mostly religious, organizations. They are funded by people
>> operating within the capitalist system. They are more effective than
>> government because government must, by its nature, dispense "charity"
>> by bureaucracy (> href=http://www.primenet.com/~ozone/lawsburo/lawsburo.html>See Moore's
>> Laws of Bureaucracy).
>
>I reply:
>
>I note you make a number of assertions without references
welcome to internet debating. Your only reference was USNWR, not
exactly a sterling source of information. I have read tons of stuff on
this, but frankly do not have the time to go dig it up (if I still
have it) and type it in.
In the spirit of things... if you don't believe me, cite
counter--references.
> Capitalism claims that people will benefit through their own
>efforts and ingenuity, yet clearly in practice resources are required.
>Poverty forces individuals to concentrate on where their next meal is
>coming from and how to pay their debts.
Hence the argument for private charities. Even today, with governments
taking large amounts of workers' income to pay for various charity
programs, Americans are remarkably generous in their contributions to
these private charities.
>
>The real drive in capitalism for eliminating welfare is reducing the
>cost of labor by increasing the demand for jobs. Charity and welfare
>provide options that counter this drive. In capitalism, poverty
>becomes an inescapable cycle since to not have a job is to be poor
>while to have a job is also to be poor. While people such as yourself
>claim that you're eliminating a cycle of dependency, you're actually
>creating a cycle of dependency.
With the exception of medical care, I don't believe your assertions
for a moment. I know people who work at minimum wage, on their way up,
who are not getting any charity. Of course, the biggest giveaway of
them all - social security + medicare - is taxed right out of the
first dollar this poor person earns!
As to your first sentence above, I am frankly baffled. Capitalism
obviously seeks low cost labor - but that's only one side of the
equation. It also seeks markets where people have disposable income.
Hence a company doesn't make any money if everyone is at poverty
level. Companies in general don't like poverty, because of the
negative social effects.
>
>>
>> Government welfare tends to create a cycle of dependency.
>
>The problem is, then, how to provide minimal housing, nutrition, and
>education to the poor if not through the government. Private
>charities will not do this. Perhaps we shouls try a little
>experiment?
You just asserted that private charities will not do this. Can you
back that up?
Here's a few things you can do:
Stop hobbling low-cost housing, by reducing building codes and other
expensive requirements
Let private charities do their thing
Provide vouchers and let poor kids go to the same schools as rich
kids
Not allow any aid to people with TV's
Make divorce very difficult to get, and restigmatize illegitimacy
(this would make a BIG difference - .50% of women on welfare are
divorced or never-married white mothers)
AND.... if it is absolutely necessary... institute a bit of government
armed robbery to provide a very minimal social safety net.
>
>He continues:
>
>> Not only do
>> the restrictions on its operation make it open to that, but it is in
>> the self interest of its bureaucracy for its clientele to grow, not
>> shrink (another non-wealth-based example of government corruption).
>
>I reply:
>
>Then perhaps the solution is to provide effective, trained, and
>competent administrators and a Congress that will follow their advice.
errr.... I thought we were going to avoid utopianism
sthat simply will not happen
>This would be much easier if a powerful faction in Congress weren't
>bent on eliminating the system through whatever means is at their
>disposal.
No, it wouldn't be any easier, because it is impossible.
I should also point out that welfare should CERTAINLY not be a federal
responsibility. If government is going to do it, let the state or city
government do it, without federal strings attached. Federal solutions
increase the depth of the bureaucracy making it even less likely to do
anything right, and forcing it more towards an inflexible
"one-size-fits-all" stlye.
>
>JM continues:
>
>>
>> I believe the largest group of welfare recipients is composed of
>> single mothers.
>
>I reply:
>
>I believe it is composed of corporations and the wealthy. Again, as
>only one example, do you know where Ross Perot obtained $4B of his
>fortune?
Well, when I worked for him he was mostly doing Medicare automation.
He was also doing it *better and cheaper* than anyone else.
Sorry, but if that's your example of corporate welfare, then you
missed it.
Oh, I should also point out that the last time I checked his total
fortune was less than $4B.
>I interject:
>
>With the current downward pressure on salaries and rising prices many
>are finding difficult even when both work. Do you want me to tell you
>about the unsupervised children running around my apartment complex on
>school holidays?
> You seem to want it both ways and presume you can
>get it by wishing it so.
.........puleez....
Do you suppose the people in your apartment complex could live
someplace cheaper and leave one adult at home to care for the kids?
With the stupid tax system the income from the second worker is
usually not all that much. Also, do you know if those kids *have* two
parents that live there?
>
>He continues:
>
>> A single parent
>> family has one person to work an no-one to care for the family. Of
>> those single mothers, many choose not to work because they want to be
>> with their kids (a noble impulse IMHO). Others are incapable
>> intellectually or character-wise. Truly willing and able people are
>> not currently being denied the opportunity to work.
>
>Do you have some reference where we can get an idea of how big a
>problem this is? And how many of these mothers having a 'noble
>impulse' you think should be deprived of welfare?
I think the mothers should have fathers around. That is why I think
divorce should be made difficult.
> Regarding your last
>statement, this seems rather odd - so odd in fact that I think it's
>false. I do know, as one example, a PhD Physicist who has held one
>job since autumn of 1995 and has been looking very hard for work.
I would suspect that he is rather picky about what sort of work he is
willing to take. Has he tried MacDonalds? I'm sure we'd hire him.
>The
>Washington State employment office seems to be of the opinion that
>jobs for well-trained and capable people are very hard to find.
Sure... its in their interest to believe that.
And certainly there is no perfect matchup of training and jobs - that
would be an unlikely coincidence.
What is your point?
>Evidently the same problem is occurring in Russia, since one reason
>cited for the suicide of Valdimir Nechai include severe funding
>problems - this in conjunction with the swing of Russia toward
>capitalism. We haven't even touched on the poor yet.
Russia has not yet swung towards capitalism. It is currently a
mobocracy. It may eventually get to capitalism, but there is no magic
in capitalism that allows one to suddenly switch from an appallingly
inefficient economic system to a more efficient one without someone
getting hurt in the process.
The Russian people are going through a very hard time, but it is
hardly the fault of capitalism.
>
>JM says:
>
>> It usually is quite equitable among heirs, although that is not
>> required. Furthermore, sometimes a charitable foundation is the
>> heritee - do you object to that?
>
>I reply:
>
>How silly to ask. Sometimes wealthy people have no children.
>Sometimes their children are all disinherited.
So? Is this another mythic quest for perfect justice?
>Jm continues:
>
>> And while wealth provides the opportunity to make lots of money, it
>> does not confer the ability to do so. Of course, the presence of
>> wealth to be inherited may very well encourage heirs to be good
>> citizens and to learn a useful skill (investment, for example) in
>> order to eventually receive their inheritance. That is up to the
>> grantor of the inheritance.
>
>I reply:
>
>None of that is necessary. I don't believe most of the wealthy handle
>their own investments, but hire professionals to do so for them. The
>wealthy themselves are parasites.
parasites... what a convenient word. I guess I could say the same
thing about welfare moms, eh?
Why are you so hung up on wealthy people? There aren't very many truly
rich ones.
And of course they have experts that they hire. But that guarantees
nothing. If they choose the wrong expert their wealth still goes down
the tubes. IF they ahve a lot of kids, their wealth will be divided
into small amounts.
But lets say some nasty, undeserving person has a billion dollars and
is a total parasite. So what? Shall we take it away from him because
we are envious? Is the spending of that money not creating beneficial
economic activity?
>But the wealthy are well aware of this tendency. you seem to be
>implying that they do not counter it, but embrace it, gladly allowing
>their wealth to disperse - over some large number of generations of
>course.
The wealthy are going to do whatever they feel like. Frequently they
are going to divide their money among their heirs. Many times they
will give it all to a charitable foundation. Maybe they will pick just
one heir.
So what?
>I reply: Diversified investment rather counters this trend. Really
>the only screwup of any importance on the whole would be a
>miscalculation leading, say, to revolution or wide-spread labor
>unrest. Yet the real issue is that inheritance does not reward
>according to any quality of the heirs. It is a ticketless lottery,
>and you've been unable to provide any meaningful argument that it is
>otherwise.
Inheritance is indeed a lottery. I never denied that (although it has
some merit based giving - a scummy heir may be disinherited for his
behavior).
Inheritance rewards THE GRANTOR as a result of the quality of his
economic behavior. It is thus a positive economic incentive. You
objection to heirs getting this money without merit sounds to me like
pure envy. What other reason is their to care?
Subject: Re: Good news for Ethiopia
From: abg21@dial.pipex.com (Nick Hunter)
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 02:02:33 +0000
wrote:
> Ethiopia has severe problems of deforestation and soil erosion which
> must be addressed on a large scale, especially in view of a population
> growth rate of about 2.5%.
> Eighty five percent of Ethiopians live in
> rural areas and are thus directly dependent on agriculture.
Directly dependent in which context? All we humans are dependent on
agriculture for food production, so that's nothing new. If you mean they
make a living from agriculture, it should not be forgotten that many
Ethiopians in rural areas make their living through diverse means
including teaching, medicine, industry, construction, transport,
engineering, trading, security, politics, entertainment, tourism, mining
and many, many other activities. Agricultural improvements will allow
all these interwoven activities to prosper further which is great
environmental news, because poverty is no friend of the environment.
> The only source of fuel is wood, which is causing an alarming
> rate of deforestation.
When I was in southern Ethiopia three years ago many locals were happily
cooking with kerosene or electricity, though wood is of course more
traditional. Gasoline and diesel were widely available in the
medium-sized towns and none of the busy trucks, cars or buses were wood
burning. However the horse-drawn jitneys in some towns might have had
the occasional sideways nibble at a twig or two....
Charcoal was for sale along the main highways in the Central Rift, and
this was a favourite money spinner for pickup drivers to return to Addis
Ababa with. But in southern areas where impressive thick forests occur,
I saw little active deforestation which could be attributed to charcoal
burning - farming perhaps, but outside the rift, little "severe problems
of deforestation" for fuel purposes.
> Overgrazing is also a very serious cause of soil erosion.
Which parts of "overgrazed" Ethiopia do you refer to, and how do you
distinguish such erosion from that caused by occasional high rainfall on
steep slopes?
Ethiopia is a huge country, much with substantial rich volcanic soils.
In the 1980's about 50% of its 1.2 million sq km was permanent pasture,
with 11% cultivated. There are huge eastern tracts towards Somalia which
for climatic reasons do not support much in the way of farming, yet
other parts in the south which are splendidly luxuriant. In neither the
desert areas, nor the southern forested parts did I see overgrazing -
rather the reverse, I thought that cattle were rather few and far
between. Parts of the Rift Valley were subject to seasonal water supply
problems though, and on the fringes of some small-medium sized towns you
could see occasional erosion accelerated by human and animal foot
traffic.
What impressed me in the south was the incredible extent and greenness
of the land - which I felt was quite capable of sustaining its ingenious
people once agrarian reforms encouraged them to get back to work on it.
The previous Mengistu regime made a real mess of agriculture. By
ratcheting-up a system to enforce seizures based on the harvest returns
in best years, they disincentivised small farmers which were effectively
forced off the land. The cooperatives were not successful, due in part
to corruption, and the land has been outstandingly underutilised in
recent years.
Ethiopia is a land of extraordinary contrasts, and one image I cannot
forget (immediately south of Addis) is that of numerous hayricks of teff
distributed across the landscape like huge loaves of bread. It was a
vivid contrast to the starving tribespeople in Tigray that I had become
accustomed to seeing on TV - it was like seeing a giant breadbasket.
I am delighted to see JF Howlett (jh5765@mail.bris.ac.uk) mention that
Ethiopia is returning to productivity in such a short time after
Mengistu. Perhaps at last we are seeing the benefits of all the hard
work put in by the United Nations and World Bank.
Your statements about Ethiopia sound a bit like outdated media clichés,
and I would like to see your data which back them up. If not, then
perhaps other people who know the country can add more detail to the
emerging picture - which at last sounds like long-awaited good news for
this cultured and noble people.