Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Lessons In Health Care

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…from the Edinburgh zoo:

…it is a self-evident truth that all animals are created equal and endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it takes little thought to know that of these three rights, that to life must be primary, for without it the others are null and void. It is perfectly obvious that you can’t be free or pursue happiness if you’re dead.

This surely means that, if you are an animal lover, you should try to reduce any animal that you see in the wild at once to captivity, at least of the Edinburgh Zoo variety. Failure to do so is de facto condemning that animal to an early grave. The animal will be better fed, have fewer parasites, and be sheltered from the bad weather if you capture him. Above all, he, or it, will have much better health care than in the wild. Indeed, in the wild animals are even worse off than Americans without health insurance.

Dry humor is the best kind.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Manufactured Consensus

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The more we learn about the working of the IPCC, the more clear it is that it was not doubt that was being “manufactured,” but the consensus itself:

Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007. – (For more on UN scientists turning on the UN years ago, see Climate Depot’s full report here. )

Christy has since proposed major reforms and changes to the way the UN IPCC report is produced. Christy has rejected the UN approach that produces “a document designed for uniformity and consensus.” Christy presented his views at a UN meeting in 2009. The IPCC needs “an alternative view section written by well-credentialed climate scientists is needed,” Christy said. “If not, why not? What is there to fear? In a scientific area as uncertain as climate, the opinions of all are required,” he added.

‘The reception to my comments was especially cold.’

No doubt. Time for some climate change at the UN.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Cui bono, when the IPCC lies?

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Sane, Affordable And Sustainable

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“Ray” over at Vision Restoration has a development approach to expanding human spaceflight beyond LEO that would actually work, and work within NASA’s constrained budget. Paul Spudis likes it, and has further comments.

Of course, it makes far too much sense to be adopted in Washington. But this is the approach that will be taken privately, regardless of what NASA does.

Business, Economics, Humor, Political Commentary

The Half-Wit

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I don’t normally pass along emailed jokes, but I thought this one too good to pass up:

A man owned a small ranch in Montana. The Montana Work Force Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.

“I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” demanded the agent.

“Well,” replied he said, “there’s my ranch hand who’s been with me for 3 years.. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.

“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board.

“Then there’s the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”

“That’s the guy I want to talk to … the half-wit,” says the agent.

“That would be me,” replied the rancher.

I think that Tuesday’s results show that the half-wits are coming to their senses.

Economics, Political Commentary

Helping Haiti

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The Anchoress has some useful links.

The devastation in that benighted country (our own little bit of Africa in the western hemisphere) demonstrates how deadly it can be to be poor, and why attempts to hold back economic growth in the third world with things like Kyoto and cap’n’tax are almost genocidal.

[Update a while later]

“You hear yells everywhere from underneath the rubble.”

Horrible.

[Update on Thursday morning]

Why is Haiti so poor? Some hypotheses from Tyler Cowen.

[Bumped]

[Update a few minutes later]

History’s most deadly quakes. I expect Haiti will be added to this list, though it’s unlikely to set a new record.

[Update late morning]

Remembering the “good times” in Haiti:

On an official visit to the island in the 1980s, as head of the Latin America/Caribbean Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), I witnessed a grown man, my 28-year-old executive assistant, a lawyer who had not traveled extensively outside the U.S., cry inconsolably after touring an orphanage and hospital run by Belgian nuns and supported by USAID food and medical aid. The rest of my team consisted of experienced (read: hardened) professionals who had seen famine and desolation in other countries many times. The assistant had been shocked at the sight of the “triage” set up by the nuns, whereby they calmly and tenderly separated emaciated Haitian newborns into those who would not survive the night and those who might. Both groups received the same loving care from the nuns, but the ones born with no chance of survival did not receive precious resources that could be used to save the lives of other, slightly stronger infants with a chance of living another day and perhaps even surviving.

That hospital, run by angelic Belgians and their Haitian collaborators, was a metaphor for the entire country. The U.S. chose to deliver its significant assistance (more than that of any other nation) only through private organizations, because the government of Haiti was deemed either too incompetent or corrupt to deliver it safely.

It hasn’t improved in the interim, and this disaster is unlikely to improve it.

Living in Boca Raton, almost all of the blacks that I encountered were Haitian (many of them checkout and stocking personnel at the local supermarket). They were good people, and obviously very happy to be here.