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Cuts?
November 10th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
In a recent debate at Kings College on the future of capitalism, Martin Wolf, one of the main proponents of global capitalism, and principal economic spokesperson for the City, argued that we can not easily change the nature of global wealth inequality, as people in the developed world would not be prepared to give up what they already have. In a defence of capitalism, and in response to one of the questions from the floor, he challenged the audience as to whether they would all be prepared to give up half of everything they owned for redistribution to poorer countries.
http://www.youtube.com/user/adycousins#p/u/7/hYpHLnlUrFg
The argument that in order to achieve any kind of large structural change to the economy there must be a trade off against current standards of living is one that is very popular in capitalist circles, and often repeated, yet it hides the real structural factors that prevent any meaningful change. This type of argument is even used by those who see capitalism as merely a least worst system, but who cannot envisage any other way of challenging the status quo than ‘sharing’ the costs.
In the example of global poverty, we (the general population) are asked to give up our current (modest) living standards to help others. However, this hides the real causes of global inequalities, such as the production of goods based on profit rather than human need, the resources wasted on illegal and immoral wars and the reification of the financial sector over the productive sector.
Within developed countries like the US and UK, income inequality is already increasing, so the cuts are already happening to some extent:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/08/tax-system-reform-weath-inequality
Although not everywhere:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/21/executive-pay-bonuses-goldmansachs
The cuts that need to be made are not in the living standards of the population and public services (which compromise the social wage), but in the income of the wealthy, the bonuses of the bankers, nuclear weapons and war, and corporate profits. We need production to be realigned to meet human needs, and we need to stop pretending that gambling on stocks and shares contributes anything to society as a whole. We have the greatest productive capacity in the history of mankind, yet we are still unable to feed, clothe and shelter the world. We don’t need cuts in wages, jobs and production to help the capitalists cope with the financial crisis, we need them to accept cuts in their profits and their wages.
The same argument is seen with regards to climate change. We are told that we need to ‘reduce or energy consumption’, or pay higher prices if we don’t in order to cut global emissions. We need to fly less, drive our cars less, use less power at home.
These mechanisms barely touch the tip of the iceberg, but are an ideological drip to prepare us for the higher prices and ‘trade-offs’ we will be forced to make in the future. Of course, when they say ‘we’ need to fly less , they don’t mean everyone. As fuel prices rise in the future, the poorest will suffer first.
But this trade-off, the acceptance that we must expect lower standards of living if we are to save the environment also hides the real structural factors that need to be tackled. Firstly, we need huge investment in green energy. We have the technology, but this would cut the profits of the current global energy companies, who will only invest in clean alternatives once they have squeezed every ounce of profit out of coal, gas and oil reserves. As somebody once said, we need to make sure the shit doesn’t get into the pipe, not try and sieve it out once it has got into the water. We need to produce energy clean, not focus on just using less of it.
Secondly, we need cuts in the amount of SUV’s and oil guzzling over sized cars, in the number of cars in city centres, and of government subsidies for car manufacturing industries. We need investment in public transport systems designed to fulfill the needs of the people, not the profits of the transport companies. We need cuts in rail and bus fares, not increases. We need to get rid of intellectual property rights and patents that prevent the spread and sharing of beneficial technology, and to renew commitments to global climate change agreements, and not worry if these cut into the profits of the minority.
We need cuts, but not the sort the City and Government have in mind!
Poles Apart
November 9th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
Daniel Hoffman-Gill, a chap who comments here, has a new show. It’s called Poles Apart…
Officially 600,000 Polish people have come to Britain to seek work since 2004. Two British lads (Dan & Mark) are reversing the trend and trying to get work in Warsaw, Poles Apart is their story.
This unique show about a 2000 mile adventure from the U.K to Poland following the journey thousands of Polish people have made over the last 70 years. Poles Apart is the story of two nations who have fought together, worked together and now live together.
This innovative show brings Hard Graft’s unique blend of entertaining comedy storytelling to help us all understand what it means to be an immigrant in the World today.
You can get more info and watch a couple of trailers for it here and here.
Go on. Treat yourself.
On making sure condolences go to the right person
November 9th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
Gordon Brown has written a note of condolence to the family of soldier killed in Afghanistan.
It is full of spelling mistakes and other errors including getting the dead mans’ surname wrong.
People have been defending the PM about this…
Lest we forget, the man is all but blind, and the idea that he – even he – would deliberately set out to insult a grieving mother is just stupid. If he really didn’t give a shit, he’d get his secretary to type the letters and then sign them at the bottom, and none of this would ever have been a story in the first place.
but FFS…
I completely agree but it’s a note of condolence not a shopping list. You get these things right not go ‘fuck it that’ll do’.
The arguement that Gordon is nearly blind and that if someone else had written it or he’d knocked it up on a computer means he doesn’t care just doesn’t stand up.
- As Justin says, It’s a letter of condolence, even if your writing is scruffy, you at least get the name correct. Nothing says you don’t care more than getting the name wrong, especially when you’re the prime minister with all those people around that are supposed to help and advise you.
- If Gordons’ eye sight is that bad, why are we expecting him to hand write letters? Did Blunkett get it in the neck every time someone else wrote a letter for him?
What’s worse? A load of unintelligable scrawl or a typed letter with a real signature at the bottom?
At least Gordon doesn’t have rubber stamp to sign with.
Reporting cannabis
November 3rd, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
I was a little surprised to find this paragraph in the Times…
The concentration of THC, the active compound, is much higher than in the past. But since no one has ever overdosed on marijuana, it’s difficult to say why that matters. Yes, if someone has a history of mental illness, it’s not that smart to experiment with the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. But it isn’t smart for such people to take any drugs — or too much alcohol — for that matter. For most people, stronger pot merely translates into a need for less of it to get the same effect. Too much and you’ll likely nod off — and wake up later with no hangover. If pubs served pot rather than beer, crime rates would plummet.
A newspaper, a Murdoch owned, big circulation newspaper writing some sense about cannabis. No scare story, no exageration, and it’s not a quote from some stoner, either. The reporter, Andrew Sullivan put those words together.
Lets see more of it, please.
On government advice
November 2nd, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
Two more people have resigned from the drugs advisory council in solidarity for Professor Nutt…
Two members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned todayin protest at Alan Johnson’s treatment of Professor David Nutt. Another member told the Guardian that the experts were “planning collective action” against Johnson, adding: “Everybody is devastated. We’re all considering our positions.”
Nutt said today that there was “no future” for the council in its present form and it is thought the group’s members may use a meeting next Monday to announce a mass resignation.
I would suggest that it needs to be swung on it’s head and it is not the councils’ present form that is at fault, but the governments attitude to it’s advice.
When the evidence is there for all to see that Nutt knew what he was talking about and some jumped up twat that wouldn’t know his arse from his elbow says ‘No, you’re wrong’ because the evidence conflicts with policy, then we’re all a little bit fucked, really.
What you make of it if Alan Johnson had made these decisions?
– Alan Johnson bans antibiotics saying ‘we must instead trust to the graces of Saint Dymphna and not confuse scientific advice with policy.’
– Alan Johnson says prospective female MPs are to be vetted with trial by drowning. ‘We must not confuse scientific advice with policy,’ he says.
– Alan Johnson announces the introduction of daily human sacrifices to ensure sun comes up. ‘We must not anger the Fire Gods or confuse scientific advice with policy,’ he says.
– Alan Johnson says he is to have Galileo exhumed so he can sack him because his scientific advice does not reflect policy.
Because that is what he has done. It is all well and good having a policy on something, but when the evidence shows something is not as bad, or as good, as was previously thought, then surely the only thing to do is modify that particular policy.
Lord Winston makes an obvious point…
I think that if governments appoint expert advice they shouldn’t dismiss it so lightly
Exactly. MPs’ deal with a huge range of subjects and can’t, and shouldn’t, be expected to know about everything. Alan Johnson is not an expert on the effects of drugs, just like David Cameron is not an expert on the problems of the working class. That is where the role of expert advisers come in, to tell politicians what is happening, so they can then figure out how to deal with it. It is one thing if the advice is a bit ambiguous, then fair enough, but in a case like this drugs one, where the expert says that alcohol is more dangerous than cannabis, where is the justification for not lowering classification of cannabis? There is none. Johnson was either a) indulging in his own prejudices or b) unable to deviate from policy that it makes a mockery of the whole fucking system.
It could be Alan indulging himself, but then the policy is the American led pointless ‘War on Drugs’, which for twenty years or so has achieved fuck all except divert funds and effort away from areas that would help.
Kevolution says that this episode…
…highlights a bigger issue, that of the state of our democracy. In all the big decisions, the government either tell us we don’t know enough and that if we knew what they did we would understand (but they can’t show us the evidence as it is too sensitive), or they ignore the evidence and just do what they want. They are no longer representing us, they are just setting forth their own agenda’s
And there’s the nub of it. They no longer represent us.
How do we fix this? I dunno except that it won’t be sorted out by a general election*.
*That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bother to vote. If I lived in the right place I would vote for D-Notice
How do you solve a problem like Mary-Jane?
October 30th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
BBC…
The UK’s chief drugs adviser has been sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, after criticising government policies.
Professor David Nutt, head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C.
He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and said drugs classification was being politicised.
The home secretary said he had “lost confidence” in his advice and asked him to step down.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is the UK’s official drugs advisory body.
Following his sacking, Prof Nutt told the BBC he stood by his claim that cannabis should not be a Class B drug, based on its effects.
He described his sacking as a “serious challenge to the value of science in relation to the government”.
Problem solved.
What a waste of money…
October 30th, 2009 § 3 comments § permalink
This link, courtesy of Luna17, takes you to the billion-dollar-gram on the information is beautiful website, check it out:
informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-billion-dollar-gram/
Some highlights:
The OPEC climate change fund is only 0.06% of total OPEC earnings
The value of the Internet Porn Industry is almost as large as the amount of foreign aid given by the World’s Major Nations
The US defence budget is nearly large enough to feed and educate every child on earth for 5 years
The amount of money that the UK government spent on bailing out the banks would have more than covered the entire debt owed by African Nations to the West…..
Part of me, unfortunately, is not very surprised at the sheer scale of waste and inequality. What is clear is that the necessary resources exist for us to transform the world – we don’t need huge leaps in technology, or to rely on developing countries to grow their economies for the next 50 years -we need permanent Redistribution…
Dangerous grannies
October 28th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
There’s a report out today that shows how important grandmothers are in the early lives of children. I’m not sure about you, but it sounds complete bollox to me…
The importance of grandmothers in the lives of their grandchildren is underlined in a study published today.
But the research showed that it was only granddaughters who were likely to do better with their paternal grandmothers involved in their early lives. In contrast, the presence of paternal grandmothers had a detrimental effect on the survival of their grandsons.
The discovery supports the idea that grandmothers have played an important role in human evolution and could explain why human females – alone among the animal kingdom – live well beyond their reproductive age.
See what I mean? Just in that first bit there are a couple of things that raises suspicions.
- The presence of a certain person that has no physical connection to a baby girl has a positive affect on the baby girl
- The same person with the same relationship to a baby boy has exactly the opposite effect. Not just no effect, but the opposite.
- The results differed concerning paternal and maternal grandmothers (this is the only mention of maternal grandparents in the Indepedents’ article).
How can this be? The researchers don’t know…
“We’ve only looked at infant mortality, and the mechanism itself remains mysterious. Other studies have given evidence against conscious favouritism towards one grandchild or another,”
They don’t know why, but grannies are either a help or a hinderence. It couldn’t be some other factor that they, implicitly admit, don’t know about?
The study looked at birth and death rates from populations in Africa, North America, Europe and Asia, a total of seven populations in all, and also going back to the seventeenth century. Now stop me if I’m wrong, but I would imagine that the birth and deaths recording, at least in some of the chosen study areas, in the 1600s’ would be limited and maybe not entirely accurate enough to be used in a study of this type.
Another thing to be taken into consideration is what about when the paternal grandmother is not geneolically related to the baby, due to sperm donation or plain old extra marital affairs? Is the supposed grandmother still a help/hinderance? Is this kink in the grandmother/baby relationship going to be known from records 400 years old?
It is common knowledge (common knowledge doesn’t neccerssarily make it true) that babies babies from large extended families do better because of the extra care and energy that is able to be committed to the baby. Who that care comes from, does it really make a difference?
I’m not a scientist, but I’ve read enough of Ben Goldacre, the Lay Scientist and the Canard Noir, to know that this…
The presence of a paternal grandmother in all seven of the populations had a harmful effect on grandsons because her presence was linked with an increase in mortality,” Ms Fox said.
“Meanwhile, in six out of seven populations, the paternal grandmother’s presence in her granddaughter’s early life had a beneficial effect in terms of the risk of mortality. This difference between paternal grandsons and granddaughters would explain a lot of the inconsistencies in previous studies, where the sex of the grandchild was not considered,” Ms Fox said.
is rubbish. The presence of A doesn’t mean it is the cause of B. There may be more detail in the report itself that the Independent isn’t telling us but from the quotes, I doubt it very much.
It is normally assumed that all grandchildren share about 25 per cent of their DNA with each of their four grandparents but Ms Fox, a doctoral student in Cambridge’s department of biological anthropology, pointed out that the female “X” sex chromosome of grandmothers is not inherited equally between their grandchildren, which could explain why some do better than others with each grandmother.
Ah, that would explain a lot, wouldn’t it. The older boys get the more immune they are to the girl chromosome. As a baby, the boys immune system is weak and so the X-germ is dangerous. At about the age of 6+ the X-germ merely smells and before the end of puberty, the lads immune system is fully protected and can now safely turn his parents into grandparents. What do you reckon? Sounds just as plausible as the dangerous granny thing, doesn’t it?
Another thing the Independent says is…
The study, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, could help to explain the evolution of female longevity: grandmothers live beyond their menopause to help bring up their grandchildren.
It is widely believed that the reason human females live well beyond the menopause is so that grandmothers can invest their energy in raising their children’s children rather than risking further pregnancies of their own.
The “grandmother hypothesis” suggests that all grandchildren benefit from having either of their grandmothers involved in their early upbringing. But studies have so far failed to support the hypothesis with consistent evidence.
If this study helps to show that females live beyond menopause to help with the upbringing of their grandchildren, why have they evolved to be a danger to boy babies? It doesn’t. It just adds to the inconsistent evidence.
In my view: Grannies, give grandson a big hug. You won’t harm him and you’ll both love it.
On the EU Presidency
October 27th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink
The Guardian has a piece about Blair and the EU presidency.
Our Tone might face some obstacles…
These are: a petition, which has so far attracted 41,326 signatures saying that it would be wrong to appoint a man who allegedly violated international law in the Iraq war; the implacable opposition of the Tories, who have warned EU leaders that appointing Blair would be seen as a hostile act in Britain; strong opposition from smaller EU member states, who fear that such a high profile figure would eclipse them; and a concern across the EU that it would be wrong to appoint someone from the most reluctant member of the EU.
But is still considered, by many, the favourite. Although he isn’t making life easy for himself by refuse to campaign. This refusal, the article says, is because he is worried about getting a humiliating slap down and also…
“It will be decided in horse trading over the coming weeks,” one Blair ally said. “This will all take place behind closed doors.”
Blair believes this is why it would be wrong to campaign. “This is a very odd election,” one ally said. “It will be decided by 27 people. This is not something that can be won by running a campaign.”
Not really an election, is it? More of an appointment, wouldn’t you say?
Is it really too much to ask for a little bit of democracy and, if we must have a president, let the people decide who it should be?
But it’s not about democracy, is it? I’m buggered if I know what it is about, but democracy it isn’t.
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