| Snow178's profileCarl's spaceBlogGuestbookNetwork |  Tools  Help |
|
August 08 Food Aid and HIV/Aids
Hello Again, For todays blogs I have no solutions only observations............. Firstly I have noticed on the news about the distribution of food aid in African countries how there is only x amount of food to feed this lady and her 10 children etc.......... Well the first thing I would note, is that no matter what the country unless one is very rich one would need aid to feed from externally in order to feed 10 children. People in the west where food is readily available have the sense (on the whole) to limit the number of children they have to what they figure they can feasibly and reasonably provide a reasonable standard of living for. So the question is why does feeding an African family mean feeding 10 children - don't the African parents consider what they will be able to provide when they consider how many children to have?? If its a matter of contraception not being available to these families maybe that is where the west should be concentrating its efforts otherwise come the next generation the problem is going to be 10 times as big....... Food Aid should be given in times of genuine crisis, e.g. a drought, monsoon etc........ when it has to be provided ad-infinitem year in year out, and it is the only food source the children grow up to know and then they have just as large families assuming that the same food source will be provided for their children we are creating a problem that is just compounding. A fundamental principle to solving any crisis is to first prevent it getting worse and then to deal with the problem at hand. Historically large families were OK because of the high infant mortality rate, but now different Aid Organisations ensure that the infant mortality rates are lower hence creating the problem for the next Aid Organisation of how to feed all these people. This is a problem that is exponential in nature and so while there is no disputing it is currently a grave humanitarian crisis, to my mind we are creating a graver one in the future if we do not begin to address this problem of family sizes in countries where parents know they cannot and never will be able to feed themselves let alone large families. A similar principle applies to the Aids Epidemic. I agree people dying of aids is terrible, but what is worse than people dying of aids is people passing Aids on. Now I am no expert and stand to be corrected, but as I understand it when anti-retrovirals are given to people with HIV/Aids they then get to live much longer and appear healthy and presumably keep spreading the aids virus. If they were not given the anti-retrovirals then they would look sick (hence be less likely to find a partner to infect) and would die sooner - tragic for them, but it would prevent how many others being infected?? It seems to me that we once again have things the wrong way around, with our current policies all that will happen is the demand for anti-retrovirals will continue to spiral up as will the cost of providing them, the percentage of the populations with the virus will continue to increase etc........ Maybe if the disease were left to take its course the rate of infection would naturally decrease over time........ Or if this is unacceptable from a humanitarian point of view maybe a choice should be given with the anti-retrovirals - you get the drugs but you also get medication that prevents you having sex and passing it on (admittedly this would only work for men not women, but at least it would solve half the problem) - so then at least while doing the humanitarian thing, we are preventing the problem getting worse. To me if I caught Aids off somebody I knew but for anti-retrovirals provided by an aid agency would have died a long time ago I would be wishing the aid agency had kept their anti-retrovirals to themselves!! Thirdly I note Gwenyth Paltrow is on TV advertising for governments to do more in providing medication to prevent the transmission of the Aids virus from mother to child. Well given 1/3 of all pregnant women in South Africa alone (and I doubt these are the worst statistics in Africa) have Aids who is going to take care of all the orphans created by this policy - the African states in question certainly can't afford to, or if they are forced to then it will prevent them spending that money on education, infrastructure, healthcare etc........... and keep these countries in poverty and ensure they become more and more reliant on the west for aid. To me Death is a natural part of life - simply because it is preventable doesn't mean it should be, simply because somebody has not lived to be over 80 doesn't mean they shouldn't die. Is the death of a baby any more tragic than the death of a 5 year old, 10 year old, 20 year old, 40 year old etc........ Death is Death it is a natural part of the cycle of life and can strike at any part of it. Keeping people alive in abject poverty simply for the sake of keeping them alive is not doing them any favours, merely prolonging their suffering so we have to begin to accept and allow people to die and recognise that as ugly as it may seem sometimes the right to life is dependant upon the economic ability of the person or country to provide what is necessary - be it food, or be it half a million dollar neurosurgery. As a child I grew up in a household that belonged to the far religious right and we were taught that China's one child policy was evil etc...... something I think even the antithesis of the religious right, the catholic church, would agree with. But it is this policy that has made it possible for China to bring such large percentages of its population out of poverty, and those that are alive in China and reaping the benefits that this policy has enabled would no doubt much prefer to have their current standard of living than 10 brothers and sisters, but be in a hovel starving and relying on food aid. I think there is no doubt that Chinas economic success would never have been possible but for these policies and I think that Africas economic success will also never be possible unless something similar happens there either through nature taking its course or maybe governments there becoming more far sighted. One thing that is for sure though, the current policies of the west in providing aid are already unable to meet the demand, and this will only get worse while these policies continue just to address the symptoms and not the causes. Its an ugly truth, but the truth it is - Sorry Gwyneth.... July 29 McCain has lost his honour Watching what has been happening in American Politics over the last week is starting to give me that ill foreboding I had when it became apparent Georgie Dumbass Bush was going to be elected. At first I was a bit ambivalent between Obama and McCain, because I thought McCain was not your standard head up his arse looking for the sun republican, but was actually an honourable man and the election would really have been a case of the best man winning. Well McCain has given up all his principles and is using emotion, pride and one sentence sound-bytes to attract or scare the lowest common denominator of American (the dumb majority) into voting for him. I honestly thought McCain wouldn't stoop to that - he knows full well Obama isn't suggesting surrender or failure in Iraq and yet he keeps saying that, in the same breath he says he will fix Afghanistan when the Joint Chief of Staffs himself has said the only place to get troops for Afghanistan from is Iraq. This is what Obama is planning to do but McCain is making it sound like Obama is planning on surrendering in Iraq when he knows full well that Obama is really planning on winning in Afghanistan - which by the way in reality poses the bigger threat to America if they lose than Iraq does. Also McCain states that he knows how to win wars and nobody seems to question or challenge him on this. To my knowledge he knows how to get a multi-million dollar jet fighter shot down and then be a POW in a Bamboo cage being eaten by leeches for four years. As far as I know he never made it to a military rank where he was involved in strategy, and his implementation of tactics was well........... less than ordinary. So as far as the strategy of winning wars I don't see that he has any more reason to believe he knows how to win wars than anybody else let alone Obama. Thats the craziest thing about American politics, it seems like the American Public considers anybody who made it to Second Lieutenant qualified to be commander in chief - I think that if they were in the military and they never made it out of the junior officer ranks that demonstrates that the military did not consider them worthy of making strategic decisions otherwise they would have been promoted to a level where they had that responsibility - so they are probably in actual fact less qualified to be commander in chief than somebody who has no military service. Also McCain has admitted Economics is not his strong point - well how America performs economically over the next 8 years will have a much greater impact on the lives of Americans and the rest of the world than anything that happens in Iraq and Afghanistan put together - AND McCAIN WOULD KNOW THIS - so he is being disingenuous campaigning on Iraq which in the scheme of things is just a side show of the next presidency not the sole purpose of it as McCains Campaigning would lead one to believe, but he knows it will disproportionately affect the vote compared to its relevance and so is focusing on that which I consider totally disingenuous on his part and definately shows he puts his own ambition before the countries best interest (something I did not expect he would do)!! Lets just hope the American public can get past McCains and Hannitys one line sound bites and actually consider Obamas positions and policy which unfortunately don't lend themselves to one liners to the same degree putting understanding them beyond the attention span of the majority of Americans. (After the last American election somebody made a table of the Average IQs of the various states and - this is no word of a lie - the bottom of the table were the states that voted republican and the top of the table were the states that voted democrat with only a couple of states crossing over in the very middle - which demonstrated that unfortunately in America the states with the dumbest populations are the ones with enough electoral college votes to decide who is to be president and they do - hence George Bush and probably McCain next!) July 28 How To Solve The Low Organ Donor Rates Hello once again, This time I thought I would give my ideas on how to solve the low rate of people signing up to be organ donors. The first part of my blog will be common knowledge to all those in Australia, but may be of interest to people in America and other countries and sets the premise for my idea on a solution. In Australia health insurance is regulated such that no matter what one persons likelihood of needing medical care is they will not pay more for health insurance than somebody whose likelihood was much less - due to say a condition such as diabetes, or schizophrenia etc.........., until recently it also did not matter what age one was either - the law simply was that everybody paid the same for health insurance, with the only proviso being that one had to wait a year before the health insurance company had to pay towards the treatment of a pre-existing condition. However, the last government came up with a great idea - basically for every year past thirty one delayed getting health insurance ones premiums went up by 2% for life. So somebody that first gets health insurance at 50 years old will pay 140% of what a 50 year old who had health insurance since they were 30 would. This was done of course to encourage people to sign up for health insurance at a younger age which would theoretically reduce and make more affordable health insurance for everybody, while still maintaining a system whereby those with medical problems are not discriminated against based upon those by having to pay higher premiums. Now - How Does this relate to Organ Donor Rates. Well I would propose a similar system for Organ Donors. The earlier in life one signs up to be an organ donor, should one then ever need an organ one gets some sort of additional weighting or preference when it is decided who is to receive an organ that many want. Now I do not know the process that goes into deciding who receives organs and I presume it is largely based on most urgent need. However given two people who need an organ equally as much, but one has been a registered organ donor all their life and one hasn't surely the person that was not prepared to give the gift of their organs should the situation have arisen they should not get to receive the organ over a person that had been prepared to offer their organs as a gift should they have been in the position to. I am not about to even try and propose the formula or a formula for determining who receives organs, but I am proposing that just as the changes to health insurance were advertised heavily to induce young people to become members a similar campaign to say the earlier in life you sign up as an organ donor the greater your chances of receiving an organ should you need it than if you don't sign up till later. Personally I would also make it that if at the time of needing an organ you are not a registered organ donor than you have no right to receive an organ to save your life that you would not have been prepared to offer to save the donors life had the situation been reversed. But that is effectively sentencing somebody to death, so ethically is probably a bit dubious - but its not like the organ would go to waste, it would just go to somebody more deserving. I don't propose throwing an organ in the bin rather than giving it to somebody who had never registered as an organ donor. There is a bit of a personal element to this for me, somebody close to me did not want to register as an organ donor when I suggested it, and I said that that was fine, but if they ever needed an organ I would not so much as pick up the telephone to try and help organise it. Now I guess maybe due to my ability to make things happen this person decided if they needed an organ they would want me on the phone and so changed their mind and registered as an organ donor. I made no judgement calls and did not say you must register, I just said that if you won't do it for others you cannot expect others to do it for you and I would not help you get an organ that I believed should belong to somebody else who would have been prepared to donate their organs. So my proposal basically is that if people know that they may need an organ at 50, 60 , 70 etc.... and they will increase their chances of getting it if they sign up as an organ donor now at 20, 30, 40 I believe the rate of registered organ donors would increase quite drastically. And conversely if they know that if they don't sign up they can kiss any hope of getting an organ if they need it goodbye - well then you get both the carrot and the stick working for you to increase the rate of Organ Donors. So whether you agree with me or not or think my proposal a bit harsh (this is only an introduction - I regard life and death as meaningless, there are 6 Billion soon to be 9 Billion so to say a life has value is ridiculous, but I regard SUFFERING as supremely meaningful, because it is experienced so intensely on an individual level, and that cannot be obscured with numbers) do the right thing and call the Australian Organ Donor Register on 1800 777 203 and register!!! Saving Mortgage Insurance for First Home BuyersThis blog is to publicise an idea I
had that would reduce mortgage insurance for a large proportion of
first home buyers. I have forwarded this idea to Arch Bevis my local
Labour MP, but he just sent me back a letter saying that the government
was spending $1.2 Billion here and $500 million there etc......... and
did not address this idea at all. So I will explain it quickly to you,
then include the letter I sent to my local labour member and hopefully
if enough people see this and promote it maybe it will happen. Firstly: At present a first home buyer can have no deposit, but provided they have somebody (typically a relative/parent) prepared to go guarantor for 20% of the value they do not have to pay mortgage insurance. NOTE: This money does not have to be provided as the deposit, they can still borrow 100% somebody just has to go guarantor so no actual money has to change hands............. Secondly: Nowadays people tend to have been in the workforce for some considerable time before they buy their first homes and so will have accumulated some funds most probably significant funds in their superannuation before they go to buy their first house. So........ Thirdly: First home buyers should be able to use their superannuation to go 'guarantor' for as much of the deposit as possible reducing the amount they need to pay in mortgage insurance. This would not cause significant increases in demand for property prices where the extra money saved would simply be eaten up by increased house prices, and it would mean first home buyers have a chance of keeping some or most of their first home owners grant rather than simply handing it over in mortgage insurance as currently happens if they are not fortunate enough to have parents with the equity to go guarantor for the 20% deposit or are unwilling to. Just as per with the arrangement where parents go guarantor, no money actually changes hand and the money stays in their superannuation for their retirement. If the situation arose where they were going to lose their house they could access their super anyway so the net effect on super is essentially neutral - the main effect is that first home buyers pay much less in mortgage insurance (which I believe has to be one of the most profitable insurances and which is 'money for jam' so to speak). Please find below the email I sent to my local Labour member and if anybody is interested I will post his reply..... Dear Arch, Before
explaining my policy idea I need to lay the basis for it. At present a
person can get a 100% loan on a property without paying Mortgage
Insurance if they have a parent or other such benefactor who has the
equity and is willing to provide guarantor for 20% of that properties
value, without any money actually changing hands and which of course
would only be called upon in the instance of a mortgagee sale where the
sale price did not meet the amount borrowed against that property under
which circumstances the person who went guarantor is liable for the
difference up to the pre-defined maximum of 20% of the properties
purchase price. Given
that on say a modest $265,000 property the mortgage insurance is about
equivalent to the first home owners grant, I would suggest that in a
large percentage of cases the first home owners grant (given one has to
have 20% deposit before not requiring mortgage insurance) goes directly
to fund the mortgage insurance of many first home buyers. Now
I know there is a principle that ones Compulsory Superannuation cannot
be touched except in the direst and very specific circumstances, I
understand that suggesting anything involving Compulsory Superannuation
is almost taboo, but I would suggest that Mortgage Insurance is one of
the most profitable forms of insurance provided in the market and any
measure that reduces the amount that a first home buyer has to pay in
Mortgage Insurance is a good thing and that first home buyers are
getting older and may have significant amounts in their compulsory
superannuation I would suggest that just as a parent can go guarantor
for a percentage of the deposit without actually handing the funds over
except in a mortgagee sale, that one allows home buyers to provide
their compulsory superannuation accumulations as a form of guarantor,
hence reducing the exorbitant mortgage insurance fees. In most cases
this would never be used, and as I understand it if one stands to lose
ones house one has a reasonable chance of accessing their super to
avoid doing so in any case - so I would suggest that the actual affect
on the nations superannuation savings would be negligible by
introducing a policy such as this, but the majority of especially first
home owners would benefit greatly in reduced mortgage insurance costs -
which is just dead money........... or easy money for the insurer. I am
sure if the actuaries got to work and calculated the "Expected Value"
of what the average borrower would lose from their superannuation it
would be minuscule in comparison to the "Expected Value" of most first
home buyers income insurance. Noting that Mortgage Insurance definitely
and definitively reduces a persons wealth by the amount paid - even
more considering people effectively have to borrow it and pay it off
over the life of the mortgage making the actual cost multiples of the
original mortgage insurance amount. In
this proposal I can only see home owners winning and mortgage insurers
losing. Of course most superannuation is based on share market
investments and so the amount calculated as guaranteed will be smaller
than were their superannuation held as cash in the bank (a very
conservative superannuation position unlikely to be held by most young
people) so there may have to be some de-rating of the actual balance of
their insurance when calculating how much of a guarantee it can
provide, but I doubt that would be a significant hurdle. Also
on another note: The rental market: My separated-wife and I still live
together simply because in todays rental market, both of us would have
trouble finding anywhere to rent (and it would be a significant step
down for both of us). Also tenancy agreements are such that at the end
of a lease a landlord need only give 2 weeks notice that one must exit
the property, which is all fine except when there are no other
properties for rent. Even the property we are in we were extremely
fortunate in that the land agent knew it was coming onto the market and
let us apply before it had, and promised us not to submit or accept
applications from anybody else unless we were rejected, so our landlord
only got to see our application and accepted it. But we had frantically
been trying to rent anywhere given the 2 weeks notice and were faced
with what so many are, 10s, 20s or 30s of applicants for every property
we applied for and as I had just become unemployed at the time our
prospects of finding a property seemed very bleak, even the property we
got, had the landagent not taken pity on us we would never have got it
if we had been up against most other renters e.g. 2 Accountants, or 2
nurses or 2 anything else. (Needless to say we bought him a bottle of
very nice red!!). This is why even though we have separated fortunately
we still get on well enough to live together (in separate rooms now
though) and treat the household as any unrelated flatmates would. I
am unsure if you saw insight last night, but the situation is dire out
there and the fact that Australia has Hundreds of thousands of people
who are homeless, as well as the fact that the very poorest are
extorted in boarding houses, caravan parks etc...... for an example
given last night at a caravan park for a crappy little 1 room bungalow
(and not bungalow like you imagine in Fiji, but bungalow like you think
of a expanded and converted outdoor dunny) and they have to pay $250
per week simply because that is the bottom of the market not based on
any concept of value for money - I mean if they paid double the money
$500 they could probably rent a property incomparably better given the
one they were in was so shocking but for $500 I am sure they could get
a multi bedroom house with nice bathroom, good kitchen, multiple
bedrooms so all the kids and parents don't sleep in the one room is I
am sure you agree repugnant. I also know a few people who lived in a
boarding house on Merthyr Road that has just been sold (if you are
familiar with your electorate I am sure you know the property), the new
owner kicked everybody out, and put up all the rents as far as I know -
the rents were already $150 for a tiny little room - how is even a
single person on the dole meant to survive when this is the cheapest accommodation out there and it leaves them less than $100 a week for
food and bills and transport etc....... even a concession public
transport ticket is 1% of their weekly income or about 2.8% of their
remaining $100. Whereas we pay about 2.5 times what they pay and have a
beautiful apartment. So it is simply a matter of the poor being totally
extorted, the reality is in terms of percentage of income or value for
money the poor rather than paying the least percentage of income or
getting the best value for money pay the highest and get the least
living in such deplorable conditions and are totally at the mercy of
predatory landlords who care nothing for the welfare or standard of
living of their tenants or providing them with accommodation remotely
justifiable to the price. Here
we go, my last paragraph - the housing minister on insight last night
probably came across well to the average intelligence Australian, but
if you had half a brain and listened to her the poor people in these
circumstances of limited intelligence or education probably saw her as
a white knight, rather than spitting her for what she said. Look at all
the great Engineering Projects that happen in the world in phenomenal
time frames (I know I've been involved with some of them in Australia)
this whole "it took a long time to create, it will take a long time to
fix is bullshit". I am sure if Kevin Rudd went to the Australian people
and said we have a crisis in this country 250,000 to 300,000 people
live on the streets every night in this country and most low income
earners are paying over 50% of their income to live in third world
conditions I am going to take $5 Billion dollars from the proposed tax
cuts and fix this problem. Not by building low income ghettos, but by
rapidly and sensibly creating a stock of quality low rent properties (I mean you are going to give the $5 billion in tax cuts, so the returns
on the properties shouldn't be a major concern) to create an Australia
where we know more people are going to have a roof over their head not
less (which is the way it is leaning) and which would also force other
low income accommodation providers to clean up their act or go out of
business - he would be applauded by the Australian People not regarded
negatively for reducing the (stupid tax cuts that the Liberals forced
you into) by $5 billion for such a worthy cause. These home saver
accounts etc....... aren't going to do anything for people who have
nothing left to save, and nothing to prevent the number of homeless
increasing - you need to increase supply to fix these problems!! And $5
billion in the first year would be a good start - admittedly tradesmen
would be difficult to get hold of - but compared to the poor conditions
construction workers get in Arab countries I am sure they would
willingly come here on temporary working Visas if we treated this as
another Snowy Hydro type endeavor to make Australia a fairer place and
reduce poverty (except of course unlike the snowy workers these ones
would have to go back, but at $35 to $40 per hour for carpenters and
plumbers I am sure they would come, we would just have to plan this
like a major project e.g. accommodation logistics etc......... $31
Billion in tax cuts as a core promise - if you don't want to break it,
put it to a referendum - I am sure you would find where Australian
Hearts really lie - that is why I couldn't stomach the Howard
Government no longer when workchoices bad enough when the economy was
good, but if economic conditions changed and unemployment rose would
have been used ruthlessly by employers to the detriment of practically
everyone, except the very few still in a strong bargaining position -
and voted Labour, but I believe the problem was Howard not the Party so
much, (for instance unlike practically everyone else I liked Costello
and do believe he had a strong social conscience, but was forced to toe
the Howard line and did so faithfully - a flaw in his character I
believe. Hockey just lied and lied and lied, but once again I believe
he had no choice due to Howard. But anyway now you are in government
and it is up to you to bring the humanity back and how you can do that
is by ditching in part if not in full the $31 Billion in tax cuts
Howard cornered you into promises - and as long as you use that money
wisely when the opposition comes at you about core and non-core promises
you can come back at them from the high moral ground and say are you
prepared to go around all these families that were living in cars and
third world accommodation and kick them out of their houses to live on
the streets or the way they were - if not then SHUTUP!!! If you can
find equally worthy things to do with the rest of the $31 Billion do
that too - send a study to Holland to look at how they treat and look
after their elderly and then compare it to here - that would be another
worthy cause that a portion of $31 Billion (which is a huge amount of
money!!) and if the opposition comes at you ask them who would want
their mother/grandmother to be treated the way it used to be before you
implemented these changes. AS LONG AS YOU SPEND THE MONEY WISELY AND
WITH A HUMANITARIAN HEART THE ELECTORATE WILL NOT HOLD IT AGAINST YOU
THEY WILL ADMIRE YOU FOR BREAKING THIS PROMISE - EVERYONE KNOWS THIS IS
NOT A PROMISE KEVIN RUDD WOULD HAVE MADE WILLINGLY AND IF YOU HONOUR IT
IT WILL SHOW THE LABOUR PARTY STILL DANCES TO HOWARDS TUNE - WE WERE
SICK OF HOWARD BECAUSE ALTHOUGH TIMES HAD BEEN PROSPEROUS UNDER HIM WE
KNEW THE COUNTRY WAS PAYING A PRICE WITH ITS SOUL FOR HAVING HIM IN THE
TOP JOB - AS LONG AS YOU SHOW THE HUMANITARIAN SOUL WE HAVE ALL MISSED
FOR THE PAST 10 YEARS BUT RELUCTANTLY HAD TO VOTE FOR ANYWAY (I mean up
till now Labour was a disaster and Beasley would have fucked the
economy faster than the spread of myxamytosis through a rabbit colony). Anyway I apologise for it being so long, I hope you either reply with what is wrong with my ideas or some feedback that demonstrates it actually has been read. And if you take up the idea on using super to reduce Mortgage Insurance can you please name it the "Carl Louwrens" Bill so everyone knows who to thank - ha ha....... |
|
|
