Sunday, September 21, 2003
Back - And Why Our Society Should Stop Screwing Immigrants
Hey. I know its been awhile, but I haven't forgotten about this site, just busy getting settled into school and stuff.
The one thing that's really been bugging me a lot is how we treat immigrants in North America. I don't mean racism, or poking jokes at them or anything else. But I've realized that I have a number of friends, either immigrants or children of immigrants, and they/their parents are doing menial labour here - when in their home countries, they were PhDs or professors or some other job that requires no small amount of training.
Then, they immigrate, frequently the reason cited is now better opportunities for their children, and they find out that even if they were a professor of math 'back home', its not good enough to teach highschoolers how to divide fractions.
Sure, there are lots of stereotypes about this, so much that its just become a whining point, or, worse yet, a way to look at immigrants in a better light: "Oh, look at him, he went from being a doctor/professor/rocket scientist to a taxi driver/store clerk, WOW, its so great that he did that."
No, its not great, but here's the kicker: we're loosing out, not him. Many of these immigrants have skills that are in a shortage in North America - from doctors to teachers to nurses, there's a general agreement that we need more.
I'm not advocating just saying "Ok, your MS from University X in Y is as good as a degree from Harvard." That could have disasterous effects. But certainly if a say one-year refresher course was made available and was completed with a rigourous, complete test or examination, we'd all benefit. State universities or colleges could provide these services. In time, it will be possible to seperate the 'real' unknown universities from degree mills if the grades and reports are tracked, simplifying the job even more. Think of it as a GED for post-secondary education.
There are lots of potential oponents to this sort of thing - universities won't be happy, especially not private ones, it increases the talent pool and that could be used to drive down wages. Workes in some areas won't be happy, either - remember the 1990's, when an artificial shortage of programmers and other IT positions was created just so tech companies could bring over cheaper workers from other nations?
However, we can learn from these past experiences and get through them. The fundamental issue is recognizing people for their accomplishments and giving people a fair chance in our society, regardless of where they came from. These are moral issues that go to the very core of our democratic principles, and this makes any practical issues secondary - and solvable. Its worth finding a solution.
The one thing that's really been bugging me a lot is how we treat immigrants in North America. I don't mean racism, or poking jokes at them or anything else. But I've realized that I have a number of friends, either immigrants or children of immigrants, and they/their parents are doing menial labour here - when in their home countries, they were PhDs or professors or some other job that requires no small amount of training.
Then, they immigrate, frequently the reason cited is now better opportunities for their children, and they find out that even if they were a professor of math 'back home', its not good enough to teach highschoolers how to divide fractions.
Sure, there are lots of stereotypes about this, so much that its just become a whining point, or, worse yet, a way to look at immigrants in a better light: "Oh, look at him, he went from being a doctor/professor/rocket scientist to a taxi driver/store clerk, WOW, its so great that he did that."
No, its not great, but here's the kicker: we're loosing out, not him. Many of these immigrants have skills that are in a shortage in North America - from doctors to teachers to nurses, there's a general agreement that we need more.
I'm not advocating just saying "Ok, your MS from University X in Y is as good as a degree from Harvard." That could have disasterous effects. But certainly if a say one-year refresher course was made available and was completed with a rigourous, complete test or examination, we'd all benefit. State universities or colleges could provide these services. In time, it will be possible to seperate the 'real' unknown universities from degree mills if the grades and reports are tracked, simplifying the job even more. Think of it as a GED for post-secondary education.
There are lots of potential oponents to this sort of thing - universities won't be happy, especially not private ones, it increases the talent pool and that could be used to drive down wages. Workes in some areas won't be happy, either - remember the 1990's, when an artificial shortage of programmers and other IT positions was created just so tech companies could bring over cheaper workers from other nations?
However, we can learn from these past experiences and get through them. The fundamental issue is recognizing people for their accomplishments and giving people a fair chance in our society, regardless of where they came from. These are moral issues that go to the very core of our democratic principles, and this makes any practical issues secondary - and solvable. Its worth finding a solution.
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
California Governor's Race - What The Media Does When Its Bored
Alright, so California's having a possible recall of their governor, and then, if they choose to recall him, a chance to choose a new one. So, yeah, this is important, in a lot of ways - it is the biggest state in the Union, with a massive economy, and governor's have power within their own states that make the powers of the President often look like a mere formality of a position. But... well, it's just one gubanatorial race. I mean, seriously, how many people even knew that Gray Davis was governor? OK, but out of you, how many knew that his popularity ratings were that bad? Outside of California, probably not many. So, why has the race been in the headlines? Prior to a certain someone deciding to run, there really was no front runner - in fact, with at least 130 candidates, with possibly 40 more to be added to the list, it looked more like the Boston Marathon than the Sacramento Sprint.
Sure, the California Governor Recall has the possibility to be a big story - but it's not, yet. The election is still a ways away, and, no matter what Arnold has said about "cleaning house", there aren't really any issues on the table. What is on the table are familiar faces, from Schwarzenegger to Larry Flint, and a lack of other news that's got that kind of star-clout. Lets face it, Iraq may still have vast oil reserves, but as a story, its run dry.
The possibilities of a recall with 130 candidates is profound - if 49% vote to keep Davis in office, then he's out - but a candidate with a few percent (or, if the race stays tight, possibly even less than 1% (mathematically)) of the vote could win the office. But for now, lets face it, it is just a media frenzy, with many more stories being written than stories being told, many more photo ops than photos of a good story.
Sure, the California Governor Recall has the possibility to be a big story - but it's not, yet. The election is still a ways away, and, no matter what Arnold has said about "cleaning house", there aren't really any issues on the table. What is on the table are familiar faces, from Schwarzenegger to Larry Flint, and a lack of other news that's got that kind of star-clout. Lets face it, Iraq may still have vast oil reserves, but as a story, its run dry.
The possibilities of a recall with 130 candidates is profound - if 49% vote to keep Davis in office, then he's out - but a candidate with a few percent (or, if the race stays tight, possibly even less than 1% (mathematically)) of the vote could win the office. But for now, lets face it, it is just a media frenzy, with many more stories being written than stories being told, many more photo ops than photos of a good story.
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Why People Like a 'War on Terror'
Everyone likes to think that they're in relative control of their environment and the circumstnaces surrounding them. We build houses, buildings, entire cities, to try to control that environment. A big part of government's appeal, as a general concept, is to make things uniform and predicitible. Even if they don't control everything, they've got a feeling that they know what's coming there way - that things will, if not be fair, at least be uniform, which is its own kind of fairness.
Basically, like all animals, we don't really like unpredicitibility - sure, as humans, we like to spice things up some... but the idea of coming home and realizing its not there... that doesn't appeal to us much. We only like taking risks when basics, food, family and housing, are all relatively secure.
Unfortunately, the world doesn't cooperate willingly. Things happen - but people still feel pretty good about themselves as long as there's something they can do about things that pop up. The mental process goes something like this: "Oh no, look: something bad's happened. It's OK, I can do something about this. Here's what I'll do. Now let's do it."
The important thing about this - and where the war on terror comes in - is that it feels good to just be doing something, whether its working or not. Although eventually, a solution beocmes necessary, that's almost secondary: what people innitially need to feel better is just the idea that the situation will be under control.
That's what the war on terrorism does: "ok, they blew up a building. Fine. We can drop an ungodly amount of ordinance on them. Whew! That'll show 'em." The fact that there is still a threat of terrorism and that using big bombs to attack terrorists is like getting rid of a mosquito infestation with a shotgun is besides the point: it feels good because we're doing something about it. We're making things go boom. The thing about the War on Terror, is that it produces an easy, and obvious solution: get rid of the terrorists. And, abstractly, there's an easy way to get rid of something if you're not too descriminating about surroundings: blow it to bits. It's a problem with an easy and obvious solution.
The fact that I (and many others) think that it will eventually exacerbate the situation doesn't matter much. And it's a lot easier to get satisfaction about blowing things up than thinking "By driving less, I help save the environment. We should all do that." Saving the enivornment is a big problem, with no obvious solution: people want their SUVs, and not having them and driving less and all that stuff is hard: no one notices much, and you've got to do it day, after day, after day. And still, you're only a teeny, tiny part of the solution; everyone has to act for years before a change is noticed, before people get the satisfaction thinking "the problem's under control."
And that is why a War on Terrorism will constantly seem more important in the collective conciousness than a "War on Carbon Emissions" or some other difficul, had to solve problem.
Basically, like all animals, we don't really like unpredicitibility - sure, as humans, we like to spice things up some... but the idea of coming home and realizing its not there... that doesn't appeal to us much. We only like taking risks when basics, food, family and housing, are all relatively secure.
Unfortunately, the world doesn't cooperate willingly. Things happen - but people still feel pretty good about themselves as long as there's something they can do about things that pop up. The mental process goes something like this: "Oh no, look: something bad's happened. It's OK, I can do something about this. Here's what I'll do. Now let's do it."
The important thing about this - and where the war on terror comes in - is that it feels good to just be doing something, whether its working or not. Although eventually, a solution beocmes necessary, that's almost secondary: what people innitially need to feel better is just the idea that the situation will be under control.
That's what the war on terrorism does: "ok, they blew up a building. Fine. We can drop an ungodly amount of ordinance on them. Whew! That'll show 'em." The fact that there is still a threat of terrorism and that using big bombs to attack terrorists is like getting rid of a mosquito infestation with a shotgun is besides the point: it feels good because we're doing something about it. We're making things go boom. The thing about the War on Terror, is that it produces an easy, and obvious solution: get rid of the terrorists. And, abstractly, there's an easy way to get rid of something if you're not too descriminating about surroundings: blow it to bits. It's a problem with an easy and obvious solution.
The fact that I (and many others) think that it will eventually exacerbate the situation doesn't matter much. And it's a lot easier to get satisfaction about blowing things up than thinking "By driving less, I help save the environment. We should all do that." Saving the enivornment is a big problem, with no obvious solution: people want their SUVs, and not having them and driving less and all that stuff is hard: no one notices much, and you've got to do it day, after day, after day. And still, you're only a teeny, tiny part of the solution; everyone has to act for years before a change is noticed, before people get the satisfaction thinking "the problem's under control."
And that is why a War on Terrorism will constantly seem more important in the collective conciousness than a "War on Carbon Emissions" or some other difficul, had to solve problem.
Friday, July 25, 2003
Capitalism and The Environment: (Long-Lost) Friends
OK, while I'm thinking of the whole 'capitalism and the environment' thing, I've got a theory about why they'll, on the whole, be good friends.
Most pollution is, in essence, waste. Now, when technologies are new, waste is a acceptable biproduct: early combustion engines didn't get nearly the milage that current ones do, they instead sorta semi-processed whatever they were using as fuel. Incandescent lights (OK, we use them a lot, but nobody says that they're all that technologically advanced) use a lot of energy, too... but turn most of it into heat, the figure's something like 94% heat and 6% light, but halogens and fluorescent lights produce a lot more light for their energy: they're still very wasteful, but not nearly as much as before.
Why does this happen? Because along the line, someone's got to pay for the stuff that's being wasted, and it's better not to. As long as it's a sizable amount of money for someone, money will be used to find a better alternative: if you're in a 100 floor skyscraper, the money saved switching to fluorescent lights is huge.
This is even more obvious with industrial waste: the factory is paying for raw materials that they see themselves throw away, every day. Whether its chemicals, or water, or electricity, or whatever else, some manager sees that, day after day, and then signs a cheque to order more. The fact that finding a way to reduce or eliminate that waste, almost regardless of how much it costs, can usually be justified by the continual amount spent on waste vs. the one time fee of an 'upgrade'. On top of that, they look like a good corporate citizen, protect themselves from future lawsuits, and have the possibility to stay 'ahead of the curve' on environmental legislation. They also become less vulnerable to price fluctuations in raw materials - they use less, so it becomes a smaller % of their expenses pie.
Now, this is all theoretical - there are lots of forms of waste where, because they don't spend money on something at all (for example, flowing water for a factory on a river) or spend very little money on (something very cheap, where the cost of waste is minimal compared with the cost of reducing wast). However, it's true often enough to make my next point true:
The biggest polluters are the industries that receive government 'life aid' or subsidies. Think about it: most countries heavily subsidize their natural resource industries because they create jobs in rural areas, where jobs are scarce, because they're a source of pride ("We produce...."), and because that way, if you get into a spat with another country, you don't need them to produce x for you, you can make it yourself, or, at the very least, the more you produce, the less likely your economy is to fail. But in western countries, it's mostly just because it makes jobs and those get you votes.
So anyways... yeah, natural resource industries are bigger polluters, some would say for obvious reasons, but look past that: transportation companies (car companies, airplane companies, etc.), although they've improved some, still make products which pollute a lot. Yes, there are technical barriers to fixing this, but I'm betting that they're happy to keep things the way they are because if hard times hit, they know a big government purchase order or even a direct loan/handout is on its way. I mean, if your parents would bail you out every time you lost a job, would you make an effort to be "clean shaved" and presentable at work?
This topic obviously can't all fit into one post, I'm much to verbose for that. So... I'll leave you with the idea for now, and get into more details later. (OK, fine, my thoughts aren't collected and I don't want to ramble too much more than usual. You caught me.)
Most pollution is, in essence, waste. Now, when technologies are new, waste is a acceptable biproduct: early combustion engines didn't get nearly the milage that current ones do, they instead sorta semi-processed whatever they were using as fuel. Incandescent lights (OK, we use them a lot, but nobody says that they're all that technologically advanced) use a lot of energy, too... but turn most of it into heat, the figure's something like 94% heat and 6% light, but halogens and fluorescent lights produce a lot more light for their energy: they're still very wasteful, but not nearly as much as before.
Why does this happen? Because along the line, someone's got to pay for the stuff that's being wasted, and it's better not to. As long as it's a sizable amount of money for someone, money will be used to find a better alternative: if you're in a 100 floor skyscraper, the money saved switching to fluorescent lights is huge.
This is even more obvious with industrial waste: the factory is paying for raw materials that they see themselves throw away, every day. Whether its chemicals, or water, or electricity, or whatever else, some manager sees that, day after day, and then signs a cheque to order more. The fact that finding a way to reduce or eliminate that waste, almost regardless of how much it costs, can usually be justified by the continual amount spent on waste vs. the one time fee of an 'upgrade'. On top of that, they look like a good corporate citizen, protect themselves from future lawsuits, and have the possibility to stay 'ahead of the curve' on environmental legislation. They also become less vulnerable to price fluctuations in raw materials - they use less, so it becomes a smaller % of their expenses pie.
Now, this is all theoretical - there are lots of forms of waste where, because they don't spend money on something at all (for example, flowing water for a factory on a river) or spend very little money on (something very cheap, where the cost of waste is minimal compared with the cost of reducing wast). However, it's true often enough to make my next point true:
The biggest polluters are the industries that receive government 'life aid' or subsidies. Think about it: most countries heavily subsidize their natural resource industries because they create jobs in rural areas, where jobs are scarce, because they're a source of pride ("We produce...."), and because that way, if you get into a spat with another country, you don't need them to produce x for you, you can make it yourself, or, at the very least, the more you produce, the less likely your economy is to fail. But in western countries, it's mostly just because it makes jobs and those get you votes.
So anyways... yeah, natural resource industries are bigger polluters, some would say for obvious reasons, but look past that: transportation companies (car companies, airplane companies, etc.), although they've improved some, still make products which pollute a lot. Yes, there are technical barriers to fixing this, but I'm betting that they're happy to keep things the way they are because if hard times hit, they know a big government purchase order or even a direct loan/handout is on its way. I mean, if your parents would bail you out every time you lost a job, would you make an effort to be "clean shaved" and presentable at work?
This topic obviously can't all fit into one post, I'm much to verbose for that. So... I'll leave you with the idea for now, and get into more details later. (OK, fine, my thoughts aren't collected and I don't want to ramble too much more than usual. You caught me.)
Problem with Capitalism: The Environment has No Intrinsic Value
I love capitalism... but it's got its faults. On the whole, it's a pretty good way at dividing up finite resources and placing decent monetary values on everything from raw goods to people's time. The one glaring mistake that capitalism's been making has been in regards to the environment - for various reasons, it's seemed necessary for the government to be the primary driving force behind ecological protection. Now, this makes sense in a lot of ways: stuff like lead content in gasoline's not all that interesting to anybody. So when it's 500 parts per million, really, that doesn't sound like much... and, with the exception of $ signs, people don't care too much about numbers - you could increase 500 to 600, or decrease it to 50, without many 'Jane/Joe voters' caring (today, that is). So obviously, there's no financial/marketing benefit to decreasing it to a much more ecological 50 parts/million.
Now, I've got some views on how capitalism could become much more "environmentally friendly", which I'll post later... at some point... but... here's one glaring problem I can't sort out: capitalism, as a system, doesn't really care how rare something is or how hard it is to make it, it matters how hard it is to get something. Now, usually, there isn't a difference between how hard it is to make something and how hard it is to get it ready to sell: if you're making a watch, you need to either do every step, from crushing rocks to get ore all the way to fine tuning gears, or pay someone to do it for you. But with say forests, there's a huge difference: even if you plant the trees yourself (a tree farm), most of the difficulty in production, from getting water, nutrients in the soil, energy from the sun, even more complex problems like creating a healthy ecosystem, are taken care of by nature, most of the time. Considering how much wood, especially outside of North America, is 'produced' by logging natural growth forests, this is a big problem.
As another example, take oil: anything that's got to lie around 50 million years to be ready has a huge cost of production: in that way, it's very, very valuable.
But capitalism doesn't care, all it cares is how hard it is to get the oil: it measures problems with flow, not production.
I'm not proposing having a government start charging for things it didn't effectively make, in terms of (massive) increases in the price of logging/drilling/digging permits (but that might not be such a bad idea, if it's what it comes down to, if you slowly moved up prices...), but merely pointing out that this means that when it comes to environmental issues, I don't see a way of the private sector becoming self-regulating, which means it's got to be left to governments, which means that people will always need to keep up their guard about environmental issues: as soon as we stop caring, the interests of corporations becomes louder than the environment to politicians looking to get reelected. A big challenge, but.. .well, you've got to do what you've got to do, right?
Now, I've got some views on how capitalism could become much more "environmentally friendly", which I'll post later... at some point... but... here's one glaring problem I can't sort out: capitalism, as a system, doesn't really care how rare something is or how hard it is to make it, it matters how hard it is to get something. Now, usually, there isn't a difference between how hard it is to make something and how hard it is to get it ready to sell: if you're making a watch, you need to either do every step, from crushing rocks to get ore all the way to fine tuning gears, or pay someone to do it for you. But with say forests, there's a huge difference: even if you plant the trees yourself (a tree farm), most of the difficulty in production, from getting water, nutrients in the soil, energy from the sun, even more complex problems like creating a healthy ecosystem, are taken care of by nature, most of the time. Considering how much wood, especially outside of North America, is 'produced' by logging natural growth forests, this is a big problem.
As another example, take oil: anything that's got to lie around 50 million years to be ready has a huge cost of production: in that way, it's very, very valuable.
But capitalism doesn't care, all it cares is how hard it is to get the oil: it measures problems with flow, not production.
I'm not proposing having a government start charging for things it didn't effectively make, in terms of (massive) increases in the price of logging/drilling/digging permits (but that might not be such a bad idea, if it's what it comes down to, if you slowly moved up prices...), but merely pointing out that this means that when it comes to environmental issues, I don't see a way of the private sector becoming self-regulating, which means it's got to be left to governments, which means that people will always need to keep up their guard about environmental issues: as soon as we stop caring, the interests of corporations becomes louder than the environment to politicians looking to get reelected. A big challenge, but.. .well, you've got to do what you've got to do, right?
Friday, July 18, 2003
Why The Iraq War Was Never Really Debated
There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions on the war in Iraq. Personally, I didn't like it - but I've got some more solid reasons as to why past the general (and generally accepted) idea that war is a bad thing.
My biggest beef with the way that the war was handled was that the American people - and the rest of the world - never got straight talk from the one US President ever elected that was thought to be too dumb to lie through his teeth.
I'd be highly, and I do mean HIGHLY surprised if anyone in the Bush administration, or in Blair's cabinet, for that matter, ever really thought that WMD was the biggest reason to go to war on Iraq - it makes a pretty weak case - sure, Saddam has wanted them, he's tried to get them, OK, I can buy that. I've lived in the Arabian Gulf, and despite what is frequently portrayed on Arab media, overall, he wasn't a well loved figure, past standing up against the US and American influence - in a 'the enemy of your enemy is your friend' sort of way. But... well, he wasn't the only one with an active WMD program that was dangerous. Cue North Korea, possibly Iran, but there are other non-rogue nations that are a threat to world security: India and Pakistan both publicly have nukes, the ability to launch them, all the incentive that the US and the Soviet Union did during the Cold War, and a purely religious rivalry.
So the war in Iraq wasn't about WMD - ever. What really gets to me was that no frank discussion occurred - either to the American people, to the world, or between nations - before the war began. Instead, you saw the US and Britain at ends with Germany and France at Security Council meetings over what boiled down to the definition of "maybe" - as in "maybe there are WMD in Iraq." France and Germany knew that the war wouldn't really be about WMD - all that was was an attempt to make the war seem legitimate. Now, having been allies for at least 50 years, you'd think that, at least behind closed doors, they could have frank discussions and come to some sort of understanding - even if the disagreement remained. Instead, we got a massive disagreement over technicalities and a lot of bad blood spilled. However, if the US or Britain were really determined to go to war with their allies alongside, it's important to try to convince them based on the real reasons you want to go to war - not some side show. Likewise, if France and Germany (or Russia or China, for that matter) seriously had strong oppositions to the war and seriously wanted their views not only heard but also listened to, its important that they talk turkey - not sit around in the UN going over whether 'proof' is 'proof' or not. The war was never debated on 'real' terms - only side issues and technicalities - and we're all worse off because of it.
My biggest beef with the way that the war was handled was that the American people - and the rest of the world - never got straight talk from the one US President ever elected that was thought to be too dumb to lie through his teeth.
I'd be highly, and I do mean HIGHLY surprised if anyone in the Bush administration, or in Blair's cabinet, for that matter, ever really thought that WMD was the biggest reason to go to war on Iraq - it makes a pretty weak case - sure, Saddam has wanted them, he's tried to get them, OK, I can buy that. I've lived in the Arabian Gulf, and despite what is frequently portrayed on Arab media, overall, he wasn't a well loved figure, past standing up against the US and American influence - in a 'the enemy of your enemy is your friend' sort of way. But... well, he wasn't the only one with an active WMD program that was dangerous. Cue North Korea, possibly Iran, but there are other non-rogue nations that are a threat to world security: India and Pakistan both publicly have nukes, the ability to launch them, all the incentive that the US and the Soviet Union did during the Cold War, and a purely religious rivalry.
So the war in Iraq wasn't about WMD - ever. What really gets to me was that no frank discussion occurred - either to the American people, to the world, or between nations - before the war began. Instead, you saw the US and Britain at ends with Germany and France at Security Council meetings over what boiled down to the definition of "maybe" - as in "maybe there are WMD in Iraq." France and Germany knew that the war wouldn't really be about WMD - all that was was an attempt to make the war seem legitimate. Now, having been allies for at least 50 years, you'd think that, at least behind closed doors, they could have frank discussions and come to some sort of understanding - even if the disagreement remained. Instead, we got a massive disagreement over technicalities and a lot of bad blood spilled. However, if the US or Britain were really determined to go to war with their allies alongside, it's important to try to convince them based on the real reasons you want to go to war - not some side show. Likewise, if France and Germany (or Russia or China, for that matter) seriously had strong oppositions to the war and seriously wanted their views not only heard but also listened to, its important that they talk turkey - not sit around in the UN going over whether 'proof' is 'proof' or not. The war was never debated on 'real' terms - only side issues and technicalities - and we're all worse off because of it.
Sunday, July 13, 2003
No One Makes Money Selling HIV Drugs in Africa
Usually, people look at the availability of AIDS drugs in Africa and choose one of two viewpoints: either that it is essential to make retroviral drugs (which have become pretty effective at fighting AIDS) as universally and cheaply available as possible - meaning, basically, letting drug manufacturers make generic versions of the drug cheaply available, at least in the most AIDS- and poverty-stricken countries.
The other side of the equation are those who say that making generic drugs of the newest (and by far, most effective) AIDS medications available to generic manufacturers would greatly reduce the profits of the companies that developed the drugs - and therefore, they wouldn't get as good of a return on their investment, therefore they wouldn't have new money to invest in drugs of any sort - AIDS, heart treatment, psoriasis, whatever.
So obviously, both sides have good points: the drugs wouldn't be available to save lives without the money the drug companies make from selling their drugs at a cost much higher than the actual physical cost of production. As a random example, go to your pharmacy and look at no-name aspirin and actual Bayer Aspirin - there's a huge price difference. The reason why is partially because Bayer benefits from having a brand name, etc., but also because they still do research on aspirin, it's possible uses and effects - more than a hundred years after it's release. However, it's clear that there are many, many unnecessary deaths in Africa in particular due to the effects of AIDS, many of which could be prevented by access to drugs which, for financial and intellectual property issues, they can't get.
Economically, however, the fact is, drug companies aren't hurt by cheap drugs in Africa - there's no way that they could afford them in the first place, no matter what. They're not part of the market for retroviral drugs, they're too expensive. So why not just give a license - not for free, but for cheap - for a drug company in/near Africa (in Europe?) to sell limited quantities of the drugs to African nations - the drug company gets a huge PR boost, they get more users of their drugs, and whatever (probably small) licensing fee for their drug that is agreed upon.
The other side of the equation are those who say that making generic drugs of the newest (and by far, most effective) AIDS medications available to generic manufacturers would greatly reduce the profits of the companies that developed the drugs - and therefore, they wouldn't get as good of a return on their investment, therefore they wouldn't have new money to invest in drugs of any sort - AIDS, heart treatment, psoriasis, whatever.
So obviously, both sides have good points: the drugs wouldn't be available to save lives without the money the drug companies make from selling their drugs at a cost much higher than the actual physical cost of production. As a random example, go to your pharmacy and look at no-name aspirin and actual Bayer Aspirin - there's a huge price difference. The reason why is partially because Bayer benefits from having a brand name, etc., but also because they still do research on aspirin, it's possible uses and effects - more than a hundred years after it's release. However, it's clear that there are many, many unnecessary deaths in Africa in particular due to the effects of AIDS, many of which could be prevented by access to drugs which, for financial and intellectual property issues, they can't get.
Economically, however, the fact is, drug companies aren't hurt by cheap drugs in Africa - there's no way that they could afford them in the first place, no matter what. They're not part of the market for retroviral drugs, they're too expensive. So why not just give a license - not for free, but for cheap - for a drug company in/near Africa (in Europe?) to sell limited quantities of the drugs to African nations - the drug company gets a huge PR boost, they get more users of their drugs, and whatever (probably small) licensing fee for their drug that is agreed upon.
Friday, July 11, 2003
Guideline to Fixing the FEC
Just to clarify, I don’t really have a problem with the people behind the FEC, nor do I think that all politicians are necessarily out there to be evil and serve only their own interests. Sure, this might be the case more often than the politicians can say, but can’t blame politicians for being power-hungry, now can we? At the same time, if people looking to win something believe that they can get a little slack on the rules, they will – heck, they’ll try this even if there isn’t anything at stake. How often do you see people speeding along on the highway?
Now, back to the FEC… was created in a time when lawmakers were reeling from the Watergate scandal – the people had suddenly had a lot less faith in their government and specifically their elected officials. This put Congress under pressure to make large, visible changes – and fast. The problem is, visible changes aren’t always good ones – and although the FEC is obviously better than nothing, the fact is, most people just accept the fact that there is someone looking over politicians fund-raising and leave it at that.
So how do we make a new, improved FEC without any of it’s problems? The goals of the FEC should be to be: 1) impartial – no matter which party you’re from, the same rules apply and are enforced the same way 2) effective – it should actually enforce the rules as strictly as possible 3) credible – politicians and the public need to believe that the FEC is doing what it says it’s doing.
To make the FEC impartial, it’s clear that you just can’t afford to have people selected by political party – but having political appointees would probably be of whatever party was in power – making things worse. Therefore, the solution has to be to have a professional (read: civil servant, etc.) in charge of the whole commission. Have the FEC operate as a part of the justice department if necessary – you could protect the job of the commissioner by laws and regulations. It might be a good idea for the person selected to have a history working with the law, a judge would probably be a good choice. Sure, judges may or may not be impartial – but they’re as close as we can get.
Effectiveness is also very important, but by having a staff that’s not motivated by political factors, their job would be to be effective – this puts the ball in the general public’s court – if they care, if there are news reports about the FEC, etc., then they’ll take some sort of pride in their work, and probably do the best they can.
And to be credible, the organization must be open – part of the FEC’s mandate now is to publish information, make this more so, document the processes that they use, allow news organizations and media access to the same information that the FEC itself gets to the extent possible. There’s a reason that there are no see-through magic tricks, and this works the same way.
And that’s what the FEC needs to become to be an effective way of administering campaign-financing laws – no matter how strict or lenient those laws are.
Now, back to the FEC… was created in a time when lawmakers were reeling from the Watergate scandal – the people had suddenly had a lot less faith in their government and specifically their elected officials. This put Congress under pressure to make large, visible changes – and fast. The problem is, visible changes aren’t always good ones – and although the FEC is obviously better than nothing, the fact is, most people just accept the fact that there is someone looking over politicians fund-raising and leave it at that.
So how do we make a new, improved FEC without any of it’s problems? The goals of the FEC should be to be: 1) impartial – no matter which party you’re from, the same rules apply and are enforced the same way 2) effective – it should actually enforce the rules as strictly as possible 3) credible – politicians and the public need to believe that the FEC is doing what it says it’s doing.
To make the FEC impartial, it’s clear that you just can’t afford to have people selected by political party – but having political appointees would probably be of whatever party was in power – making things worse. Therefore, the solution has to be to have a professional (read: civil servant, etc.) in charge of the whole commission. Have the FEC operate as a part of the justice department if necessary – you could protect the job of the commissioner by laws and regulations. It might be a good idea for the person selected to have a history working with the law, a judge would probably be a good choice. Sure, judges may or may not be impartial – but they’re as close as we can get.
Effectiveness is also very important, but by having a staff that’s not motivated by political factors, their job would be to be effective – this puts the ball in the general public’s court – if they care, if there are news reports about the FEC, etc., then they’ll take some sort of pride in their work, and probably do the best they can.
And to be credible, the organization must be open – part of the FEC’s mandate now is to publish information, make this more so, document the processes that they use, allow news organizations and media access to the same information that the FEC itself gets to the extent possible. There’s a reason that there are no see-through magic tricks, and this works the same way.
And that’s what the FEC needs to become to be an effective way of administering campaign-financing laws – no matter how strict or lenient those laws are.
The (US's) FEC - It Doesn't Work, but Getting Rid of It Won't Either
The Federal Election Comission (FEC).... it's supposed to make sure that our elections are 'fair' in the sense of ensuring that people running for (federal) office comply with rules regarding campaign contributions, federal matching funds, etc.... Sounds like a good idea, right? I mean, somebody has to enforce these rules, and it's the kind of thing where it takes bookkeeping, so that you need to know information beforehand so you can't just go to court if you suspect someone's not following the rules - there's no way to keep track of who's playing fair unless you have an organization where that's their job.
Only problem is, the FEC doesn't work - and they're trying to replace it. That, also, seems like a good idea, after all, the FEC has 6 members, 3 from each "big" party and they can just block each other's votes, and so there's obviously not much independence here. But, look at their replacement: a new comission of 3 members, all appointed by the President and approved by the Senate: 1 comissioner, and 1 each from the Democrats and Republicans. This is only a good thing in that it eliminates the potential for deadlocks, but it creates a lot more problems.
Having them selected by the President probably isn't a good idea - after all, he gets elected, too, and is likely to choose a chairman and member of his party which 'like' the way he fundraises - whether it's legal, ethical or not. And, well, how many liberal Democrats do you think Bush knows well enough to know that they'd make a good member of an election comission? The fact is, the 'other' party's representative, no matter which party they're from, will probably lean closer to the middle - that means conservative-ish Democrats and liberal-ish Republicans. And this is even presupposing that the President will try to make a good choice - they might pick someone with views so outlandish that they'll embarrass themselves, their party, and therefore make whatever the other people are saying look good.
Past that, both Democrats and Republicans are very well funded on pretty much every level - by personal donors, by corporations, by unions, etc. In fact, if you look at the funding form say 2000 or 2002, you'll notice that most 'big' organizations donate to both parties - they might spend 60% of their money on Republicans, but the other 40% goes to Democrats, or vice versa. What this means is that whatever replaces the FEC will still have one of it's larger problems - it's a 'rich boys club' with no incentive to be strict on laws regarding corporate donors, as both parties benefit immensely from them.
As to what I think we should do about it... that'll come in a later post (but soon!)
Only problem is, the FEC doesn't work - and they're trying to replace it. That, also, seems like a good idea, after all, the FEC has 6 members, 3 from each "big" party and they can just block each other's votes, and so there's obviously not much independence here. But, look at their replacement: a new comission of 3 members, all appointed by the President and approved by the Senate: 1 comissioner, and 1 each from the Democrats and Republicans. This is only a good thing in that it eliminates the potential for deadlocks, but it creates a lot more problems.
Having them selected by the President probably isn't a good idea - after all, he gets elected, too, and is likely to choose a chairman and member of his party which 'like' the way he fundraises - whether it's legal, ethical or not. And, well, how many liberal Democrats do you think Bush knows well enough to know that they'd make a good member of an election comission? The fact is, the 'other' party's representative, no matter which party they're from, will probably lean closer to the middle - that means conservative-ish Democrats and liberal-ish Republicans. And this is even presupposing that the President will try to make a good choice - they might pick someone with views so outlandish that they'll embarrass themselves, their party, and therefore make whatever the other people are saying look good.
Past that, both Democrats and Republicans are very well funded on pretty much every level - by personal donors, by corporations, by unions, etc. In fact, if you look at the funding form say 2000 or 2002, you'll notice that most 'big' organizations donate to both parties - they might spend 60% of their money on Republicans, but the other 40% goes to Democrats, or vice versa. What this means is that whatever replaces the FEC will still have one of it's larger problems - it's a 'rich boys club' with no incentive to be strict on laws regarding corporate donors, as both parties benefit immensely from them.
As to what I think we should do about it... that'll come in a later post (but soon!)
Now's as good of a time to make a blog as any, I guess... I realized that I haven't been thinking as much as I usually have about politics and world issues, which, really, is something that I enjoy thinking (and talking) about, and that I needed an 'outlet'.... well, this is going to be my outlet. How often will I actually use this? Hopefully frequently, but you know how life goes... I was going to summarize who I was and what I thought here, but I'm guessing that the best way to see what I think will be to read the posts after they're here. As a basic guide, I'm going to use this to talk about my views on world politics and problems relating to politics, economics and world issues. But I guess you'll figure that out by reading the posts.
